How important are looks?

canada16

I probably love GT more than you SS,

I am 32 and my first bike was a zaskar back in the day.. when I was about 17.. so long ago
.
But the full suss frames are heavy, not a fan, Yes the i-drive are supposed to be sweet, but they should look towards the XC market as well.

But damn love the hardtail frames.

I wish I would have bought one of those carbon zaskars from wiggle and built it up.

Raymondavalon

Paul, this is a great Topic!

Looks? As humans we judge most things visually, sight is our primary sense. The other senses that we also judge by are smell (taste) and sound. Now smell is great when buying food, e.g. the smell of freshly baked bread, hearing comes in when choosing a sound system - or a loud clicky Hope hub :roll:

In essence when we assess an MTB we do it through sight, so it has to be visually appealing to some degree. Afterward our knowledge comes into play, hence the brand, frame geometry, Groupset, rims, suspension, brakes seatpost, saddle etc.. but again we judge these up by sight, so by looking at them we know they are good (or not so good) parts.
We sum up a decent bike by the general look of it, yes, we the "enthusiast" can spot a good bike a mile away, irrespective of its age.

In a scenario where there were two shiny new bikes alongside one another without price tags, Joe Public would see more appeal in an Apollo FS bike with a front mechanical disk than he would in an entry level Kona Caldera HT, so looks can be deceiving

A good frame can become a timeless classic. We can own the frame for years and upgrade almost every part that hangs off it. We can take a 5 year old GT hardtail and dress it up with the best components and it will just look better..

Being a little self focused here.. the Felt Compulsion I bought last year was purchased because I wanted an AM but also because that particular bike looked good to me. The frame looks the business in white. Felt's 2008 colour range was very drab but that Mint Sauce release in white made a massive visual difference to me. It appealed to me
Slowly but surely I have added upgrade parts to the bike, but fellow cyclists and Joe Public can see it's a serious bit of kit.

How often do we drive down the motorway with our bikes strapped to the back of, or atop of our cars and as you pass cars (or get passed) the occupants of the other vehicles have a darned good rubberneck at your bikes? It happens a lot.. Why? Because our bikes look Ace ladies and gents!

nicklouse

Raymondavalon
interesting i would say that touch has a lot to to with MTB parts.

the feel of the finish etc..

lm_trek

Its 50/50, i like my bikes to look good but they have to be functional as well, i can never afford a blinging carbon frame, so my new build is a nice steel frame, nice lines and looks great in matt black, as for the parts ive gone for a combination of black and red so will look great, but also functional.

The above Trek i also like, have done for a year since seeing it, other bikes which look great are Sonics GT, the newer speshi hardtails also have a great trail presence, need to see one out in the wild so to speak!

Sarnian

For me I think It's a bit of both, I like to build my bikes to look good but they also have to work well. I am not going to buy something that looks good but won't function well and put It on my bike

Anonymous

i think the way bikes and parts look is massively important. not the most important thing admitedly but if 2 identically specced, reviewed and performing bikes were available, 99% of normal, non hippy, non trend bucking, non weird, non wrong bike riding people would pick the better looking one.

the interesting thing is that there is every chance that both bikes would be just as popular. the whole beauty is in the eye thing being the reason why.

what i dont understand is that it tends to be the most expensive itms which are the best looking, i know there are plenty of exceptions but it cant be denied that the best looking stuff tends to be the most expensive.

now, is this because we as humans are pre disposed to find expensive kit desirable?

personally, looks draw me to a bike but not in the way you might think, im always looking at spec first, invariably, better spec looks better but either way, the kit on a bike is what gets my interest then its all about the frame shape and colours. in that order.

a gorgeous frame, nicely detailed and in a classy finish wont interest me in the slightest if it is fitted with rubbish components.

when im buying stuff my first consideration is suitability for purpose,:
-i wouldnt buy a race xc hardtail and then fit it with dh components, i would buy a dhframe.
-i wouldnt buy a 140mm fork for my enduro, it needs atleast 150mm and probably 160 as the a2c on the original fork was quite long for a 150mm fork.
etc etc etc. then i look at reviews, ask quesions on here, do a bit of research. then with a shortlist i pick the most suitable and best performing within my budget and somewhere in there, i consider what the kit looks like. fortunately though, the best performing and most suitable kit tends to be ace looking too.

nicklouse

sheepsteeth


again interesting as i never look at the spec as i would never buy a bike built. as I know there are bits i would change; the last of the shelf bike i bought was over ten years ago!

supersonic

I think it is fair to say that more expensive parts have some of that budget put towards graphics and detailing - spesh have a whole R+D deptartment for that as do many other guys! I sometimes think that they come up with the shapes first, then design around that.

I can definitely see why people expect expensive parts to looks good.

llamafarmer

sheepsteeth wrote:

what i dont understand is that it tends to be the most expensive itms which are the best looking, i know there are plenty of exceptions but it cant be denied that the best looking stuff tends to be the most expensive.

now, is this because we as humans are pre disposed to find expensive kit desirable

It's more down to the manufacturers wanting you to lust after their top end products. It's in their interest for you to be drawn towards the next model up and to aspire to XTR, X0 etc.... It's all about the X factor!

Anonymous

how expensive can it be to mke summat look good though, just design it and if it looks sh1t, draw a better looking one.

supersonic

Cost is everything on budget bikes. When Saracen are ordering in 100,000 stems for their oe stuff at 50p each, if they can get them for 40p each they most probably will, if the only differnce is a bit of extra post machining in the more expensive stem. That's 10k saved.

I think some expensive stuff can look pretty awful though!

llamafarmer

sheepsteeth wrote:

how expensive can it be to mke summat look good though, just design it and if it looks sh1t, draw a better looking one.

I reckon most of the cost is in the actual technology of the product to be honest, but the top of the line kit has to look the best too. Shimano want us to see XTR bits in the magazines and think "wow, look how good Shimano are!", it helps to build a brand image, just like they want us to see world champions using their kit. That brand image can be priceless too - Apple are a great example of that.

Anonymous

i think most cheap stuff looks pretty awful!

nicklouse

sheepsteeth wrote:

i think most cheap stuff looks pretty awful!

true.

but they have to make the expensive stuff look great to get people to spend the money.

supersonic

I got a nice ten quid stem in the post today!

Anonymous

nicklouse wrote:

sheepsteeth wrote:

i think most cheap stuff looks pretty awful!

true.

but they have to make the expensive stuff look great to get people to spend the money.

true,

it does beg the question, is cheaper stuff deliberately made less good looking to make the top end kit seem better than it is?

a big compny like shimano wouldnt have to spend alot when devloping a new season of kit to make it look top class but who would really buy xtr if it didnt look better than the lower spec kit? cause as we all know, its certainly not the best performing groupset out there.....................

Anonymous

supersonic wrote:

I got a nice ten quid stem in the post today!

lets have a look at it then

supersonic

I think once that a certain look is equated to expense and top of the range performance, then they trickle it down the range over the years. Seen it with Speshed downtube profiles.

Hard to say with Shimano, as SLX has stormed the scene really. Even the base Altus stuff is swoopy and 'fashinable'

Early XTR was plain as it gets. But it was functionally superb, and the mechs are still sort after.

supersonic

sheepsteeth wrote:

supersonic wrote:

I got a nice ten quid stem in the post today!

lets have a look at it then

http://info.carboncycles.cc/index.php?s ... =48&p=609&

Light, cheap, functional, looks like a stem, looks fine!

GHill

sheepsteeth wrote:

it does beg the question, is cheaper stuff deliberately made less good looking to make the top end kit seem better than it is?

I'd be shocked if that didn't happen. You do find the odd exception though, for instance I think the new Deore cranks look awesome - better than some of the more expensive Shimano stuff (again, could be eye of the beholder stuff (+20 geek points for anyone thinking forgotten realms at this point)).

supersonic

GHill wrote:

sheepsteeth wrote:

it does beg the question, is cheaper stuff deliberately made less good looking to make the top end kit seem better than it is?

I'd be shocked if that didn't happen. You do find the odd exception though, for instance I think the new Deore cranks look awesome - better than some of the more expensive Shimano stuff (again, could be eye of the beholder stuff (+20 geek points for anyone thinking forgotten realms at this point)).

EOB is a great game, I have actually just being playing it!

nfrang

Engineered beautifully or beautifully engineered then.

I like things to work well when i'm using them and if they can manage to look good too then all the better! imo

Anonymous

i agree, the new deore crank is ace looking and as it happens, perfectly respectable in the spec department too.

i think thelx crank looks awesome now too, according to the website its not designed for actual mtbs though is it?

supersonic

Supposed to be 'trekking' stuff. Seems to have got that roadie aero look to it.

Personally I think Shimano make far too much stuff, like Rockshox, which overlaps and confuses people.

Soggz

Lots of 'white' things, apparently...

nwmlarge

i buy loads of random bits in all odd colours then gradually replace them with similar looking parts. but thats more of a build it yourself bike. i would happily buy a colour co-ordinated bike outright

ashleymp777

You also have to take into account the millions of cyclists who use their bike as a means of transport and will therefore buy the cheapest parts possible (regardless of looks) if something breaks.

We're in the minority I guees, in so much that we use our bikes as a means of transport AND as a hobby. So looks (and reliability) will always be important to us as we use them so often.

papasmurf.

I'm sure plenty of those cyclist buy their bikes cos they like the look of it, in fact its probably the only thing that informs their purchase after price as opposed to groupsets or anything that might interest people that are into bikes like us.. its just they have limited taste and limited money....bit like people who have Jack Vettriano prints.

papasmurf.

thats not to say being into bikes and having money to spend on them bestows you with taste either..look at all the poeple that spend thousands on Marins

REMF

what makes a good bike?

matt black