Clang

It's easily bad depictions of bikes: lazy illustrators and sculptors who don't want to use reference so they draw weird frame angles, missing tubes (chain stays especially), brake levers but no brakes, hubs that look narrow and pinched, handlebars sprouting out of the top of the fork with no stem, drivetrain on the left, etc. The more respected the artist, the angrier it makes me.

Example: Note the bent fork, 0 cm length stem, cranks that aren't opposed, drivetrain not hooked up to the rear wheel, and the seat stays and seat tube meeting somewhere in the middle of the saddle.



Graphic designers aren't off the hook either. This has to be one of the most tone-deaf things I've seen. Clearly they wanted something to jazz up the plain bike box, and wanted a tire tread pattern. Unfortunately, whatever vector art program they were using only had a pattern brush with car tire tread. Cars running over a bike is not a good look, but what can you expect from Huffy?

steelbikeguy

Dirty Bastard Ale is pretty good stuff! I think beer heaven might be the Breakfast Stout, though....




... especially on tap!

okay, back to the topic.

how about "saddles that aren't level"? (just stirring the pot.... I really don't care)

Steve in Peoria

majmt 

Not being able to find/fix some small but annoying click, tap, tick, or squeak etc that starts from wherever it’s not supposed to be coming from somewhere on your bike in the middle of a ride and it just keeps right on clicking, tapping, ticking, or squeaking etc despite your and your friends every effort to find/fix it and you continue on and try to just ignore it but you just can’t and you end up pissing off everyone else by obsessing over something they claim they can’t hear in the first place but you know they’re really just lying about it to get you to shut up - selfish jerks.

beicster 

Not to mention the fact that a frog and a toad can't even ride bikes.

embankmentlb

When people feel the need to say , “ it’s not Campy , it’s Campa”.
Please...

merziac

Tx!

So only 6'0.5" with 38" inseam/PBH, as you can see, these are pretty tall, turns out 65-66 is ideal so the silver Merz rides the best being 66 or 26in. CTT as Jim measured in inches. The pink? one was his personal bike and is 24.5 so 62 hence the Technomic and two fists. The new Strawberry is in the middle as it is built to take me to the end at 64.

canklecat

If we're talking C&V related pet peeves, I'll omit some bike stuff that bugs me but is unrelated to classic and vintage bikes. As far as non-C&V bikes, for commuting, errands or whatever, anything goes.

• Chainring guards on any style road bike. Might as well just fit an entire chain guard and make it really functional as a rain bike.
• Unicorn forks. Yeah, all my bikes have 'em. And they're functional. Probably a bit more aero too. But they just don't look right.
• Ditto, most of the stuff gugie and others mentioned, in terms of functionality including rear wheel removal for flat repairs.
• Straight forks. They just don't look right on a pre-1980s steel bike. But I'm still a sucker for those seductively curvy swoopy French forks.
• Flipped North Roads or swept bars on anything other than a path racer. I tried that on my early 1990s Univega, flopping the albatross bars. Then I saw a photo a friend took of me on a group ride and was kinda horrified. So I flopped the bar back to the upright swept position as the bicycle gods intended.
• Upward-angled stems. Yeah, I know, they're practical. And okay with flat or arced bars for rigid mountain bikes. But combined with a flipped swept bar, that upward angled stem on my Univega looked atrocious, like an Escher optical illusion gone awry. Besides returning the albatross bar to upright position, I switched to a longer horizontal stem from a road bike to get the bar a bit lower and to look "right" (to me).

Stuff that doesn't bother me - which even surprises me:

• Turkey lever/suicide lever brake extension levers. Honestly I never had any quarrel with those on my 1976 Motobecane, other than interfering with the fit of my Kirtland Tour Pack handlebar bag. Those worked fine for slowing the bike and seemed appropriate even for casual group rides and commuting. The only real issue was the original steel rims, not the braking power.
• Stem shifters. Yeah, I swapped to downtube shifters. But that was mostly due to peer pressure. I entered a few crits and time trials in the 1970s and didn't want to look too dorky on my 30 lb hi-ten steel frame bike that was obviously unsuited to racing anyway.

texaspandj

Sloping Top Tubes.

sincos

Pathletes who think MUTs are for setting PRs.
People who blow through stop signs and stop lights.

RiddleOfSteel

1) Squeaky chains, annoying ticks and clunks, and chains rattling the FD cage (cross chained) on someone else's bike.
2) People starting from a stop in a MASSIVE gear on a geared bike and getting up out of their saddle and grinding until some speed is achieved--does anyone know how gearing works???
3) Tempests in teacups...
4) Mismatching wheels--whether that be tires, spokes, spoke lacing, and/or rims.
4b) Modern Campagnolo Bora/Zonda/etc rims with radially-laced spokes in front (totally fine) and triple-parallel spoke groups in the back. It looks horrible, doesn't match, doesn't have any logic, and makes the bike look worse.
5) Clunky/inelegant lugs and their friend tig-welded frames.
6) Unicrown forks - Nothing deflates desire for a frame in my tall size range like a derp-tastic unicrown fork.
7) The "orgasmically-good" and supple and transcendent 1,350mm diameter tires that can be ridden at 4 PSI and are just as fast on gravel as racing tubulars are on the road, and yet can never be made to mount straightly to a rim AKA "Hot Dog Wobble" (pick the front end of the bike up, spin the front wheel, and look down at the wheel as you would if you were on the bike and the tire will wobble or kick out to one side and then back. This is after all the tire 'truing' and fidgeting, too.)
8) Ill-proportioned or ill-angled frames (sloping top tube or level), especially for taller riders. Or just 99% of Riv bikes...

Again, as @gugie said, this is not a list simply of things that bug me, but bug me more than they bug other people.

merziac

Drop bars = cold dead hands, not changing any of them anytime soon and you should count your blessings that you don't have to make these kind of choices, lucky you.

Having a 38in inseam makes tall enough frames a challenge to find especially in cool, rare, desirable frames and bikes that turn up far more often in smaller common sizes.

That being said I do still jack the bars up to get them closer most of the time anyway.

And like I said, I get it and don't disagree per se but I'm not vain enough anymore to sacrifice more, better riding for aesthetics, life's too short for that.

DiabloScott

While we're at it - skewer positions not conforming to Rule 41

krakhaus 

Fat tires on road bikes, they just look dumb and slow.

thinktubes 

Referring to your bike as "she"

Drillium Dude 

French fit. And the fact none of my bikes take anything bigger than 25mm tires - but I'm 'bout to fix that.

DD

Murray Missile 

OK, you got me. Mismatched wheels.... With the exception of my Orange Krate I can't abide mismatched wheels or tires, not even on my beaters.

iab

Or as "steed".

iab

Not bike related, but not airing of grievances on 23 December. This thread is about week late.

Wildwood 

People who get pickkkkky about minutia !

I mean really !!!

As long as the paint is original, the components are matched grouppo (NOS functionally and frame-manufacturing-year appropriate), all threads greased, bearings lubed, cloth bar wrap, and the tires are tubular high thread count - you should be able to ride it. Although extra cred given if the freewheel is 13-23 and your only granny wears bell bottoms and lives in another state.

After all the point is fun.




Clear your handlebars and your mind will follow.....

Wildwood 

Kludge wrenching.......


clear your handlebars, and your mind will follow.

steelbikeguy

I was gong to say "isn't the fork bent?". Musta run into a car door that suddenly opened.

Steve in Peoria
(a friend in college did something like that, except he ran into the back of a car. the fork looked pretty bad)

gugie 

That's the whole point of the thread. It's what bugs "you" more than any others. That makes the poster an outlier, and they're owning it.

It's not an attack on anyone else.

gugie 

Actually this is the opposite of bicycle orthodoxy. It's about the things that bother you, but mostly not bothering others.

Call it bicycle unortodoxy.

RiddleOfSteel

Before the virus stuff, when volunteering at Bike Works, we'd replace totally roached wheels with 'new' used ones, and I'd always try to match them. Sure, it was for a bike to be given away (for one of their several, great, community-oriented giveaway programs), but still, the recipients, to me, needed that thing to look as stock or normal or decent as possible. A 1991 Civic is not a valuable car, monetarily, but a clean, straight, and well-kept 1991 Civic is (rare, but...) worthy of respect and keeping in that shape, even if it was only $500 (or a family gift or whatever).

I should also note that I am living a hypocrite's life in that my front wheel's spokes (new as of this summer) do not match the original obviously-butted spokes on my front wheel. It bugged me for a little bit, but I wanted/needed to get the bike on the road, so it has waited until now, and it shall be remedied!

gugie 

He's got legs!
And he knows how to use them!

Van and I are about the same height. I ride a 60cm frame, his are much taller, and appropriately sized.