Look at that top tube

A reader, David, sent me this link to a Roues Artisanales post about the 2009 Look bikes. Of particular interest is the 596 Triathlon, pictured here, with its bent top tube detail. If you scroll down a bit at the RA post, you can see that the hard edge styling also carries over to the 576 road bike, which appears to have an angled carbon fiber gusset shape that is complimented by the graphics scheme. I can’t read the post, which is in French, so I don’t know anything else about the new bikes. I did however think these frame designs were interesting so I wanted to pass them along.

Of course I can’t mention a tri/TT bike without acknowledging the fact that today’s Tour de France stage was an individual time trial. In a tech story yesterday, VeloNews pointed out that Gerolsteiner was testing out the electronic Dura Ace components in the time trial on the bike of Sebastian Lang (who it appears got 19th on the day). Read more and see the pictures at VeloNews

Speaking of bikes in the tour, Road Bike Action has a slide show article from yesterday titled Tour Tech: What are they running? Their website is all new and the Tech section looks promising, so I will add it to my list of sites to check often for new bike stuff. The RBA site also has a few blogs, so I will check those out as well when I get a chance. I just wish that the individual blogs allowed comments. To me that is one of the big factors that separates a blog post from an article. RBA appears to have a great new site, but it would be much better if they allowed readers to interact with the contributors via a comments section on each blog post. Just a suggestion. Oh yeah, thanks to Spare Cycles for pointing out the new RBA site.

Photo credit: Roues Artisanales

Posted

July 8, 2008

James

Tags:

Look, technology, time trial, Tour de France

Comments

11 responses to “Look at that top tube”

Will

July 8, 2008

I think of bigger note would be the fork. Instead of threaded through the head tube it looks like it gets past the constriction altogether by going in front of it.

Reply
James

July 8, 2008

Good point Will. That headtube/ fork junction reminds me of the original Cervelo Baracchi among other bikes.

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kwc

July 8, 2008

The 586 tri looks like the love child of the old 496 and 586. For comparison:

496:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwc/2507910332/in/set-72157605154138599/

586:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwc/2507084319/in/set-72157605154138599/

Reply
Frenchy aka Bike Boy

July 9, 2008

Did you notice that the Highroad kids are rolling on re-badged cervelo’s instead of giants?

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James

July 9, 2008

Frenchy, Are you referring to Kirchen’s Giant time trail bike with the P3 like seat tube detail? Unless I am mistaken, that is a Giant prototype, not a re-badged Cervelo. Let me know more specifics if I am missing something though.

Reply
kwc

July 9, 2008

RBA’s got an article about the Giant TT prototypes:

http://www.roadbikeaction.com/fly.aspx?layout=content&taxid=67&cid=351

Reply
Anonymous

July 9, 2008

When I review that Look frame.. pun avoided, I see homage to the Schwinn camel back frames… even the nod to the “fuel tank” styling bolt ons…My Raleigh Mountie had that too…

I do happen to like the fork/frame interface, good for a time trial machine to assist in keeping the width down.. like some old Gitane TT rigs and or the Olympic “Huffy’s”

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Will

July 10, 2008

It seems like you could bypass the ever-widening of head tube (and increased frontal area) by using a fork mount of this sort.

One of the reasons manufactures claim for going with the 1.5″ diameter head tube is it allows a straighter path for the carbon fibers to travel from the steerer tube to the fork legs. It would seem that you could get an even straighter fiber path using this Look 496-type setup.

It’s also a reason for the Cannondale Lefty front suspension strut design. When you don’t have any features in the structure that act as natural stress risers you can have a lighter and hopefully more elegant design.

I think Specialized and Maverick are really following engineering intuition instead of tradition with their in-house front suspension designs (DUC-32). Unfortunately, in the Specialized design one side of the fork is completely empty and does nothing more than stabilize the wheel. I’m not sure of the Maverick design.

Many people make fun of my Lefty-equipped bike, but they hardly ever realize their top-end fork is nearly as asymmetrical and much more structurally complicated.

I know the UCI requires road bikes to have a “fork” for their sanctioned races, but it is an area that still has much room for improvement.

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bikesgonewild

July 10, 2008

…non sequitur, sorta…if you go to the “road bike action” site, go to ‘blogs’ for bob roll’s daily tour report…take the time to explore & find his wonderful little ‘month of may’ treatise on sicily in particular & italia in general…great read…

…worthwhile quote “the giro d’italia is the most beautiful bicycle race on earth…the tour de france trumps all races in world wide popularity but it is a pale industrial behemoth compared to the natural splendor of the giro’s courses”…

…that sez it for me…

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Dubai Web Design, Development

July 15, 2008

I cons are great way to tell the user about the comments. Like what we say ” Picture speaks thousand words” so I con can do that same. Like some times when we use mobiles and visit other websites it display icons with there adress and that’s symbol of that website.

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Personalized Tour bikes | Bicycle Design

February 28, 2010

[…] they were not using when the race started. Sometimes, the new products are very obvious, like the electronic Dura-Ace components that were spotted on select bikes in last year’s Tour. Other times, the differences between bikes […]

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