ShannonM

Mustache bars. Hands hurt before the first stop sign, no matter where I put 'em. Look way too good to suck as much as they do.

Campy NR / SR rear derailleurs. They shift like a three-on-the-tree with bad synchros. Especially when paired with:

Campy friction shift levers. You might as well use a popsicle stick. How did they manage to make such a simple part look so good and work so poorly? It's like they had long, wine-fueled meetings where the only item on the agenda was "How can make our shifting suck more?"

Campy (and only Campy) 2-bolt seatposts. 2-bolt seatposts are rad. Campy ones are not rad. Were probably designed at the same meetings as the shift levers.

Unicanitor saddles. The thing for which the phrase "ass hatchet" was invented. I had a Flite Carbonio that was a hammock by comparison. I've seen OG ones sell for more than I've paid for a car, so somebody must love them. Maybe it's the urban-fixie / BDSM subcultural overlap... nothing else makes sense.

Benotto bar tape. You might as well be riding bare aluminum, except when wet. Then the Benotto is slicker.

Quill pedals. Yes, Tullio, I'd really like my pedals to have an upward-pointing nail built in, so I can get deep-tissue bruises on the bottoms of my feet from riding down to the bar and back. Who needs to be able to walk when you've got a bike? If there's prize for the single worst feature that has ever been added to a bicycle part, the outside pedal quill wins it like Marco Pantani climbing a hill with an 8-ball of blow in his jersey pocket and a hematocrit of 73. Dark Mother of the Cthonic Gods do I hate them.

Suntour Command Shifters. "You know what would be rad? If I could shift my bike with a giant plastic wingnut. That would rule."

53 / 39 Chainrings. Because who doesn't want 10 different gears on an 18-speed drivetrain. If you do a double rear shift when you shift the front. Otherwise you get 8. Hey, wait, I've got an idea! Let's add a 30 tooth granny ring, so you get another two gears! If 10 / 18 was awesome, 12 / 27 will be even awesomer!

Fixies. 'nuff said.

--Shannon

sheddle

Given that I love the Concor, also a notorious Ass Hatchet, I really need to try a Unicantor at some point.


My Univega with Concor and Benotto tape is a theft deterrent as it's unridable without shorts and padded gloves. Probably.

natterberry 

Italian bikes don’t do a whole lot for me.

icemilkcoffee 

Has anyone ever said anything nice about these tires though? The only good thing about them is they exist! Want a 650x25c clincher tire? Your only choice is the Pasela. A road tire for a 24” 520 rim? the Pasela is the only game in town.

Anyways for me the most overrated thing is Nitto. How the heck do you spend an eternity making handlebars and quill stems and still make them so heavy? Everyone else came along and made handlebars out of 7075 aluminum and saved 50-100g. And thin walled crmo quill stems save another 50-100g over ‘drop forged’ alloy stems.

Biketiger

I second your vote for the "horrid horrid" Campy two-bolt seat post. The last time I installed one, I said never, ever again. I was surprised at how much it sold for.

sheddle

I don't know what people are expecting from the Pasela. It's a good "default" tire that isn't particularly amazing at anything but works on a wide variety of terrain, has puncture resistance and still goes well enough as a training tire, making it a reasonable default choice for a nicer beater/commuter bike.


I have heard that the puncture belt versions of Panaracer tires (the "Pro-tite belt") feel particularly slow.

79pmooney

+1 Those tires are consistently reliable, wear well, pick up little glass and debris, have decent traction, are OK in the wet, roll OK. In other words, very good tires for good bikes that see real city streets.

I look at tire qualities as being something you could assign a number to. The sum of the numbers of the tires qualities (rolling resistance, traction, impact resistance, resistance to sharp objects, ride feel, cost and weight) can only add up to a certain maximum. In other words, a high quality tires can have great ride feel and traction but will suffer in rolling resistance and glass resistance (Vittoria's Open Paves were a great example) or great rolling resistance, good flat rate but so-so on impact and wet weather traction (what I hear of some Continentals). or a very even spread of all the good characteristics without being great at any (The Paselas).

Now recently Graphene has raised the sum total. A game changer. Still the old balancing act, but the totals can come out to higher. Vittoria's G+ are a real step up. Yes, the older Corsas were a little better on roalling resistance and the Open Paves better on in the wet, but neither by very much and the G+ is radically better than the Open Pave for tread life and sharp object cuts and has much better traction than the old Corsas. Never scary. (Maybe Panaracer will come out with a graphene Pasela. Faster rolling, better traction and same wear and glass pickup. Now that would be fun!)

Ben

furthernorth

Brooks saddles and Dura-Ace AX Groupesets.

cudak888 

Contrarian position: While I really like the Record 2-bolt post in use - and I won't deny that they're a pain to set up (it helps if you can dial in the front bolt fairly close to where it needs to be and make 80% of the final adjustments with the rear bolt) - I despise the inverted variation on this design (e.g., Thomson Elite), which prevents an Allen key from making a complete 360 on the bolt when adjusting them.

Not to mention that the Thompson bolts are a lot smaller than those used on Campagnolo posts - they look like they can't hold torque and could snap at any time (even though this doesn't seem to be the case).

-Kurt

TenGrainBread 

Nitto makes heat-treated thin wall handlebars. And they also make cromo quill stems. Where are you getting your info?

tkamd73 

The special Campy 2 bolt seat post tool, offset SK wrench way better. The 2 bolt Campy seat post is kind of a pain, but works well, and just looks right on the bike.
Tim

SurferRosa

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dddd

You just had to post a picture of the Fonz wearing trademark leather jacket and ...short shorts.

No doubt getting ready to, wait for it ...jump the shark.

HTupolev

The Campy-style 2-bolt seatpost clamp design is far and away better than a notched single-bolt clamp. If those are the only two choices, the Campy 2-bolt wins every time. But it's needlessly annoying compared with the now-typical design where the bolt pivots are on the upper part of the clamp and the bolt heads accessible from below.

Salamandrine 

Paselas are pretty great tires if you compare them to the clinchers of the 70s and 80s. They feel positively rocket powered compared to say a Specialized Touring II 700x32, and those were the good tires.

Steel Charlie

I don't have the energy for the hate list past barcons - anybody's.

OTOH I've never had a problem of any kind with Campy NR/SR - and I mean any kind. The only bike I have at the moment that is all early 80's SR is a Colnago and shifts a std 6-gear as easy as can be, never loses adjustment, and for me just looks totally cool. But then I grew up with that sorta thing, so ............

Salamandrine 

My first impression was "What were they thinking?" It seemed like they tried to do something kinda sorta like Campagnolo, without really thinking it through. I remember the brakes being flexy and a little weak. Pad upgrade would fix most of that yeah. It's not like I ever owned any arabesque myself, but I assembled and test rode quite a lot. I do remember the OEM swaged version of the cranks.

Now I kinda like it too. It's just amusing that they made anything that wacky, and like I said before, it's a bit nostalgic.

Wileyone 

Paselas are the clinchers of the 70s and 80s.

Salamandrine 

Not hardly. The closest thing would have been the Touring Turbo. Those were somewhat comparable and had a folding bead. They wore through really quickly because there wasn't much tread. Like in a month or two if you were a regular rider.

National tires were the favorite clincher of many BITD. Usually you had to buy them in Schwinn shops.

By 85 or so and later some better clinchers were starting to come onto the market. Some of these would have been comparable to Paselas.

seedsbelize 

There is no thread. It just wasn't the be all end all. It was a nice ride, but I like my Treks and Paramount way better. Perhaps I never had it set up just right. But the hype going in made it a disappointment. And with that as a starting point, it presents a hump to get it over just to begin anew. The frameset is still hanging here. Who knows what the future brings.
Now the 79 Trek 930? That bike is the be all end all. From the first time I rode it.

seedsbelize 

A Unicinator came with my most recent purchase, a Terk 414. It takes some getting used to, but is not as uncomfortable as my Brooks Team Pro

seedsbelize 

Fun thread
And, for what it's worth, I never found anything to like in Pasela tires and I have two pair of Open Pavè

Wileyone 

What I was referring to was that their time has come and gone. Their are much better options out there.

sjanzeir

Drop bars.
Brifters.

79pmooney

I've never had a Thompson post. But Thompson sells the clamp hardware to framebuilders. I have two custom TiCycle seatposts (60 mm setback) with the Thompson hardware. Excellent posts, excellent clamps. Easy to adjust and zero issues. Simply a joy to own. (I had them made 9 years ago. 7,000 miles on one, 20,000 on the other.)

I think we need a new tool - the ratcheting Allen wrench. With torque would be even better, Keep it down to 56 grams and 5" so it fits (along with the other three) in the seatbag. Being simply a singe function Allen wrench, it shouldn't cost more than $10. (Who says you can't have lighter stronger, cheaper? )