Look

Many of us take it for granted that we clip into a pedal and off we go. This wasn’t the case in 1984 when Look produced the first clipless pedal ever to be mounted to a crank. In 1985 Bernard Hinault rode that pedal onto the podium of the Tour de France and cycling was never the same. This same sprit of thinking out of the box lead Look to produce the first carbon fiber frame using TVT tubes which helped Greg LeMond win the 1986 Tour de France. Yes that’s right, Look has been building carbon fiber frames for the last 20 years and innovating every step of the way. Carbon fiber frames aren’t something new for Look, it has been a way of life. Along the way Look was the first company to product a monobloc carbon frame, the first to produce a 100% carbon fork, the first to produce a carbon frame with tubes of different structures and varying thickness and the first to produce a full carbon pedal. Look effectively laid the way for all the carbon fiber frames that are produced today.Look has always strived to deliver the world’s best products. You will see this quality in all their product lines. It is also important to note that there are relatively large gaps between new product offerings. This is because deep in their core values they do not want to introduce something just for the sake of having something new. They take the time to be 100% certain that what they bring to market will stand the test of time. It typically takes two to five years from conception of a product to its marketing. Look holds over 170 French and International patents in the cycling field. No other frame company even comes close.Today, Look has brought frame building to an entirely new level. With their history, experience and a team of over 300 workers, what you get is nothing short of perfection. When you want the best choose Look.

LOOK 596
"For the purpose of putting to rest misinformation and speculation about

the new 596 I feel the need to make a few clairifications. In the interest of transparency, I am a sales rep for LOOK USA. So please understand that this is my motivation for this post. Look's capacity as an actual carbon frame manufacturer allowed Look's Engineers to build many iterations of the new bike before they arrived on the final design. First off, in keeping with current fashions Look's engineers built the first version of the 596 with horizontal droupouts and a very tight gap between the rear wheel and the seat tube. When tested in the wind tunnel, they found a lot of turbulence around the area where the rear tire entered the seat stay area. This was found to be caused by the spinning of the wheel trying to push air into the tight space between the tire and the seat tube. In short this wasn't the fastest way. So to make a long story short they kept changing the design to get the best result possible. Look's HQ in Nevers is near the Magny-cours wind tunnel. The magny-cours wind tunnel does a lot of testing for F-1 and Lemans race cars. If you take a look at a lemans race car you will notice the fenders are louvered. this is to reduce the air pressure inside the wheel wells. This is the same principal overcome by leaving the gap between the rear tire and the seat tube on the 596. From a pure marketing standpoint it would have been much easier to build a frame that mimicked the look of other current designs, but simply put it wouldn't have been the best product we could have produced. That being said, there will be a "white paper" report released soon that explain what I am trying to say in a much more technical way. There are so many technical features of this frame that to get hung up on the wheel/ seat tube junction is really a shame. The new crank/bb system is really amazing and takes 1/2lb of the weight of the bike while increasing the stiffness over any other crankset available. The Monoblade fork reduces the frontal area of the frame. The E-post makes for a stiffer pedaling platform while reducing vibration and road shock. All of these benefits add up to what in my admittedley biased opinion will be the hottest TT/Tri bike on the market for 2009 and the immediate future."

(by MI_James, from Slowtwitch Triathlon Forum)