As longtime readers know, I’m partial to the 2003 year Look road racing bicycle. I actually fell in love with Looks around the World Ending Millennium, when I was riding my sweet, sweet Bianchi Veloce (Toro, now Lung’s) which was my favorite bike maker and the best product at my price-point as a poorly-paid young architect in the big city with happy hour martinis to pay for and monochrome Banana Republic outfits to acquire and what not. A prominent senior designer and former racer had just received his new Look frame, which was promptly stolen from his LBS, Bike Odyssey, in a foolish and short-sighted gambit by one of their regular customers. Anyway, when I saw the finished bike, i was floored. I hadn’t seen a modern road bike with so little team graphics. Just black, with white lettering. Look logos. Done.

Look 001: RIP

Some years later, I found a 2002(?) KG281 on craigslist, and jumped at it. Carbon black, with traditional lugs, a little big for me, and at a great price, since the buyer bought an Orbea. I got it, loved it, worshipped it, rode it, then got it stolen. That story can be found here elsewhere. But my love of Looks was not defeated, and further research confirmed that I loved this era bike more than those of earlier years, and certainly more than today’s zoomy 5 series frames.

Look 002: my sweet, sweet ride today, as it first appeared

I acquired this Look KG381 Team – Jalabert Edition on New Years Eve. I got a second frame, in team black, same year, and made it into the fixed-gear, Villain. But this one, which we tend to call the roadLook, is my long-distance staple. I love it. It’s light, it’s responsive, and it’s super comfortable. After initial acquisition, I made a number of changes. I swapped the Mavic Open pro wheels (Dura hubs) with the deeper Easton Vista SLs I had on my Cervelo Soloist, and swapped out the Sella seat for a honey Brooks Swallow, with a new Ergo carbon seatpost. The Open Pros are fine rims, and those wheels were probably lighter than the Eastons. I use them on wrongBike. But I was still missing the deep Scirocco Campy wheels that were on the Veloce, so I wanted the deeps to stay.

Later, I added a new stem, FSA carbon aero bars (wide and flat at the tops, not full tri bars, but SO comfortable) and some new tape here and there. Other than that and some monkey business with the Garmin Edge mounting and such, and it’s been pretty stable ever since.

The one thing that has been a recent annoyance has been the Continental Gatorskins I put on last year. Kevlar sidewalls to prevent the exact flats I was getting in SF the year prior, where a bent nail or metal brad is pushed out and upward and claws the sidewall to ribbons, usually on a descent between two MUNIs and a giant scorpion on my back and —- anyway, I’ve had nothing but problems with them since. Actually, I never did determine that the problems were with the Gators. They could have been a long string of unfortunate flats coincidentally occurring since the Gators went on. Some were pinch flats, two were direct punctures, and the rest, other than one valve failure, were all unexplained. But the rub was that those damn Gators are terrible to service in the field. I just don’t have enough skin on my fingers for those tight beads under deep rims. GUH. So recently, as part of my round of service work on the bikes after my move, I replaced a recent flat, and removed those damn Gators evermore*. I’m now running track tyres in Go Fasta Red. It looks pretty wild.

With all the attention focused on the fixed-gear bike projects, I sometimes take the roadLook for granted. But it remains my ‘best’ ride, from a performance, value and sheer mileage perspective.

Please note, for those not in on the reference: that seat position is deliberate, but only for the photo. Joblue knows what’s up. As does BSNYC…

*Not to disparage Continental. Those sidewalls never did get breached, and I used the more expensive Conti Attack series racing tyres, with asymmetrical tread, on this bike and my other road bikes, for years.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Bike Bio: RedBike / WobblyGoblin(tm)
2. Team Lope Bike Bio: Schwixie(tm)
3. Team Lope Bike Bio: Villain