The Look family - Look KG196, KG381 & 695 Aerolight

These days it’s all about looking fast than actually going fast anymore.

More posing that purposeful...

You can very easily centre the brakes by turning that bolt left or right until the brakes are centred and hit the rim evenly.

Yep, this is awesome.

I’ll give them a proper ride when the weather is a little less windy. It’s so far stops nicely and I haven’t notice the difference with dual pivot to single pivot. Granted I sure if the braking is weak I can always change the pads to swissstop to something more stronger for both dry and wet moments on the bike.

Ta, definitely happy with the way it has all paned out. Initially I was tempted to swap the parts for 9000 series, but I the old 7400 series has definitely grown on me and the shifting for it’s age is still pretty sharpe. Reminds me of the old mechanical Sram red shifting.

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Lovely stuff. The 74** stuff for its age as you say shifts really nicely

Proper nice! I'm also a fan of the 74XX series, those things are pretty bombproof.

Nice, but 7700 looks nicer.

The components itself looks much nicer, but there is one online already and I somehow believe it doesn’t really suit the frame as well as 74xx

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Shifting worse...

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Ha! Did not noticed that at all! Yeah, definitely a dodgy set up there...

So finally took this bike out around the Kent lanes, was not the best weather but with the current global issue, it was the only matter of time before we can’t go outside for a ride anymore.

What I notice this bike is extremely fast, mainly due to the veloflex master and latex tube. In a straight line it’s so fast, but cornering as this was design mainly TT let’s say it’s comical and ‘oh shit moment’ at the same time.

The braking is a joke, more than anything I think it was the compound that really it’s not really biting the rim at all and I’m really pulling on the brakes hard to actually stop.

Changing gear is fine, granted climbing any long hills around Kent was a grind as 39x26 is really burning my thighs! But what I took for granted was being able to chasing from a small ring to a big rind mid climb, I totally forgot about old technology that struggle to do this 😅

But the worse thing that happened to me yesterday on the 80 mile loop was the rear wheel slipping and scuff my beautiful rear stay...MOTHER FUCKERS!!!

I thing it might be the original Mavic skewers that was not keeping the hub in place. The front was perfectly fine but the rear near the end of the ride was slipping and luckily I found it before it caused any major damage.

I keep recentering my rear wheel every time I change gear so basically it was a single speed to nurse the bike home. Once I was home I swap the mavic skewers out and put some DA 7400 skewers on. Will give it a gentle test ride next week and see if the wheel stays in place.

Always the case isn’t it? A romantic idea to ride an vintage bike, until you realise the limitations/drawbacks of old bikes #wouldagain

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DA 9000 gears and skewers + wide rims will fix all of your problems. Nice bike

Thinking this will do sooner than later.

Just give it some time. It's not like riding a modern bike but you'll get used to its quirks.

Start with some modern (7800 onwards) skewers and take it from there. If the pads on the brakes are as old as the groupset I guess the rubber is really hard by now, which would affect performance more that the brakes themselves.
Wider rims are nice though, plus a 23c tyre on a 24mm-wide Kinlin is actually quite aero.

There are some quirks i do like, but braking is not one of them. Will give it another shot next weekend or early morning laps to sort out the snags.

Would some modern pads and carriers improve things in the original calipers?

I think this will be the ticket.

Also thinking some hunt wheelsets to avoid damaging these lovely mavic wheelset further.

Regarding the bake pads that is probably the case, will upgrade to some newer shimano ones or even swissstop pads.

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Low compression brake housing as well, if you havent already. Makes a world of difference

Took the road bike out for another shakedown this morning, definitely can tell it’s a period piece but I am starting to get use to the ride and stability of the bike.

DA74xx series is fine suits the bike for the period it was once was but in the meantime I’ll definitely source of some NOS DA9000 parts before they vanish to being used and overpriced. (I do miss the noise and reliability of Di2)

The main issue from the last ride was the braking and the stupid rear wheel slipping out of its drop out. So I decided to give the DA7400 skewers a try in place of the Mavic ones that came with the wheelset, before sourcing more modern 7700/9000 series skewers and from today’s ride it stayed in place and for me that’s a win.

I did have a few sketchy moments with the braking or lack of. I’ve ordered some modern DA/Ultrgra shoes with pads to see if this improves it, if not it will have to be swissstop pads to save my beacon.

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Is braking really that bad or are you just trying to nail it into corners like you're in a crit?

People successfully rode Tour de France on that setup.

People successfully rode Tour de France on that setup.

Not on decades-old pads though.