Taste Test (in bikes)

mfin

I am about to post a photo of a De Rosa Superking, an Italian bike from a company with true heritage and that is adorned with high-end Italian componentry. Plenty of people will drool at the thought of it from reading this aspirational description. But, let's now see if when you scroll down to see the photo whether it lives up to the expectancies you are forming in your mind....







































There you go. It looks bloody sh1t.
Now, if you think that it looks good you have serious taste issues.



(right click and View Image if you want to see it in all its sh1tness but bigger)

rolf_f

mfin wrote:

(right click and View Image if you want to see it in all its sh1tness but bigger)

No, its sh1tness is perfectly easy to see in large thumbnail. Of course, it really needs the new 4 spoke Campag Record crankset to look optimally sh1t.

mfin

Rolf F wrote:

mfin wrote:

(right click and View Image if you want to see it in all its sh1tness but bigger)

No, its sh1tness is perfectly easy to see in large thumbnail. Of course, it really needs the new 4 spoke Campag Record crankset to look optimally sh1t.

Yes. That would be 'sh1t with a sh1t topping'.

Apologies to all those who have even the slightest bit of taste for making you all throw up in your mouths and have to cover your gob with your hand and run for the sink, but here is the offending item Rolf mentions:



Ugly little sh1t. I think Campagnolo have just enough time to do the right thing and not send this item out onto the shelves, it's taking advantage of people with sh1t taste, and it is wrong.

pblakeney

Taste clearly died once carbon took hold.

Wunnunda

Colour is a very personal thing, of course, so each to their own. BUT....WHY would you want wheels that look permanently mud-coloured? :roll:

secretsam

mfin wrote:

Apologies to all those who have even the slightest bit of taste for making you all throw up in your mouths and have to cover your gob with your hand and run for the sink, but here is the offending item Rolf mentions:



Ugly little sh1t. I think Campagnolo have just enough time to do the right thing and not send this item out onto the shelves, it's taking advantage of people with sh1t taste, and it is wrong.

Not attractive, but still better looking than the Shimano DA and Ultegra 4-arm chainsets <<Vomits copiously>>

capt_slog

I'm not keen on the matt 'bare carbon fibre' look. It looks much nicer for a coat of varnish/lacquer or whatever it is.

Son1 has a nice Ribble frame and although I know it's a nice Ribble frame, it certainly doesn't look like it. It just looks dull and boring.

Son2's Mekk(?) frame which is painted white and green really looks the business though, and I think that Son1 secretly thinks so too.

mfin

SecretSam wrote:

Not attractive, but still better looking than the Shimano DA and Ultegra 4-arm chainsets <<Vomits copiously>>

I just about agree with you there, but only just being able to look the best turd out of a line up of three sh1ts is not really an accolade to be proud of at all. I think we can reluctantly push the rosette with a gloved hand into this turd though. Each and every one of them is still like a mouthful of air gusting from a ripe sewage works on a hot summer's day.

secretsam

mfin wrote:

SecretSam wrote:

Not attractive, but still better looking than the Shimano DA and Ultegra 4-arm chainsets <<Vomits copiously>>

I just about agree with you there, but only just being able to look the best turd out of a line up of three sh1ts is not really an accolade to be proud of at all. I think we can reluctantly push the rosette with a gloved hand into this turd though. Each and every one of them is still like a mouthful of air gusting from a ripe sewage works on a hot summer's day.

Yeah, but Shimano win the maximum turdness prize for coming up with the road 4-arm design in the first place. Answer to a question no-one asked? Hmmmm. And I thought that 'standardisation' was one of the positives of modern cycling, compared to the 80s when it was a real mess of different types of chainset...

meagain

"Now, if you think that it looks good you have serious taste issues."

Oh dear, my taste (I think it looks excellent) a serious issue. I'm too old to be trammeled by nostalgia. Old de Rosa steels were very pretty, doesn't mean that new ones aren't.

Stevo_666

Nice enough shape, just a crap colour scheme. Presumably you can order it in different colours?

DeVlaeminck

Quite like the 4 arm crankset - more in keeping with modern bikes than a traditional spider and chainrings. Not that keen on the look of the DeRosa but it's a race bike and I've never slipped out the back of the bunch thinking but it's OK at least my bike looks good !

rolf_f

Stevo 666 wrote:

Nice enough shape, just a crap colour scheme. Presumably you can order it in different colours?

Are you sure? Check those clumsy crease lines in the chainstays, downtube and fork - it needs the crap colour scheme to attempt to hide them.

mfin

Funny a couple of people like it. Just goes to show taste can be overridden by the presence of a brand logo, and even when they've f****d up placing that on it properly too.

It. Is. Gopping.

Sh1t shapes. Sh1t lines. Sh1t paintjob. Sh1t all going for it aesthetically.

(By the way, this is not subjective, these are all hard facts).

mfin

meagain wrote:

Oh dear, my taste (I think it looks excellent) a serious issue. I'm too old to be trammeled by nostalgia. Old de Rosa steels were very pretty, doesn't mean that new ones aren't.

It's got NOTHING to do with nostalgia, or the brand, it simply looks completely and utterly crap.

Monkeypump

mfin wrote:

Funny a couple of people like it. Just goes to show taste can be overridden by the presence of a brand logo, and even when they've f****d up placing that on it properly too.

It. Is. Gopping.

Sh1t shapes. Sh1t lines. Sh1t paintjob. Sh1t all going for it aesthetically.

(By the way, this is not subjective, these are all hard facts).

Is this the sort of stuff you worry about all day? Some like it, other don't. Who cares?

meagain

Eye, beholder, beauty, spring to mind. There are many MANY things in this world that call for dismay and distress - taste
is bikes is not one of them.

Stevo_666

Rolf F wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Nice enough shape, just a crap colour scheme. Presumably you can order it in different colours?

Are you sure? Check those clumsy crease lines in the chainstays, downtube and fork - it needs the crap colour scheme to attempt to hide them.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder etc.

But show me one in a decent colour scheme and I'll give you a second opinion.

mfin

Monkeypump wrote:

mfin wrote:

Funny a couple of people like it. Just goes to show taste can be overridden by the presence of a brand logo, and even when they've f****d up placing that on it properly too.

It. Is. Gopping.

Sh1t shapes. Sh1t lines. Sh1t paintjob. Sh1t all going for it aesthetically.

(By the way, this is not subjective, these are all hard facts).

Is this the sort of stuff you worry about all day? Some like it, other don't. Who cares?

Yes, most of the day, well the working day in fact, say the hours between 9-5.30pm, I soIely worry about the look of this Superking.

mfin

Stevo 666 wrote:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder etc.

Agreed, and in this case that is only possible if the beholder has no taste.

ilm_zero7

SecretSam wrote:

mfin wrote:

Apologies to all those who have even the slightest bit of taste for making you all throw up in your mouths and have to cover your gob with your hand and run for the sink, but here is the offending item Rolf mentions:



.

Not attractive, but still better looking than the Shimano DA and Ultegra 4-arm chainsets <<Vomits copiously>>

which is exactly why I went ferretting around to track down one of the Old Ti Super Record RS groupsets for my new build

Stevo_666

Here's a couple of different colour schemes. Not beautiful but not butt ugly. If you don't like twisty downtubes then you're never going to be a fan.

GiantMike

I'd ride that. Anybody who says they wouldn't (on taste grounds) needs to have their head read. It's just a frickin' bike FFS.

This, on the other hand...

...I wouldn't ride. Cancel that, I'd ride that until the back doors fell off.

mfin

No, it looks like you guys have found some better photos of some sh1t that's all. You can't polish a turd but at least you can photograph it better.

What is additionally worrying is the posted picture of the post-op transsexual cited as desirable. However, objectifying her, sorry, him, in this way is lowering the tone of this otherwise quite mature discussion.

Stevo_666

mfin wrote:

No, it looks like you guys have found some better photos of some sh1t that's all. You can't polish a turd but at least you can photograph it better.

OK, show us a pic of what you think is a good looking bike.

metronome

mfin wrote:

lowering the tone of this otherwise quite mature discussion.

Yeah! That's exactly what denouncing others opinions based on your own subjectivities is.

nathancom

Granted it is not the best looking bike I have ever seen but there are much worse looking bikes out there. Not sure how this is worth a thread...

Pross

Jeez, some people get quite worked up over what I would guess is a not entirely serious post. I don't doubt the OP loathes the bike design but if you think he really does spend all day worrying about it and that his put downs of those who don't share his disgust are entirely serious then you need to step away until you chill out a bit.

I agree that it's ugly as sin. In fact, it looks even worse in the white scheme with the numbers painted on it. Just because carbon enable bikes to be made with all sorts of weird shapes doesn't men they should be.

As for the Campag groupsets, I remember a time when they really did look the part even if performance was compromised but they have really overdone the function over form thing in recent years.

mfin

metronome wrote:

mfin wrote:

lowering the tone of this otherwise quite mature discussion.

Yeah! That's exactly what denouncing others opinions based on your own subjectivities is.

Yeah but no. If you read what I've said I was dealing in stone cold hard facts, it's not a matter of opinion, the bike looks crap. Someone posting a photo of the girlman and saying what they'd like to do to her (sorry, him) IS however lowering the tone.

GiantMike

mfin wrote:

Yeah but no. If you read what I've said I was dealing in stone cold hard facts, it's not a matter of opinion, the bike looks crap.

I'm not sure that's how facts work. Opinions aren't facts and your opinions on how the bike looks are your opinions. The FACT that I disagree with you means your facts aren't facts.

mfin wrote:

Someone posting a photo of the girlman and saying what they'd like to do to her (sorry, him) IS however lowering the tone.

Where did I say I'd like to ride the girl? I said 'I'd ride that until the back doors fell off'. Maybe you need to think about your sexist assumptions and stop objectifying women as sex objects. Frankly, you're lowering the tone.

rolf_f

Pross wrote:

As for the Campag groupsets, I remember a time when they really did look the part even if performance was compromised but they have really overdone the function over form thing in recent years.

Not really IMO - they are copying Shimano who are doing form over function (and have been for years, albeit not very successfully!). Eg Campags simple 5 arm spiders, in carbon or alloy, are not so different in appearance to those that both Campag and Shimano where making 30 years ago and largely ignore form for function (inevitably looking all the better for it). Shimano on the other hand have been concentrating on making impractically bespoke rings of unneccessary bulk that are redesigned every season.