Greg LeMond's Team Z Merlin/Kellog

I attended the ’90 Tour de France and saw that at the end of the event the teams were selling off the race bikes in Paris. I had no money left after three weeks of following the Tour and could not get one, but thought that it would be a nice acquisition later. Greg LeMond retired some years later and I started searching for one of his bikes. His Dad and brother in law had some they were selling for what was very serious money to me and I passed on the notion…again. Then in ’93 I saw a small ad in Velo News for a bike parts import company called Renegade Sports Ltd. that had a sentence at the bottom saying that one of the Team Z bikes that LeMond rode was for sale. I called, finally pulled the trigger, and bought it.

The fellow who ran the company, Brian Searchinger, told me the story of how he came to acquire the bike. Bob LeMond first sold the bike to Werner Bautista in Florida as part of a deal for Bautista to became a distributor of Greg LeMond clothing. Searchinger had done some PR/advertising work for Bautista and took the bike as part payment for his services.

I later contacted Merlin to get the history of the bike, got some information, and was referred to Tom Kellog. Tom was most helpful and related that he designed the titanium frame in ’90 for Greg LeMond at his request. Merlin made it. The first bike was shipped to Greg that year for his own use. My bike may be that bike. In the early Spring of ’91 Kellog shipped more titanium bikes to France for Team Z to use. They were first raced in the Giro. A total of 16 bikes were made for the team (all by Merlin).

The plan was to then make a titanium production bike to be sold by the first LeMond Bicycle company. Bob LeMond decided, apparently for economic reasons, not to go with Merlin as the supplier of the production bikes and went with Sandvick instead. The first LeMond Bicycle company later went out of business and LeMond bike company #2 started up with Brian Searchinger as one of Greg LeMond's partners (that company went away when the Trek deal blossomed shortly thereafter).

I have a bill of sale and affidavit of authenticity from Searchinger and emails from Merlin and Tom Kellog on the history of the bike.