bazil4696

Regular style Schrader valve stems that are installed or allowed to be pulled by under inflated tires until they are so lopsided in the rim that they cut through the tube at the rim stem hole or you cannot get an air chuck between the spokes to fill the tire. And the word "tire" isn't spelled "tyre"

SurferRosa

And how it triumphed in the pro circuit decade after decade is just astounding!

Het Volk

There is a term "Full Kit Wanker" for a reason. It is similar.

I am okay once some years have passed, and it more a retro look (hell, Mapai now seems potentially okay, especially if riding a steel bike). But riding a carbon race bike with a Team Sky kit....always a bad look. And depending where you live, you may find yourself in an awkward situation. Once at the Boulder Velodrome (before it closed), I ended up running into Greg Henderson of Team Sky who was in town for some vacation and training. How awkward had I showed up with a Team Sky kit?

RobbieTunes

I once followed a guy 35 miles, past 2 rest stops, to finally wipe a streak of grease off of his R seat stay. Red/white/black Wilier.

steelbikeguy

the bike was being displayed at a bike show; a show displaying bikes owned by some of the most fastidious folks on the eastern half of the USA.. The frame was custom built by Brian Baylis and equipped with NOS bits. It wasn't a casual build by some kid. This was put together by an adult that had vintage bikes as a primary past time.... or at least had the funds to do all of this.

Steve in Peoria

steelbikeguy

regarding wearing a team jersey...
It is fun to have the right jersey to go with a nice bike, such as my Raleigh Team bike. I've actually got a few vintage team jerseys to go with it.



Steve in Peoria

canklecat

Ever since Velouria on the Lovely Bicycle! blog accidentally typo'd "unicorn" instead of "unicrown", I've adopted that alt-spell version out of habit. Now my phone autocorrect "fixes" it whenever I try to write "unicrown." I suppose I should fix the autocorrect. It's an old meme but it still makes me laugh.

canklecat

This is the only photo I can find on my phone. It was taken by a friend a couple of years ago, while I was recovering from injury and illness and mostly riding my Univega hybrid instead of my road bikes. Probably a screen grab off my friend's FB page.

Flipped swept bars do look good on a path racer tho.

The other problem with my bike's aesthetics is retaining the original Shimano brake levers, which included protruding plates for bolting on the modular RapidFire thumb shifters, both of which broke a few years ago. Now I use bar-end shifters. So those original brake levers look clunky without the thumbies.

And a flipped swept bar might look better wrapped, rather than with chunky rubber grips. Although those ergo-friendly palm shelf grips are comfy.


Flipped Nitto albatross bar on my Univega, summer 2018.

shoota 

Basically no one says that any more. At least I haven’t seen it. *shrug*

hsuBM

probably would’ve looked fine-to-good with the cluttered looking mess of lights relocated onto a nicely finished scrap of ~1” tube mounted to a Nitto M12 type rack.

dmarkun

Chris King headsets and straight fork blades.
Riding no-handed on a busy multiuse path.
Really, really bright headlights.
Plastic bike passing me very fast (sadly this happens very often).

Bottom to top is good with bar end shifters.
Doesn't bug me when people try to make a bike lighter (except maybe titanium screws).

canklecat

Yeah, that photo was taken while I was recovering from being hit by a car on the *one* occasion in three years I didn't ride with a video camera. Now I *never* ride without video, usually front and rear. I don't care how it looks anymore.

And I always take two or more lights on night rides, since they often stretch out several hours before I get home.

But, yeah, it does look cluttered. One of my goals is to set up a proper all weather night ride bike for these casual group rides, with a front rack and proper light mounted on the head tube, rack, etc.

mhespenheide

In the spirit of the original question, "what bothers you more than other people": font usage. I swear, there must be some builders or companies who actively want their bikes to look worse than the should, if they had spent more than two seconds looking at fonts. Many of the older classic and vintage are fine or even excellent, though, so my frustration lies more with modern fonts, I guess.

mhespenheide

In the "I'm going to complain about something that most people on this board would probably agree with": so-called "micro-adjust" seatposts of the 1980's that aren't anything of the sort and have an infernal ratcheting/indexing system behind their (in)ability to level a saddle. Good grief.

SJX426 

Steve, I implied that the task of putting the straps on may have been delegated, not that the kid put the bike together. Somehow it slipped by, regardless, like a kid would do. I have done worse.

jamesdak 

https://www.halfords.com/cycling/bike-parts/bike-tyres/ Sorry, couldn't resist.

g-funk

Chris King Headsets?!???!

jPrichard10 

Forgot to mention: loud freehubs! I don't know why newer freehubs sound so loud and plasticky. I miss one of my early shimano hubs that was nearly silent while coasting. Nothing worse than hearing the angry swarm coming from your rear axle!

sincos

It's to advertise how quick the engagement is (which is actually relevant with MTBs but IMO overblown, and totally irrelevant to road bikes). The buzzier the quicker. They're packed with light oil to increase the buzz, you can repack with grease if you like them quieter. (Actually the quickest engagements use sprag clutches, which are silent. But then you can't show off)

Me, I hate noisy freehubs..

Dfrost 

Infatuation with “period correct” components on a bike that will be ridden regularly. Or are there bike style cops out there who actually check for such things, outside of L’Eroica events?

Calling something a “Gruppo” that isn’t Italian components.

Insistence that we must have shift assist features on chain rings. They’re nice, but we shifted without them for decades. And pretty sure that “9/10/11 speed chain rings” are nothing more than marketing speak as one more way to separate cyclists from their money.

The overwhelming permutations of FD types and sizes when trying to find something that will work on a donated bike at Bike Works.


Regarding front QR lever on DS: When my wife’s disc brake bike was assembled (not by me), that was explained as preferable to keep greasy hands away from rotors and their heat.

geeteeiii

Unicrown forks and forks that rake but have straight blades annoy me the most personally, but for some reason i really like the almost zero rake track bike forks.
Modern saddles also dont really float my boat, covered sides look better, atleast on a vintage bicycle.

Pompiere

I have wondered if the hollow carbon frames act as a resonance chamber to amplify the noise. In any case, it seems to change the tone, like one of those New Years noise makers vs. the higher pitched metallic buzz on a steel frame.

steelbikeguy

perhaps.
even if the task was delegated, the owner must have glanced at it?
To anyone who has used toe clips and straps extensively, this sticks out horribly. .... sort of like going to work and realizing that you forgot to put pants on.

I think it just indicates that the owner likes cycling and is fascinated by the old stuff, but has no history or experience with it. That's not a bad thing, but it seems like a case of the enthusiasm or money getting far ahead of actual knowledge.

Aviation is another hobby of mine, and there are parallels with this. The usual story is that someone has a few million dollars to buy a beautiful old fighter aircraft and get the training to fly it. They don't have the time to develop their skills fully (and these are not easy aircraft to fly) and end up crashing the aircraft and sometimes getting themselves killed too. I watched one of these individuals crash his business jet at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It turned out that he had crashed his P-51 Mustang some years earlier. He managed to not kill his passenger at Oshkosh, but he did lose an eye, so perhaps he's not flying anymore?
Fortunately, an incorrectly routed toe strap won't do any damage other than scratch up a crank arm.

Steve in Peoria

Rocket-Sauce 

Yes. Easily the most overrated bike part of all time. Sure, they are super high quality and look great. But so is a Tange Levin for 1/7 the cost.

Rocket-Sauce 

To echo some of you and to add my own...

Fixie conversions.
The term "fixie"
Townie conversions
The term "townie"
Tires not lined up with the valve stems
QR skewers not lined properly.
Mustache bars
Poorly adjusted headlights that blind oncoming riders. While I am at it, headlights that are bright enough to light up a stadium for Monday Night Football.
People faster than me and people slower than me (to paraphrase George Carlin: everyone faster than me is a maniac, and everyone slower than me is an idiot.)
Dogs on retractable leashes. More accurately, owners of dogs on retractable leashes.