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During the late 1930's there was considerable development in Ski bindings to try and stop the considerable injury toll with broken legs and tom ligaments. Most of this development was in America but after the 2nd WW. A Jean Beryl developed a ski binding system which he marketed under the name LOOK from Never, France where the current Look Cycles International is based. The original Look factory was established in 1951 where Jean Beryl worked until he left to start the Time Pedal Company. However, I am racing ahead. Besides all of the early designs from 1895 until 1971 were never a commercial or technological success Cinelli in 1970 produces the, first real clipless pedal in 1971 called the M7 1. The M71 did not have many advantages over the more popular toe clip and strap used by cyclist and because of a lever at the back of the pedal had to be activated to release the foot no serious advantage was gained. These pedals with their plastic cleat (cleat American word for special type of sport shoe with grip or studs) and pedals with lever release never ' seriously took off and became know as the "Death Cleats" since they were very little different than trying to undo quick release toe strap and many a rider failed to release in time a fell to the ground.
Jean Beyl continued to develop Ski binding at his Look factory and it was during the early 80's that Beyl turned his skilled to bike pedals. The similarity between ski and pedal injuries were similar not so much about broken legs but certainly with torn ligaments and damaged knees when the bike would bounce down the road with the rider still attached. By 1984 the first widely used clipless pedal was produced by Look. Although a vast improvement over the Cinelli M71 pedal of the 1970's it was not fully accepted until Bernard Hinault succeeded on winning the 1985 Tour De France on Model PP95 riding for La Vie Claire who's owner Bernard Tapie owned Look through his Tapie Group. It was at this time that Jean Beryl recognised some of the problems with the pedals and tried to redesign the clip less pedals but due to lack of funds within Look, La Vie Claire, Tapie group no allocation of development funds were made available and Jean Beryl left to start his own pedal company Time.
Look continued to produce ski binding for themselves and other leading brand as well as develop the the now very popular clipless pedal making numerous improvements through the years. In 1994 Look sold the bski binding division to Rossignol who they had been supplying and developing sji binding with from the beginning. This left Look to concentrate on pedals and develop carbon fibre frames where again they were pioneer and in fact both Bernard Hinault and Greg leMond were riding carbon frames on several of the Tour de France stages where they finished I't and 2" again this time with LeMond . It was in 2004 Look brought out the Keo pedal along similar lines to previous model but with several great exceptions they are Lighter, and a smaller platford with tension. |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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