joejack951

I'm partial to white tape. It's my go-to choice unless there is no white anywhere else on the bike. And Fizik's perforated tapes are all I use any more.

Would you consider a white stem? Both Bontrager and Ritchey made (available on Ebay) white stems in a -17° configuration. The Cannondale below was a budget build so I opted for the cheaper Bontrager.

jyl

Never thought of a white stem but it looks nice. I can simply paint a stem and do a little baking in the oven....

jyl

Took some more parts over to my buddy. Chorus skeleton brakes, Record carbon seatpost (with the carbon clamps!), Fizik 2 mm white tape.

The last thing I'm working on is the wheels. Removing old glue and choosing new tubs.

jyl

Temporary wheels...

Here is a progress pic. Wheels are temporary stand-ins. Gotta get that stem cut. Will be white bar tape and white saddle.

ninjaman

Finally popping in to check on your build -- I can't wait to see my old Heds on this sweet build!

embankmentlb

The team issued frames for 86 were all the same detail wise and from the same builder or shop. The replica frames sold by Look came later and were quite different than the issued team frames. The public frames did not have the chrome stay, number hanger or Hinault on the stay cap.
There May be other differences.
The fast back stays were not a feature of the team frames or the 1986 styles replica frames.

jyl

Where were we?

Let’s see, it was Feb 1, shortly after my last post in this thread. I quit my job. Opened my own office. Started nervously watching my cashflow.

Oh, I also began picking up a few like things just in case - like, two gallons of hand sanitizer, a couple gallons of spray sanitizer concentrate, several respirators with filters, nitrile gloves, a UV-C light bulb - you know, just in case that little thing got here from Wuhan.

My wife, conscious that her husband had just sent the family income to zero, chastized me for spending money on paranoid fripperies. Later: yes, dear, you may apologize some more.

Anyway, there I was, furnishing my tiny office in an old building, thinking I probably had less square footage than Sam Spade and What Was His Name Marlow had for their low rent detective firm in The Maltese Falcon, buying used furniture, refinishing a conference table, setting up a computer, preparing to teach myself bookkeeping, waiting for the phone to ring, when

The

Bottom

Fell

Out

And all thoughts of finishing the Parallel Universe Look went to the end of the queue.

* * * Three Months Pass * * *

Here we are, having gaily skipped over three of the most interesting, stressful and exhilarating months I’ve experienced since 2008.

I’m still in business, above breakeven at a business level and about two months, based on reasonable projections, from being roughly even with my past income as a W2 employee. The little office has become a familiar place, and I’ve pretty much had the old building to myself for the past several weeks.
One kid is has taken over the house for his spring term studies, apparently his childhood bedroom and the attic aren’t enough, now he’s got his stuff all over the foyer too. The other kid got back to Oregon in time to rescue her supplies from the university art studios before they were locked up, and has converted their shared college apartment into her art studio. I’m not supposed to tell her brother that she’s using his bedroom for storage and he’ll have to sleep in the couch if he “visits”. My wife has mastered food delivery orders, quick masked runs through the foodservice store, and is now packing up the kitchen with the idea that I’ll start remodeling it, as if I suddenly have spare time to match her stir-craziness.

The Look is . . . done.

Not 100%, but 98%. The remaining work is to glue on the tubulars, take a test ride, and cut off the excess from the innicycle stem from @joejack951

I’ll post pictures on the first ride, but here is a tidbit of information: take a 753 frameset, build it up with a carbon Campagnolo group, HED carbon rims, tubulars, and you have a 18.24 lb bike.

A little underwhelming, but I think I can still shave off 0.241 lb.

I do have some time. I hear that in the Parallel Universe, as in ours, the Tour de France won’t be raced until the fall.

jyl

Here’s the bike after it’s maiden ride, an easy 1.5 cruise into work. As you can see from the blue tape, I’m adjusting the saddle - it went up another cm and got leveled after this picture.



Another side-on image.

Should I lose the rim decals? Doing so will hurt the resale value of the rims, but looks are everything...

The steerer will be cut, the ride confirmed that the bar height is okay and in fact I wish I could slam the stem some more.

This is a $30 just-to-try stem. It is functionally fine and reasonably light but rather meh in the looks department. There aren’t a lot of affordable choices for 140 mm -17 deg stems that look any different. I may paint it, as joejack951 suggested upthread.

The pedals are temporary. I like those old Ritchey road pedals, but have moved to pedals that clip more securely. For this bike, I am trawling eBay for an affordable set of powermeter pedals, because I really want to know how weak a rider I am.



My friend who built the bike said the Chinese carbon aero bars were a nightmare to route the cables through. And not easy to wrap either. He did a great job, though, with the Campagnolo cable set and Fizik tape.



These Chorus skeleton brakes may be replaced someday. The main reason is that I can drop about 100 g with a set of ee or Zero Gravity brakes, though at the cost of losing the “tout Campag” purity.

The rims are pretty, okay very, true. I didn’t true them even more because the brake adjuster only works in steps, so even if I got the rims truer it would not let me run the pads any closer to the rims. Another thing I don’t love about these brakes.

I haven’t glued tubulars for a year or more. This job was kind of q&d - quickly laid a thin layer of glue on the rims, another thin layer on the base tape, and mounted the tires, getting the rim sides all dirty with glue, that I mostly removed. The tires feel solidly glued on, though I did ride gingerly on the way in to work. I need to do a better job cleaning the rim sides, but am putting that off pending maybe stripping off the rim decals.



The chain, while a brand new Campagnolo chain, is not the lightest, so it may get replaced sooner than later. The group is a mix of Chorus and Record with this Centaur front derailleur.



I had a weird problem with the freehub. Tightening the lockring caused the freehub to be locked to the axle. I ended up taking it all apart and fixing it - I actually can’t recall what the issue was.

I bought some HED skewers to match the rims and save a little weight, but we’ll see if they work. I think modern skewers are meant for vertical dropouts, not horizontal dropouts that require a lot of clamping force.

I forget what the cassette is, but it is all steel cogs, so I’m thinking about a lighter cassette - maybe titanium. This bike won’t get many thousands of miles a year, so if a weight weenie cassette can last 5,000 miles, that’s fine.



This photo was supposed to be above, but oh well. The cockpit is comfortable and I think I can mount a bike computer on the little slivers of round bar section. I’ll probably do some colored tape accent.

nomadmax 

THAT ^ was/is an awesome project!

gaucho777 

First, congrats on a successful first few months opening your own office. It's such a perilous time right now, it's awesome that you are making it on your own.

Your LOOK is bad-ass. Totally different direction than mine, but it turned out great. The Mondrian-inspired design works well with a modern aesthetic and parts. I think the blue cage with yellow buttons is a nice touch. I'm glad I had a second set of water bottle cage mounts added to mine, but I do envy your beautifully preserved original paint. I hope you're as happy with the ride quality as I am with mine. It'll be interesting to hear your comparison between this LOOK and your 753 Raleigh.

Just a curiosity: I may have missed it earlier, but is there a reason that steerer is so tall? Do original steerers usually come with so much extra length prior to cutting?

Fwiw, I'm using 27mm Challenge tubulars on my LOOK. They are tight, but certainly not too tight. I'd think 28mm tubulars should fit as well.

jyl

gaucho777 that is an uncut innicycle headset that
allows a threadless stem to be used on a bike with a threaded steerer. joejack951 makes these, and there is a whole thread about them. I’m really impressed with this ingenious and quality component.

The clearance issue with larger tires would be the brake caliper and fork crown. Maybe 27 mm tubulars would work. However, aero comes into it. Supposedly, at least from what I’ve read, these HED rims work best if the tires are meaningfully narrower than the rim outside width.

Only one set of bottle bosses is a bummer. One bottle often isn’t enough. I guess the idea was you just grab a bottle from your domestique. Not having a domestique, I’m not sure what to do. Maybe resort to one of those silly looking tri bottle cages on the rear of the saddle?

gaucho777 

jyl thanks for the info about the innicycle headset.

I just noticed how tight the clearance is with your front brake caliper. That's not an issue with the original Chorus brakes. And at my average speeds, I'm not as concerned about the aero factor.

The La Vie Claire team bikes did have dual water bottle bosses. Only the frames sold to the public had one set. By '86, two water bottle sets was pretty much standard, so going with only one set was a poor decision imho. Another option might be to mount the second bottle with a seat tube bracket (something thin like these), place the lower bracket over the black band, and paint them to match the down tube? Not super elegant, I realize. The tri below-the-saddle option might work, but then would you mount the spare tubular?

Fwiw:

noglider 

@jyl, I'm glad to read about your bike and your story of work. Good going.

jyl

I just looked (online) at some triathlon behind saddle bottle cages. They can get pretty elaborate, holding dual bottles, tools, inflators, tubes, etc.

Naturally, they also look awful. At some point you go from an elegant road bike to something more like an Apache gunship. Modern tri bikes are already pretty ugly (my opinion) but the Look is supposed to be a looker.

Maybe I’ll just embrace my inner domestique and stuff my jersey with bottles.

merziac

jyl

What about 3t? only -6 degree but.....




And these, could be switched out when not needed.




I have used these for over five years and they are great.

Salamandrine 

That's looking good so far. Fun project. The HED stickers definitely should come off. I would not like to visit any parallel universe in which carbon bikes never happened, but billboard bikes did.

Sooooo, is the weight 17.xx pounds yet??

I agree '86 is a couple years late for a bike with only single water bottle braze ons. A few years before that, when one bottle was standard, I would sometimes add a second bottle cage during the hottest part of summer. This was pretty common practice. Everyone used the little aluminum clips that were sold for the purpose. These were widely available in 1986. No one worried about scratching the paint underneath either. The main hassle with this was moving the frame pump to the under top tube position. That required one of those zefal plastic pin thingies, and a velcro strap or something. I'm not sure if this parallel universe has ever developed the mini pump.

tricky 

If it's supposed to be a pro race bike, then you should keep the wheel decals. You wouldn't want to upset the sponsors! Alternative option: rebadge them with decals you like better. Seems to happen all the time, especially since they are often riding pro-only gear with one-off decals. It might even be re-decaled as a different brand if the rider likes one brand but a separate brand sponsors the team. Maybe Pacenti makes carbon deep dish rims in this alternative reality!

merziac

Smaller HED billboards?

jyl

HED sells a more subtle blacked-out decal. But $50...

I wonder what it would take to custom design a decal and have it made.

Or, just a thin pinstripe of retroreflective black - look good, save life.

jyl

After way too much searching:

My kingdom, my kingdom for a 140 mm -17 degree stem that costs less than $100!

The stem on there now is 130 mm and a little too short. The Raleigh Team Pro is 58 cm and has a 140 mm stem and fits me great. This bike is 2 cm smaller so I’d like to try a 140 mm or even a 150 mm. But it has to be a -17 degree! Flatness is paramount.

Seriously, if anyone knows of such a thing, I could use the tip.

merziac

gugie has an artist on his team that has done this very well with no problem.

jyl

Hmmm . . . I should get in touch

merziac

Yep

RiddleOfSteel

The white "HED" graphics on the wheels match the bold, block-type graphics of the frame. All black or gloss black on matte black could look cool (we see it all the time), but I don't think you're losing with them as they are. This isn't a shy bike.

jyl

It is interesting to get on a racy bike when you’re fat, unlimber, and unfit . . . my daily commute bike (1982 Peugeot) has the bars about level with the saddle, this Look has about a 4” drop.

That’s not the largest saddle to bar drop in my fleet, but when I get into the drops I’m reminded of the swelling “quaran-tummy” and my neck says “hey! ease into this!”. Meanwhile the legs are reporting “absent”. Sigh.

I raised the saddle a bit and removed the last spacer under the stem. A Chinese carbon stem (scary!) is coming that may let me drop the bar a bit more, if I want to try that.

I can’t decide if the saddle to bar reach is too short. The modern riding position way out on long hoods seems to mean that the position of the bar tops is less relevant than before. Still, I’m looking for a 140 mm stem.

Also, today a gust of crosswind reminded me that I have a lot more rim depth here than on any other bike in the fleet. I’ll get used to it, but it made me a little nervous.