Pro-cycling thread

Nope. Nothing to do with me. Insider info is Argon 18 are just as shocked as everyone else. Corima have a few ex-Astana bikes, which it could be one of due to their involvement, but looks to be 2018 model.

He’s been riding that bike since last month, and that ‘Lookalike’ bike is apparently the reason Look have pulled their sponsorship. Riding re-branded shoes/wheels/saddles is one thing, but the team leader riding a blatantly re-branded frame from another manufacturer is a whole nother story. It’s not like the old days when all frames pretty much looked the same and a paintjob could easily hide the work of another builder.
(All just hearsay at the moment though)

The Gallium Pro is a shockingly nice bike to ride (coming from a man with a big distaste for carbon) so not a surprising choice. It’s also crazy light, so perfect for a climber.

What is there to not like about Look? The L96 is the reference track bike so they know what they're doing.

I read that Barguil owns several bike shops all selling Giant bikes, and that he has previous for publicly blaming equipment which is probably what precipitated Look slinging their hook more than the rebadged Argon. Totally understand pros wanting to ride equipment that suits them best but probably not a great idea to piss off sponsors two weeks before the tour...

A bad workman...

Yeah, let’s all hate on the Frenchman...

No hate, just that when you consider the uniformly high standard of kit available to pro riders (and that it's Look, it's not like it's some sub-prime brand) it's hard to see what the big issue is/hard to believe Look couldn't have sorted him out, no?

Conversely he’s had injury problems for most of the season and maybe, just maybe, the fit of the Look he had to ride was identified as a potential cause? These are elite athletes, who carry expectations that they’ll perform to the best of their ability, if the equipment doesn’t work for them then changing it is a logical next step.

I can fully relate to that

Could he really not find a Look bike that fits him? I do find it a bit weird that Look couldn't supply their flagship rider with something where the three contact points were in the right place.

the fit of the Look he had to ride was identified as a potential cause?

then they would make him a custom to whatever spec he wanted.

Not frame though? They'd have to make a new mold. I thought no probs rider got a fully custom monocoque frame. Might be wrong.

heehee. nice one

Yes, they would make him an entirely custom frame, by hand if required. Moulds are expensive to make, but not difficult when its part of your bread and butter. The silhouette would be similar to whatever model it's supposed to be, but the geo would be entirely custom.

Well that makes this whole situation even stranger.

It's probably the fault of his bad and evil French genes. I hate the French. They are morally inferior to me.

Dont mean to be blunt, but you obviously have no idea how much the tooling for something like that would cost.

The tooling required for a one off frame mould at this level of quality would probably be more than their entire anual sponsorship budget for the team. A lot more.

You would be suprised at how little money big companies like this are willing to throw at custom projects for anyone other than the likes of Sagan, and even he only gets the sort of level of custom shit he does, as Specialized make a crap load of money out of floggong Sagan replica bikes to the masses of his fans.

You would be suprised at how little money big companies like this

Look are not a big company either.

When Quick-Step moved to Specialized a few years back, they had Boonen on an aluminium frame for some time as it was much quicker to build him a custom frame that way than doing a new carbon mould.

The trend in mamil fit bikes doesn’t help either, most pros want a long, low frame, not a frame with a Scoblestack.

Trying to think through the Barguil Look saga rationally, in a cool headed retrospective way might miss how it may have gone down.

1. Barguil has bad start to season, unfairly blames bike
   
2. Changes bike without clearing it (with Look/with management/with somebody?)
   
3. Look finds out, trust lost
   
   

Occams’ razor and all that.

Dont mean to be blunt,

Yeah you do. Otherwise you would be less...blunt.

Obviously.

Although to be fair, the Sagan example is where I base my assumptions. Here's the weird unbuyable Synapse he rode.

Yeah, There is a huge difference in the demands Sagan can make, and someone like Barguil can make.

And also, I would wager that frame was not solely made for Sagan. I would imagine it would have been some kind of production prototype for a geometry that was decided against releasing to market, due to the fact that anybody who wants a Synapse, does not want that geometry.

I would wager that frame was not solely made for Sagan.

It was a prototype used to test the features of the bike. According the interview with Denke anyway. So part of the product development process, but built specifically with geo for Sagan.

I would imagine it would have been some kind of production prototype for a geometry that was decided against reading to market, due to the fact that anybody who wants a Synapse, does not want that geometry.

But that's even more aggressive than even CAAD10 geo

IF it can be associated with R&D costs then its another ball game altogether. R&D budgets are huge, especially with mammoth companies like Cannondale and Specialized etc.

Any one off custom projects for pro riders will come out of sponsorship/PR budgets, which are a drop in the ocean in comparison.

When they talk about riders like Cancellara giving their bike companies rider feedback and has a long standing relationship, it makes sense that they could get custom as part of the process.

Even if the feedback is just ‘lower and longer and stiffer’

IF it can be associated with R&D costs then its another ball game altogether

In the case of the Synapse above, they have to do it this way because it was a new frame design, and the only way to get them in the peloton is via pre-production prototypes. IIRC that's the UCI rules.