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Riding High: A bumpy ride early on for Taco Bell’s “Tacos to Go” campaign with cyclist Greg LeMond has apparently not hurt the company’s regard for its advertising agency. Foote, Cone & Belding of San Francisco, which won the $75-million to $80-million Taco Bell corporate account 16 months ago, has just completed a deal for the last of the Mexican fast-food chain’s franchisee business, said Elliot Bloom, a Taco Bell spokesman.

Taco Bell franchisees in the greater Los Angeles area, which pool their $10 million in advertising, have just followed franchisees in Northern California and three other states to the doorstep of Foote, Cone, Bloom said. Adweek magazine reported this week that the franchisees are bringing a total of $30 million in business to Foote, Cone, but Bloom would not confirm that number.

The franchisees have drifted away from the Los Angeles office of the Tracy-Locke ad agency, since May, 1989, when Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine pulled its business from Dallas-based Tracy-Locke, Bloom said.

The “Tacos to Go” campaign limped from the starting line in May, when the company recalled 300,000 LeMond-inscribed water bottles after receiving complaints that some children had pulled off the tiny plastic tops and could possibly choke on them. However, Minnesota-born LeMond obligingly boosted the campaign’s fortunes this summer by winning the Tour de France for the third time.