Litespeeds
 

I am about to purchase a ~2001 era Litespeed Vortex. It's pre-funky shaped head tube yet still 1 1/8 steerer tube. This will make a great rain and trainer bike. Heck, it looks like it would make a great bike period.

I'm curious to know if any current/former owners have impressions to share?

There's not as much info out there as I thought there would be. In fact, just finding a geo chart for 1999-2001 era ones is tough.

I had a Litespeed from this era and it was a nice bike. I think the Vortex was toward the upper end of the line in price and had "racy" geometry.

don't some of these use internal headsets? i.e. a chamfer cut into the headtube is the bearing race?

I think the newer ones did, but this one has a standard external headset.

They were decent bikes just make sure and check the welds for cracks especially around the head-tube. I had couple of friends whose Vortexs developed cracks there.

Should be a great commuter bike

I had one. I loved it. The top tube and seat tube were destroyed when I got hit by a car. Litespeed repaired the bike and returned it to me in new condition for what amounted to the cost of materials. They also replaced the head tube to take a standard headset rather than the integrated one. I liked the bike so much my next bike was a custom Lynskey R420 made from the 6:4 that is very similar. The Lynskey is stiffer than the Vortex in the B.B. because if the biaxial downtube. It my main bike still after 10 years.

The Vortex is a great Ti bike.

Great!

Looking forward to getting it built up!

https://s1.postimg.org/6s304u2wdr/E8...E78_BF2443.png

I don't think I've ridden a Vortex, but I've ridden and raced several Litespeeds, mostly from that era. I'm kinda surprised your '01 has a 1.125" head tube - my oldest (yet most recent) Litespeed was a '01 Classic with 1", and the fork it came with had a completely incompatible rake for the frame geo. Bike was almost unridable, and finding a full carbon fork that had the correct offset for the frame was a small nitemare. Fortunately I'm so small, I didn't need to hold out for any kind of steerer length... found an Ouzo Pro in 1" with a hella short steerer for not a lot of money, but most you ogres won't be that lucky.

Anyway.... point for posting: I ****en love those old Litespeeds. No complaints, no cracks, no problems, and you can find them in great shape for cheap. Just my style.

2001 marked the switch to 1.125 head tubes for everything except the Classic which remained 1" (until the end of production IIRC.) . Still have my 2001 Tuscany / Campy 10 and it doesn't give up much to any contemporary metal bike.

Interesting on the 2001 switch to 1 1/8 steerer tubes. I'm pretty curious as to what year this one actually is now! Either way not a big deal since I can run a shim, but yeah, still curious.

Congrats, Vortex are a pinnacle of LS Ti frame sets, IMO. 6/4 Ti, light, super responsive.
I have the ‘01 6/4 LS mountain bike, the Tanasi and that’s a keeper.


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Just a remark about construction of the 6:4 bikes vs 3:2. The former is/was too hard to draw into tubes so they were rolled into tubes from flat sheets of titanium and welded, and so have a seam down their length. As I recall the Vortexes (Vortices?) were notably lighter and stiffer than other Litespeed models made with 3:2, but perhaps not as comfortable. Agree it would be a pretty stylin' rain/trainer.

That looks different than the 2003 Vortex I had. Mine had a downtube that was more shaped, like the one in the picture below.

Agree. Earl's is 2001 or 2002.

I had a polished Ultimate that served me well. I was always told to keep a close eye on the welds, especially the seat tube cluster, as they were notorious for failure. No such problem with mine. Sold it off years ago.