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New aero bikes from 3T and Look and a bike-fitting tool with deep scientific background highlight our latest gallery from the bike industry's biggest show.
Eurobike is over for another year, and I have almost recovered from the 47,500 steps in 48 hours. The Frankfurt Messe is a big place! And Eurobike only uses a part of the available space. The halls are huge, countless booths are within each hall, and the layout is not exactly intuitive.
A map of my 47k+ steps would probably look something like a track of one of those robot vacuum cleaners, in, out, up, down, and around in circles as I darted about half lost, half bouncing off areas I’d already been to, all the while hoovering in the new tech goodness littered here, there, and everywhere. Our complete Eurobike coverage is here.
Here’s what the vacuum sucked up from my second day at Eurobike:
3T showed off its new full internally routed Exploro RaceMax Italia on its booth. To facilitate the internal routing, 3T developed a new stem, seen here in prototype form, in order to hide the cables without increasing head tube width. The internal routing means 3T can ditch the old top tube cable entry that has characterised every version of the Exploro to date. 3T has also managed to retain the narrow head tube, despite now running the brake hoses internally. Geraard Vroomen, co-owner of 3T, explained to Escape Collective that retaining the narrow head tube was essential to keeping its aero efficiency. “There is no point in moving the hoses inside if you then just make the head tube wider” Vroomen said.Externally routed internal routing – The new 3T stem hides the brake hoses inside but thanks to this design riders can swap stem lengths without having to break, route, or bleed anything. The Racemax Italia frames are made in Italy. 3T first moved production to Italy for its Torno crank, and then later with a limited run of 60, 60th anniversary frames, before finally making the decision to manufacturer the entire Explore RaceMax Italia run of frames in Italy. It was during the process of setting up manufacturing in Italy that 3T decided to adopt dry-fibre filament winding manufacturing with resin injection to replace the manual prepreg layup process to, as 3T claims, improve consistency and reduce labour. The raw finish started out as a sponsored rider-only offering for 3T showcase its frames’ intricate weave and unique finish thanks to the filament winding manufacturing technique 3T employs in producing these top-of -the-line frames made in Italy. The down tube is still as wide as ever. How wide, you ask? About iPhone 12 Pro wide.MorphoLogics is a French bike fitting specialist who has developed the MorphoLogics Postural System , a bike fitting system and dedicated tools for bike fitters. The tools and software are said to be the result of seven years’ worth of research and more than 3,500 bike fits at the Lyon sports medical centre and verified by tests at the Movement, Sport and Health Sciences” laboratories at ENS Rennes and the Performance, Health, Movement Society at the University of Reims. The end result is a system MorphoLogics claims optimises energy cost, “in order to guarantee the cyclist the best ratio between the consumption of oxygen, the power developed, and the heart rate.” Seen here is the ML Cleat Tool, designed to optimise cleat position and adjustment using a laser system. MorphoLogics believes superimposing “the axis of the support of the foot on that of the pedal,” ensures perfect alignment of the cleat resulting in enhanced energy transfer and comfort. The ML Size is an anthropometric measurement tool and central to the entire fit system. The tool measures the rider’s height, inseam, shoulder height and width, arm length, hip width, and left and right tibia and femur lengths in order to, according to MorphoLogics, determine the ideal position on the bike. The ML Size communicates with the MorphoLogics software using Bluetooth-connected sensors and incorporates measurements from the ML Cleat Tool to assess the “complete morphology of the cyclist.” Finally, the ML Right helps the fitter accurately replicate the position recommended by ML Postural System recommended on the rider’s bike. Factor was teasing the suspected new Factor O2 Vam we speculated on recently. Surprisingly, those wheel slots offered practically zero angles to shoot a photo of the new frame. Expect a part aero, part lightweight bike to appear at the Tour.Look also have a new aero/light “do-it-all” bike this year. We have seen the new 795 Blade RS under team Cofidis since the beginning of the season and the French brand took the opportunity of day one at Eurobike to officially unveil the new offering. Seen here in the iconic Mondrian colours, first impressions, without yet having had a chance to swing a leg over the new bike, are of a very sensible and well-designed bike. Look has developed a reputation of pushing the boundaries with design in recent years, but the new 795 has none of that. Yes there is internal cable routing, dropped stays, and aero profiles throughout, but there are no head-scratchers ala the old C-Stem, rectangular steerer tubes, dropped head tubes, or unique cranks. The new 795 might not push the boundaries like Looks of old, but it could be all the better for that.
The huge profiled tubing from the outgoing 795 has also gone as Look has focused on balancing weight and aero with the new 795. A Look representative on the stand told Escape Collective the new bike weighs 7 kg (size M) with Dura-Ace Di2, pedals, bottle cages and Corima MCC Evo 32 tubular wheels. Despite the relatively low weight and reduced tube profiles, Look claims the new 795 is 7% stiffer and 10% more aerodynamic than the previous model, thanks to the use of much more ultra-high modulus carbon fibre, 25% in the new frame versus 5% in the outgoing 795.The bike is available in four build options: a new Super Record wireless option, Shimano Dura-Ace and Ultegra Di2 builds, and a SRAM Red eTap AXS build, all equipped with new Corima wheels. The bikes start at US$9,000 / £8,490 / €8490 increasing to US$14,600 / £12,990 / €12,990 with the frame only coming in at US$5,900 / £5,390 / €5390.Look has carried over the same naming from outgoing bike to the new offering. While that may prove a little confusing right now, the goal is to reduce confusion longer term. Look representatives told us the 795 moniker will become more intuitive with time. The 7 refers to Look’s numerical classification for road bikes, the 9 denotes high-performance road, and the 5. Er, well it seems they lost me at 9 because I can’t remember the significance of all those numbers and letters, but rest assured 795 Blade RS means WorldTour road-racing bike. The new 795 balances aero and weight with looks to match. Look has eschewed the trend towards huge head tubes and bottom brackets, instead focusing on keeping the weight low while clawing back whatever aero gains it can from the truncated tubing and clutter-free front end. The bottom bracket area would have been considered huge just a handful of years ago, but is pretty small by today’s standards. Dropped seatstays, a de rigeur feature of modern aero bikes.The handlebar and stem have an integrated one-piece look to them, but are, in fact a two-piece setup.While the two-piece design is intended to give riders the option of changing stem length, it doesn’t exactly make that process much easier with the brake hoses still routed entirely internally through the bars and stem. Furthermore, the wedge-style clamp also features the same lack of adjustment of a one-piece design.Still, though. At least the Look ADS stem with the infuriating stem bolt covers and the rectangular-shaped steerer tube on the outgoing 795 have both gone. Look also has a new time-trial bike. The 796 Monoblade RS is based on the brand’s hugely successful track bike. Said to be “lighter and stiffer than the previous model”, the new 796 Monoblade RS is only available as a frameset and features improved aerodynamics, new aero bar setup, cable routing, and new Aeropost seat post with a reversible sliding head and integrated sliding seat post clamp. There’s a head tube that screams 2023.The seat tube and especially the area where it interfaces with the top tube bears a very striking resemblance to the new 795. While those seat stays also look familiar. In fact, much of the 796 TT bike gives very strong new 795 vibes and is kind of “the same but bigger”. The 796 is very clearly a Look frame and a relative of the new 795, but where that road-going bike has shrunk many tubes in balancing aero efficiency with weight and stiffness, the 796 supersizes everything in the pursuit of outright speed.The front end of a time trial bike is arguably as important, if not more important, than any other aspect of the bike. Look has opted for a single mono-riser style design with an extension base plate sitting atop the single riser. The extensions appear to have relatively easy adjustment built in to the new design, with 0-20° of extension angle adjustment built into the new riser. And adjustable reach and grip angle built into the extension itself.Vision unveiled a new, “more affordable” carbon wheel range largely based on the brand’s top of the line Metron wheelset. The new 45 and 60 SC wheelsets actually use a rim identical to that used in the Metron SL range. The 45 SC features, as the name suggests, a 45 mm-deep rim with 21 mm internals and 31.1 mm external rim width. The 60 grows to 60 mm deep with a 33 mm external width. In fact, the only difference on the new, more wallet-friendly wheels (pricing TBC) is in the hub and spokes, with the new wheels built with more durable but heavier spokes and Vision’s 6-pawl freehub assembly rather than the PRS ratchet design used in the new Metron hubs. The full carbon, hooked, tubeless rims will be available in both 45 and 60 mm depths. We had expected a press release on the new wheels by now, including pricing, but details are still TBC. Goodyear had its new Eagle F1 SuperSport R tyres on display. Released earlier this year, the new SuperSport R is Goodyear’s 150 TPI “ultra high performance” offering, sitting at the top of its range above the just “high performance” Eagle F1. The brand synonymous with motorsport but still relatively new to the cycling space is confident it has developed one of the best high-performance road tyres now available. Key to this belief is a claimed 35% reduction in rolling resistance (at optimal pressures), improved wet and dry grip, and an improved aero profile, all versus the previous Eagle F1. The new Supersport tyre is also pretty light, with a claimed weight of just 235 g for a 25 mm “tubeless complete” casing, while a 30 mm version I grabbed for some at-home testing weighs 275 g on my scales. Goodyear representatives were tight-lipped on what exactly makes the new SuperSports more aero, but the transition from tyre sidewall to this hookless Zipp 858 NSW rim is visibly smoother than most setups. I grabbed a pair of tyres for some at-home testing and hope to report back in the coming months. If Goodyear’s claims are accurate, the GP 5000 S TR could have some competition coming its way in the low CRR low drag world of time trialling.
