Most prestigious brands

ValeTudoGuy

Considering something as prestigious is generally a personal thing. Often linked to factors such as performance, price, Style and quality "However not always."

In car terms I would personally consider brands such a Ferrari, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Lambourghini as prestigious "For differing reasons." but for example would not consider the Volkswagen brand as prestigious even though they certainly make cars that tick all of the boxes "This is no slight on VW, I have owned a couple and the best car I ever had was a VW."

I am interested to hear your thoughts on brand prestige within the bike industry "I will be asking this question in the MTB, Road and Commuter forums as I suspect the replies will be vastly different in each."

So just out of interest, in no particular order what do you consider the top five prestigious bike brands

Agent57

DeRosa, Look, Bianchi, Colnago, Independent Fabrication.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Parlee.
The rest.

itboffin

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

Parlee.
The rest.

You must be due an upgrade fairly soon, bike1 & 2 are pretty old now

velohutts

Colnago Pinarello(pre halfords) Holdsworth

Rapha , assos.

Holdsworth from being my first 'proper' road bike in the 80's.

greg66_tri_v2.0

itboffin wrote:

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

Parlee.
The rest.

You must be due an upgrade fairly soon, bike1 & 2 are pretty old now

In my house, age is a relative concept...

(If my femur doesn't disintegrate soon-ish, then Bike 1 is going to get a full-on aero makeover).

domgears

Storck, nuff said

Kieran_Burns

Trek?

trolololol 8)

rolf_f

ValeTudoGuy wrote:

I am interested to hear your thoughts on brand prestige within the bike industry "I will be asking this question in the MTB, Road and Commuter forums as I suspect the replies will be vastly different in each."

How many forums must you post this same thread in? There should be a difference in MTB but commuters are going to be mostly the same as road but with a little bit of MTB thrown in.

meanredspider

I'm trying to think where Volagi fits - small but highly innovative and individual

rolf_f

meanredspider wrote:

I'm trying to think where Volagi fits - small but highly innovative and individual

Or, in other words, a product for the discerning eccentric

walkingbootweather

What could be more prestigious than sourcing your bike kit which is available at only limited times from exclusive stores?

That's why most of my kit proudly wears the Crivit or Crane Sports logo
This may not be true

daviesee

I would say that prestige needs some heritage.
There are some high quality brands listed here but IMHO don't have the heritage and therefore prestige.

Prestige does not mean best.

ValeTudoGuy

Rolf F wrote:

How many forums must you post this same thread in? There should be a difference in MTB but commuters are going to be mostly the same as road but with a little bit of MTB thrown in.

Three as stated in my post,.

I can't imagine many Road or MTB riders replying with a company like Brompton for example, however I would imagine it not beyond the realms of possibility for commuters to give a reply like that.

rubertoe

ValeTudoGuy wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

How many forums must you post this same thread in? There should be a difference in MTB but commuters are going to be mostly the same as road but with a little bit of MTB thrown in.

Three as stated in my post,.

I can't imagine many Road or MTB riders replying with a company like Brompton for example, however I would imagine it not beyond the realms of possibility for commuters to give a reply like that.

You dont spend much time with the commuters do you?

meanredspider

Rolf F wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

I'm trying to think where Volagi fits - small but highly innovative and individual

Or, in other words, a product for the discerning eccentric

LMAO - I was trying to think of a way of disagreeing but found that I can't....

vermin

Moulton
Brompton
Dahon
Tern
Birdy

There you go, all commuter bases covered.

ValeTudoGuy

rubertoe wrote:

You dont spend much time with the commuters do you?

Not specifically on this board, no.

However I know quite a few commuters and one bloke in particular loves his Brompton and say it has prestige, the same Guy is eyeing up a Pashley again I would say that he considers it a brand with prestige.

Agent57

velohutts wrote:

Holdsworth
Holdsworth from being my first 'proper' road bike in the 80's.

D'oh! I missed an opportunity there.

bigmat

vermin wrote:

Moulton
Brompton
Dahon
Tern
Birdy

There you go, all commuter bases covered.

Ridgeback.

My Ridgebacks are made with Tange Prestige steel tubes - how much more prestigious can you get?!

The Rookie

Carrera - as I ride 2 it makes them prestigious!

I'll get my flame proof coat and leave....

ValeTudoGuy

For a large swathe of society although perhaps not die hard cyclists, brands like Carrera, Claud Butler, Diamondback and Boardman are the bikes of prestige and they wouldn't be seen on anything else.

In my last job, my employer provided me with a half decent Specialized bike. I rode this bike almost every working day for five years, a big part of my job was interacting with kids/youth on under privileged estates.
Over the five years it became a running joke that I should go back to my boss and demand a Claud Butler as the kids wouldn't want to be seen riding a Specialized because Claud Butlers were so much more prestigious to them.

Now I'm not saying for one moment I agree, but for one reason or another the Claud Butler brand sparked something in them!

Prestige is a strange thing, possibly unquantifiable and almost certainly a product of our mind rather than something tangible.

veronese68

But Claud Butler was as prestige brand. Take a look at this. Although I'm certain the kids didn't know that.
Nowadays I think a lot of prestigious brands are cheapening their image by selling lower spec bikes. The truly prestigious are rare hand built machines that few people would recognise.

ValeTudoGuy

That Claud Butler is a beautiful old girl, just check out those lugs!

However Is it just me or perhaps the photo is slightly squashed but the chainstays appear to be very short and the seatstays appear very long but have a very steep angle, it looks slightly peculiar. Not in a bad way, just in a way that is a bit alien to me.

veronese68

It's a track bike so it has a very short rear triangle. They were indeed beautiful not a modern Claud Butler at all.

rubertoe

Veronese68 wrote:

But Claud Butler was as prestige brand. Take a look at this. Although I'm certain the kids didn't know that.
Nowadays I think a lot of prestigious brands are cheapening their image by selling lower spec bikes. The truly prestigious are rare hand built machines that few people would recognise.

So was Carrera ...

rolf_f

rubertoe wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

But Claud Butler was as prestige brand. Take a look at this. Although I'm certain the kids didn't know that.

So was Carrera ...

Are you referring to Halfords Carrera or the completely unrelated Italian Carrera?

rubertoe

Rolf F wrote:

rubertoe wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

But Claud Butler was as prestige brand. Take a look at this. Although I'm certain the kids didn't know that.

So was Carrera ...

Are you referring to Halfords Carrera or the completely unrelated Italian Carrera?

The completely unrelated Italian marque

ValeTudoGuy

I think it appears that he three posts have run the majority of their course, I would like to thank everyone who expressed an opinion.

It has been said a couple of times that perhaps I picked the wrong word by using Prestigious, on reflection this may or may not have been the case but I'm not totally decided.

I have found the replies interesting and although this has been far from scientific and has only accessed a very small amount of society, I will perhaps jump to a couple of conclusions

1. Branding appears to have much less of an affect on commuters. Well perhaps they are too busy thinking about out and out quality and out and out value and this is more conducive to utility and utility is not always that desirable..... Ce the well duh!

2. Branding is very effective within the world of road cycling, perhaps this is because of the age of the sport and the heritage this brings to some of its brands. some Italian manufacturers seem to have been able to have attained a quasi legendary status. I personally believe that this is perhaps driven by the popularity of the major sporting events "TDF" and the on avarage age ranges and therefore disposable cash of the people who take part.

3. Mountain bikers are certainly affected by brand but nowhere near the level of the Road cyclists, perhaps this is due in part to the relative young age of the sport and the fact that it may sill been seen as an alternative choice when "Alternative and or Niche" brands are king. While there is certainly a racing heritage in Mountain biking perhaps certain brands have not been as totally dominant for such long periods of time and with the vast parity between the many different forms of racing perhaps there is just not enou "Focus" it also may be that the USA and Far East have failed to market in a way that Italy has in past decades?

It is probably no surprise to many that the details of specific brands were not necisarily my interest when I started these threads, but I feel that I have personally confirmed a couple things that I thought and and perhaps learnt a couple things I hadn't considered.

So again, thanks for all the replies!

Marc

rolf_f

ValeTudoGuy wrote:

I have found the replies interesting and although this has been far from scientific and has only accessed a very small amount of society, I will perhaps jump to a couple of conclusions

1. Branding appears to have much less of an affect on commuters. Well perhaps they are too busy thinking about out and out quality and out and out value and this is more conducive to utility and utility is not always that desirable..... Ce the well duh!

A wrong conclusion. Commuters as a Bikeradar group (which is not representative of commuting cyclists as a whole) overlap heavily with road bikers. A large proportion of the commuters on here are enthusiastic weekend cyclists who are every bit as interested in kit as the road cyclists. If you posted this thread on Commuting General you might get less brand interest as you are more likely to find on there people who are interested in commuting only as a means to an end. Here the differences between those who post here and those who post in road have as much to do with commuting as a cliquiness in the forum whereby most commuters don't post in Road and most Road folk don't post in Commuting. The content of much of the posts in each forum is however pretty much the same except we talk about lights more here.

ValeTudoGuy wrote:

2. Branding is very effective within the world of road cycling, perhaps this is because of the age of the sport and the heritage this brings to some of its brands. some Italian manufacturers seem to have been able to have attained a quasi legendary status. I personally believe that this is perhaps driven by the popularity of the major sporting events "TDF" and the on avarage age ranges and therefore disposable cash of the people who take part.

You haven't actually got enough meaningful data to support these conclusions. Eg a lot of the bikes that people covet have no significant sporting heritage. Desirability can also be driven heavily by the technological prestige of the company. The TDF is a difficult one to draw conclusions on - here it's popularity has soared since the arrival of Mark Cavendish and BW but whilst that has no doubt lead to an increase in the percieved prestige of Specialised and Pinarello in the UK among the previously non cycling community, I would doubt that anyone who has been around for a few years will have changed their opinion of either company based on HTC and Team Sky success. Certainly, Specialized is never going to be a prestige company amongst the serious enthusiast cycling community no matter how many prestigious bikes it makes.

ValeTudoGuy wrote:

3. Mountain bikers are certainly affected by brand but nowhere near the level of the Road cyclists, perhaps this is due in part to the relative young age of the sport and the fact that it may sill been seen as an alternative choice when "Alternative and or Niche" brands are king. While there is certainly a racing heritage in Mountain biking perhaps certain brands have not been as totally dominant for such long periods of time and with the vast parity between the many different forms of racing perhaps there is just not enou "Focus" it also may be that the USA and Far East have failed to market in a way that Italy has in past decades?

Brands are probably less significant in the MTB community simply because people thrash the crap out of their bikes and the bling factor is likely to be lost after the first ride. I was chatting to a young chap at Dalby Forest last week. He was on a nice Orange 5. He'd bought it in July and already had it repainted in October! The principal bling hobby in the MTB world is people who build up fancy bikes with all sorts of anodised stuff on them, post some pictures and then break them and sell the components never actually having ridden the bikes. Needless to say, that whilst people enjoy the look of the bikes, the builders tend to get a fair bit of scorn for not actually riding them. If something is going to look crap after a couple of rides, it makes sense simply to buy what best does the job for the money you have. the likes of Colnago and Look do make mountain bikes but somehow they don't seem right. Brands like Giant will always be popular but, ultimately, the prestige of Italian manufacturers doesn't work in the MTB world because Italy isn't that significant historically - it really started in America so American brands are much more likely to be regarded as having an enduring coolness.

meanredspider

I actually thought the conclusions weren't too far off the mark.

For sure there are overlaps (I ride all three "disciplines") but I align myself with Commuting because
a. That's what I do most of
b. It's the forum I feel most at home in (not especially interested in FTP or bash-rings either)

I'd say that pure recreation roadies are more interested in brand & matching kit. I think what defines a commuter more is riding at fixed times in all weathers and so functionality is more important. Yup I ride in Assos but simply because it performs so well in all weathers. My choice of bike, albeit pricier than many weekend road warriers, is a practical choice too.