Who makes the ugliest bikes?

Ash_

There's currently an interesting thread in the beginner's forum about which company makes the nicest looking bikes. But it's always the usual suspects coming up, so I thought I'd try and approach things from the other end of the spectrum...

I'm not after suggesions of specific bikes that are ugly, even the best bike builders are guilty of that (I mean, has anyone ever bought a Colnago C50 in the 'jet' colourscheme?).

What I'm after are suggestions of companies who never seem to quite get the style right, there's nothing wrong with the bikes (I believe all bikes are inherently good things - as I'm sure everyone on here does), but they never seem to have 'it', if you catch my drift.

There's no wrong or right here - ill thought out conjecture and prejudice are most welcome. As is any picture evidence if you're going to name and shame...

This is all meant to be light-hearted, that's why I posted it in here, so please don't take offence if your favourite bike / manufacturer is criticised. Add your own suggestions to counterbalance it.

I'll start the ball rolling with MBK - they make some decent bikes, a few years ago they were being ridden in the Tour, but I've never coveted one, and never met anyone who has. In the 90s their bikes wore hideous, garish, day-glo colour schemes way above and beyond the lack of taste displayed by any of the other manufacturers (even those who were also producing hideous day-glo colour schemes). In recent times they've gone completely the other way, as if to atone for their previous sins, and all their bikes are, well, drab. So I'd say MBK never get it right in the style department - ugly bikes.

Let's have some more suggestions...

Ash_

OK, lots of views, but as yet no opinions...

Fair enough, it's early in the morning - but people come on here because, in the main, they're passionate about bikes. That passion so often comes out in the many positive threads about which bikes to buy, what kit is best, etc. But now here's a chance to celebrate the mundane, overlooked, folorn, neglected and just plain ugly.

I'll come up with another one and then I promise I'll stop - if people really don't have opinions, I won't keep bumping this thread.

I give you the Fausto Coppi range. Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with these bikes. They're just short on style. Not a crime you say, but I disagree. Coppi was one of the most colourful, flambouyant, interesting characters the sport has ever produced. Arguably he made cycling modern and cool where it had previously been parochial, working class and 'honest' (Other riders wore goggles, he wore shades. He had a gangly style on the bike - but it sure was style. His life off the bike was a great story in it's own right...I could go on). Is this great character of the sport we love rightly celebrated in the range of Fausto Coppi bikes? No.

Fausto Coppi bikes - the Citroen Picasso of the cycling world.

shazzz

Alright, I'll bite!

I find a lot of the Italian 'bling' machines very ugly, incl a number of Colnago colour schemes (although Colnago gets it right sometimes), melty Pinarellos and Wilier. Even the name 'Wilier' looks wrong. To me they look like the kind of bike that 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg would ride if they got into cycling, esp when shod with red spoked wheels and various other 'exotica'.

I'm no retro grouch - I love modern bikes - but cannot understand why normally sane and stylish people suddenly feel the need to look like a two wheeled pimp when buying a bike.

DavidBelcher

Some of the mid-'90s Peugeot offerings in aluminium (the ones with the HUGE down tube that looked like a section of rainwater downpipe) were pretty grim.

David

redddraggon

Bianchi + Shimano components + Mavic wheels + a bit of red = a mess

Ash_

Great call on the Bianchi there Redddragon. I'd seen these in races this year, but fortunately the riders had covered up bits of the bike, coupled with Barloworld's lack of prominence so far this season, so I never saw the full 'effect'. Truly wrong. Great frame, great groupset, great wheels, bung it all together with a splash of red and it's foul.

I've got to agree with the Wilier call as well. I think their bikes are pretty, very pretty, but the name's all wrong. 'Wilier' it sounds like it should be a swiss bike company, it just doesn't seem Italian enough. Although, in fairness, the addition of 'Triestina' to the graphics of more recent bikes makes it more italianate.

Shazzz - "Two wheeled pimp". Brilliant!!!

Ash_

I can't stop myself now. Here's another:

The 'Ferrari' by Colnago range. Sort of the cycling equivalent of a jewel-encrusted mobile phone. Take two brands synonymous with style, flair and quality and combine them to make something entirely naff.

I mean, just look at the road bike. The cynic in me says that old Ernesto just had a load of C35s left lying around in the factory that nobody bought (and let's face it, nobody did). So he sprays 'em yellow, whacks a prancing horse on and hey presto! Exotica.

These are clearly bikes for people with no real interest in cycling but want to manifest their extravagent wealth. You can even get a mountain bike (hardly Colnago's speciality is it?) and there's a flat-barred hybrid effort for going down the shops on to buy the Sunday papers. Except that you could buy the entire newsagent's for about the same price.

Why not buy all three and then get a roof rack to put them on your F40?
Vulgar. Vulgar. Vulgar.
Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.

ChrisLS

...I think the Bianchi looks really good 8) ...the splash of red looks good 8) ...really ace looking bike in my eyes 8)

...surely the whole ugly thing is very subjective and down to personal taste...

Ash_

ChrisLS wrote:

...surely the whole ugly thing is very subjective and down to personal taste...

Entirely. But that doesn't mean you can't share your tastes. Or distastes for the purposes of this thread.

Come on ChrisLS let us know what you'd never want to ride...

DavidBelcher

ChrisLS wrote:

...I think the Bianchi looks really good 8) ...the splash of red looks good 8) ...really ace looking bike in my eyes 8)

...surely the whole ugly thing is very subjective and down to personal taste...

Almost anything [1] with an integrated headset, as it makes it look as though the head tube hasn't been finished off properly and/or designed as an afterthought. Separate cups for me every time!

David

[1] Except the original Vitus 992, where the designers had obviously been Thinking It Through re. the aesthetics.

Ash_

I'm with DavidBelcher, Ernesto Colnago and Chris King on the headset issue.

Integrated headsets make the fork / headtube combination look flabby. A definite deduction of style points.

ChrisLS

...I'll ride anything as long as it road worthy...it's the act of cycling that interests me more than the machine...I wouldn't ride anything too cheap and nasty, a heavy weight full sus for instance. I ride the best that I can afford and all three of my bikes are well maintained and looked after. I do look at the bling bikes at the bike show, but I could not justifiy the expense...unless I win some cash...

SteveR_100Milers

I reckon my Focus is the Mondeo of th bike world... ironically its German. Bikes (in Europe anyway) are in a parallel universe to most consumer goods

Italy = great
Germany = not great

Maybe its because there is so little real functional difference (unlike even a washing machine let alone a car) that style is the most important consideration.....

Ash_

SteveR_100Milers wrote:

Maybe its because there is so little real functional difference (unlike even a washing machine let alone a car) that style is the most important consideration.....

I think that's one of the things that makes liking bikes great. Whatever price point you buy your bikes at (or just idly covet) in pretty much all cases they'll do the job you want. So you can make your bike choice almost entirely on style.

It means threads like this, and more importantly the one about the nicest bikes, are wholly valid when it comes to our hobby. It's not about being a snob or whatever, it's about appreciating style - whatever you consider that to be. The 'form vs. function' argument goes out the window - knowing that function is sorted means you can put form first for once. Wonderful.

There are a hundred and one 'which bike should I buy?' threads on this forum - Don't get me wrong, they're normally valid questions, but I enjoy the fact that the answer could be 'the red one' (all other things being approximately equal), and you're not actually giving bad advice!

portuguese mike

Absolute bullseye Reddragon. that's exactly the kind of mess that looks horrible - it looks like a dogs been sick all over it. There are quite a few top end bike that look like that, far too busy. often the trick to good design is to keep things looking simple and effortless (even if it was anything but that to achieve). Clearly a lot of manufacturers are either trying too hard or their bikes are designed by the marketing men (or women) :evil:

stueyc

you at it again red?.......bianchi bashing all the way

you'd bend over and touch your toes!!!to get hold of that Bianchi

biondino

I know they're very popular on here, but I just can't appreciate the styling of any Giant bikes.

nasahapley

I'm often surprised at how continental exotica that gets lauded for being stylish and sophisticated just reminds me of a shell-suit, and Redddragon's come up with a prime example. Why have two colours when you can have five must have been the thinking. As long as its owner loves it, that's the main thing I suppose.

heavymental

biondino wrote:

I know they're very popular on here, but I just can't appreciate the styling of any Giant bikes.

Do they have any styling?

Clever Pun

ChrisLS wrote:

...I think the Bianchi looks really good 8) ...the splash of red looks good 8) ...really ace looking bike in my eyes 8)

...surely the whole ugly thing is very subjective and down to personal taste...

you're colourblind right?

redddraggon

stueyc wrote:

you at it again red?.......bianchi bashing all the way

you'd bend over and touch your toes!!!to get hold of that Bianchi

There's nothing wrong with top end Bianchis generally, but when you put Shimano components and Mavic wheels on it's just not right.

A 928 with Boras and Record with no Red, would be a far better looking bike than the Barloworld Bianchi.

While I like De Rosas and Wiliers on the whole these two bikes stand out as pretty ugly looking:

Clever Pun

at least the balck and yellow has a discernable theme to the bike the other is a mess

redddraggon

Clever Pun wrote:

at least the balck and yellow has a discernable theme to the bike the other is a mess

I was thinking of the tube shapes really rather the paintjob in these cases.

keef66

yup, psychoactive drugs in use by the frame designers there. Looks all the more bizarre cos they've bunged conventional looking forks on the things.

Still too many colours on the Wilier; looks like a box of Lego

il_principe

Well I love the look of my Pinarello, not a fan of Colnago's though, some of those paint jobs just don't do it for me at all.

keef66

Now that's what I call colour coordination; black / white / red from the tarmac upwards!

markos1963

Its funny how a few graphics can colour(sic) our opinion of a bike. If you painted black all the above bikes we would all find it difficult to identify the majority of them, or our opinion of them would change.

portuguese mike

Another direct hit from Red - what is it with these wavy tubes, it looks like some ones left them too close to the fire and they've melted.

Agrre on the Giants also, nothing wrong with them per se but they never get the graphics right IMO and they look so boring.

Depite what is said about melted bikes i'd put up the onda forks if i could have a prince they look very tasty in the flesh. Mind you if i had that sort of money right now i'd get a Parlee Z3 in white with black decals, full record and lightweight wheels. One day, one day

z000m

shreks are usually ugly but very popular, or they seem to be round here.

fluff.

I'm sure they're great bikes for the purpose, but some Thorn bikes don't half look agricultural.

Ash_

Eeeurgh.

That Wilier´s so ugly it put me off my dinner. I´ve looked at it, gone away, come back and looked at it again and it´s so bad my brain struggles to recognise it as a bike. I mean, my eye sees all the normal attributes of a cycle - wheels, groupset, saddle, forks, frame (of sorts) - but it takes a few seconds to sink in that it´s really a bike.

Rotten - if Quasimodo came down to your mid-week 'ten', he´d be riding one of these. The bike's even got a matching hump on its back.

Imagine 9 of them being ridden together in a team time trial. It´s the stuff of nightmares.

It even makes the Pinarello Swan look alright (remember that ugly duckling all of you sticking up for the Pinarellos).