Look launches new superlight 785 Huez RS

Look has launched an all-new climbing bike that will be ridden in mountain stages in the upcoming Tour de France by the Fortuneo-Vital Concept team.

>>> A tour of Look’s retro bike collection

In its pro team build with SRAM Red eTap and Corima 32 MCC S+ wheels, to be priced at €9,999, the Look 785 Huez RS weighs 5.9kg in a size medium (it will be ballasted up to the UCI's 6.8kg minimum for the Tour).

The 785 Huez plugs the 'lightweight' gap in the French brand's range.

Up until now there was the 795, the aero bike, and the 765 as the endurance model.

Now the 785 Huez RS is the flagship bike in Look's new Altitude range with the 785 Huez, which is made from a slightly different combination of carbon-fibres, underneath it.

The top-spec 785 Huez (non-RS) is equipped with Ultegra Di2 and will cost €3,999 (UK prices TBA).

The 785 Huez frame weighs 990g and its fork 350g to the 785 Huez RS's 730g and 280g fork.

The Huez name commemorates Greg LeMond's 1986 Tour de France victory, which he wrapped up on Alpe d'Huez riding a Look – the first carbon bike to win the Tour.

Shaping up

For the design of the 785, Look developed what it calls optimised inertia section, whereby tube shape is carefully manipulated to allow a frame to be made light yet strong and stiff.

This involved a long study – including of Look's competitors' machines' tube profiles – and resulted in the construction of a mix of round and square tubes using nano layers – multiple layers a hundredth of a millimetre thick of different types of carbon including ultra-high modulus, with even some glass fibre added to the seatstays for comfort, with a minimum wall thickness of 0.6mm.

The frame looks clean and surprisingly traditional. Look product manager Fred Caron explained: "We looked at what is best – a small tube with thick walls or a very big one with thin walls? The answer is somewhere in between."

Caron continued: "This is the lightest we could do with today's technology. We conform to EU safety laws plus 60 per cent and there is no minimum rider weight limit – it is rated to 100kg like our other bikes and for the first time we are offering a lifetime warranty."

New ambition

Look was last year acquired by private equity firm Activa Capital and now has a new CEO, Federico Musi, one of whose first actions was to initiate the collaboration with German power meter maker SRM for the Origin crank.

Musi said at the launch of the new bikes in Alpe d'Huez: "Look is an iconic brand with a long list of innovations and is proud of being one of the only ones to make our own carbon frames."

Look has its own dedicated factory in Tunisia, which is where the 785 is to be produced.