Oddity in our bike shed at work....

[Kermit power]

Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me, but I would love to know more about the bike parked next to mine in the bike shed at work today.

It was a Look Team Replica KG 96 (at least, I think it was 96). It said Carbon & Kevlar on the frame, and certainly did look to be some form of carbon, although the whole bike had the look of a traditional steel frame.

The rear mech was an ancient-looking Dura Ace mech, and it looked to have been converted from having shifters on the down tube to indexed shifters on the brake levers, although again these looked pretty ancient.

All in all, something of an oddity, and I assume it probably cost a fortune new, even though it now has electrical tape as bar tape and a significantly less than pristine saddle. I'll try and get a photo if I see it again, but I'd be interested to know more about it in general. Seems far older than I would've expected consumer level carbon frames to be.

[Rouleur]

Carbon fibre frames have been around since the late 90s. Here's a pristine one with delicious Campag Record Delta groupset

http://www.classicbikeshop.eu/LOOK-details.html

[mat777]

Ah, the days when CF was treated as "black aluminium"

[Roman]

Carbon frames have been around since the mid '70s but it was Alan & Vitus/Peugeot who first made them successful (widely available with a decent lifespan) in the early/mid '80s
http://www.mountainbikes.net/carbon/CompositeBikeH...

Alan


Vitus

[Kermit power]

A bit more digging shows that Look made their first carbon frame in 1986, and fairly logically called it the KG86.

The KG96 like the one in our bike shed was their first all carbon frame, and was rather less logically released in 1988.