A LOOK BACK ON THE FRENCH BRAND’S WILDEST CREATIONS

The French manufacturer has brought a certain Gallic flair to its bikes over the years, as Cyclist discovers on a visit to Look HQ

If you don’t master manufacturing, you don’t grow. If you’re just a designer and sending some drawings to a company you’re hardly involved with, you lose your soul and lose the reason you are…’ So said Jean-claude Chrétien, general manager of French bicycle manufacturer Look and part-time philosopher, when Cyclist visited the company’s frame manufacturing plant in Tunisia back in 2015. It’s a sentiment that comes to mind on Cyclist ’s latest visit to Look, this time at its headquarters in Nevers, a commune in central France.

We’re here to discover the embodiment of that mastery of manufacturing – the historic bikes from Look’s collection that reveal the development of the brand and demonstrate its commitment to innovation. Many of the bikes are beautiful, some are baffling, but all of them are groundbreaking in their own way.

And it all started not with cycling, but with skiing. Look formed in 1951 as a ski-bindings manufacturer. ‘The founder of Look, Jean Beyl, got the idea from his hospital bed after breaking his fibula skiing for the second time,’ explains Audrey Sogny, head of communications.

Look would later sell its ski-bindings division to Skis Rossignol but, in 1984, it applied that spring-loaded binding technology to the world of two wheels, inventing the world’s first ‘automatic’ clipless pedals. In 1985 Bernard Hinault became the first cyclist to win the Tour de France using a pair of clipless pedals, and a year later the company entered the world of bicycle manufacturing, going on to make some of the most successful and eyecatching bikes in the history of the sport.

LOOK TRACK BIKE, 1994

‘This was a prototype, so wasn’t a commercial offering. That said, the French track team used it for a while, although it didn’t gain long-term traction because it lacked rigidity,’ says Gilles Moutarde, Look’s after-sales service manager who has been with the company for 30 years. ‘What inspired its development? Partly the summer of 1993 when world records were sent tumbling thanks to the efforts of Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman.

‘French track rider Philippe Ermenault [Pursuit World Champion in 1997 and 1998] and his team were convinced it was the design of the bike that was making the difference. So Ermenault explained what he expected from the bike in detail. Jacky Mourioux, the national coach, guided our work, and aerodynamicist Maurice Menard helped us realise an exceptional “coefficient of penetration” through the air. From the first tests the times were prodigious, and Ermenault went on to win a competition in Aquitaine.

‘As for its construction, it’s a carbon frame that lacks a traditional seat tube. But it’s the forks that really stand out. The designer had a background in the car industry and he felt this design would behave well at speed. It was also a test of what might work commercially and what wouldn’t.’

LOOK KG 196, 1990 ‘T he KG 196 was a frame of firsts – it was our first monocoque carbon frame, our first integrated fork and first adjustable stem,’ says Moutarde. ‘That monocoque frame was a true groundbreaker. By forging a manufacturing process where you could create a carbon frame in a single mould, we increased rigidity, comfort and, of course, could produce a variety of shapes, which was key to aerodynamic evolution.

‘That aerodynamic edge tipped over to the forks, too, which resulted in better handling characteristics while giving us the ability to narrow the frontal profile. You could also change the angle of the stem depending on your flexibility, and a final first for Look: internal routing throughout, rather than solely in the top tube as seen on previous models.

‘Also note the Mavic Zap electronic groupset – the forerunner of Shimano’s Di2 – which provided electric changing on the rear derailleur only and featured on models post-1992. The front remained mechanical using a cable. Sadly, this didn’t prove a success for Mavic, unlike the bike, which enjoyed great commercial success for us, so much so that we produced it from 1991 to 1998. Many professional teams used the KG 196 including Once, Charly Mottet’s Novemail team and Festina.’

LOOK KG 86, 1986

‘T his is Look’s first-ever carbon bike. In fact, it’s Look’s first ever bike, made here in this factory in Nevers. ‘In the early 1980s we produced steel frames using Reynolds tubing but not beneath the umbrella of the Look brand. Instead, they were branded for teams like La Vie Claire, who became synonymous with Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond. Both riders used this bike at the 1986 Tour de France, with Lemond riding it to victory, though not everyone on the team used it – maybe two or three others – because it was a minimal production run and some of the riders were also reluctant to switch from steel or aluminium. After its success, all the La Vie Claire riders were riding it the following year.

‘We used TVT carbon, creating the tubes by wrapping carbon sheets around a sort of balloon and applying high pressure. We then assembled the frame by hand, joining the triangles via aluminium lugs. Carbon was rarely used in any sector in the 1980s, and almost never in France, so we worked with a Belgian engineer who specialised in carbon. He worked on this project for two years. We also used Kevlar to increase comfort.’

LOOK KG 296, 1996

‘B efore the UCI brought in its 3:1 tube profiling and “nonstructural components” rules, there were some radical machines being built. The KG 296 CLM was one of them. It was especially for the time-triallist Alex Zulle through our sponsorship of the Once team, and he won the 1996 World Time-trial Championships on it.

‘The frame was actually made of round tubes but with added titanium fairings to improve aerodynamics, further heightened by a frontal cross-section that came in at 28mm and a frame thickness of just 19mm. You could also choose from several wheel options including 650c.

‘Today we have wind-tunnels and CFD software but back then we didn’t really use any of that. OK, there was the odd wind-tunnel session but it was very expensive. Now we use the wind-tunnel at Magny-cours on a much more regular basis. Today’s bikes are also the result of a much more collaborative process than the 1990s, with riders more involved. These were the early days of aerodynamics.

‘One final point about the bike is the logo on the inflated seat tube. It’s of a blind person walking because the sponsor Once is the Spanish foundation Organizacion Nacional de Ciegos Espanoles, which provides services for the blind and people with visual impairment.’

LOOK KG 171, 1994

‘T he KG 171 proved incredibly popular with professional and recreational riders alike, and was the bike that Laurent Jalabert recorded his 100th professional victory on. Luc Leblanc also won the 1994 World Road Race Championships aboard this bike in Agrigento, Italy.

‘Like all bike brands, we always see a spike in sales if a professional wins a high-profile race, and the KG 171 was no exception. It was the successor to the KG 96 and weighed around 1kg, the aluminium forks and lugs adding a little weight to the carbon frame. A plastic pipe in the top tube added a few grams, too, though was a cute innovation as it prevented the cable within rattling and making an irritating sound.

‘The multi-directional carbon tubes were joined to the aluminium lugs via thermal bonding. It might not have been a monocoque design but it still produced a lively, comfortable and reactive ride, and it was part of a new faction of the company called Look Design System, which was essentially a forum for innovation. Look Design System is now the name of the factory in Tunisia where we manufacture carbon bikes.’

LOOK KG 381i, 2002

‘L ook’s KG 381i was the bike Laurent Jalabert finished his career on in 2002 when racing for Csc-tiscali, although Laurent didn’t use this specific bike as he preferred matt black over the streaks of red.

‘Jalabert enjoyed great success in his final season riding the KG 381i, winning the mountains classification at the Tour de France for the second year in a row as well as winning a stage of Paris-nice en route to finishing third overall.

‘The frame is virtually all high-modulus carbon. We manipulated the fibre orientation and shape of every part to favour either comfort or power transfer, with the carbon tubeset mated to alloy lugs. Once again, it won a bike of the year award in France.

‘Its components are primarily Look, including the seatpost which featured a healthy amount of setback to soak up more road buzz. The crankset, the stem and, needless to say, the pedals are also Look.

‘Corima supplied the wheels. We were in partnership with Corima at the time and now it’s part of Look Cycle International – our official company name – after we bought it in 2016.’

LOOK KG 396, 2000

‘W e developed this carbon time-trial bike solely for the French pro team Crédit Agricole, and it was used by the likes of Bobby Julich and Stuart O’grady. The team wanted a bike fitted with all-in-one triathlon handlebars so we adapted the steering fork and worked with a set of bars from Vision.

‘It featured internal cable routing, a fully adjustable integrated stem that gave a crazy amount of position options, and it had rearfacing track-style dropouts. These meant that not only could the rear wheel could be positioned as closely – and safely – as possible to the contoured frame for maximum aerodynamics, but also that it could be converted to a fixed-gear bike, which is how I hear Julich used it in training.

‘Chris Boardman used a bespoke aluminium version of this bike when racing for Crédit Agricole. The customised geometry he wanted simply wasn’t possible in carbon because of its prohibitive cost. His bars were positioned beneath the headset and on the end of the forks because Chris wanted an extreme aerodynamic position to help him cut through the wind. Incredibly, he was able to sustain power output in that position, but you had to be incredibly flexible to ride Chris’s version.’

LOOK KG PKV ATLANTA, 1996

‘This bike proved to be a star of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where it picked up six medals: four gold and two silver. It was all about rigidity and aerodynamics – in my opinion no other bike had these characteristics at the time – but this came at the cost of weight, with the frame more than 3kg even though it was carbon. But it had to be strong, especially around the bottom bracket, which experiences significant forces – notably from a standing start.

‘Also, beyond performance, it needed to be safe. We didn’t have the multitude of torque measurements and tests we have today so we erred on the side of caution. Nowadays we can test here in Nevers at what pressure a frame might break. This bike did undergo velodrome testing, partly, of course, because that’s where it was designed to be raced. Bourg’s the closest one to us now but hadn’t been built back then, so we had to use the one near Toulon, about an hour east of Marseille. We also tested this bike in the Roubaix velodrome.

‘Track bikes were always important to Look and still are. Grégory Baugé won two silver medals at London 2012 aboard the Look L96, and we’re developing a bike for the 2020 Olympics that will be used by France and other nations including China, Russia and Japan.’