Kontact 

The constant argument that "we" are all dupes of marketing always seems to be trotted out by people that believe themselves immune.

But maybe people buy stuff because they like it rather than because they are easily manipulated.

The aero craze was great. Not because it genuinely shaved seconds off, but because it created an elegant new aesthetic that cyclists got to enjoy. And cycling is a hobby to enjoy, so it ought to look good. Is matte paint cheaper? I doubt modern, durable matte paints are cheaper, and on a fat tubed frame it keeps colors like white from looking like a shiny porcelain toilet.

I like a lot of classic stuff, but many old bikes often have amateurish lug lining and awkward decals that look like kids designed the finish. Classic style bikes benefitted from the aesthetic trends of newer bikes. I think that's the reason Miyatas are so prized - their lugged frames were more modern looking than their contemporaries.

ExPatTyke

I took the Gitane into my local shop earlier in the year, to get the BB repacked (it's a cottered chainset, I'm very happy to pay someone to deal with it).

When I called in to pick it up it was propped up on the counter, next to a Giant carbon-something-or-other. The contrast between the 40 year old bike with slim, well proportioned tubes, polished alloy (ok, chromed steel) components, and aluminium rims next to a nearly new bike with hugely oversized tubing, all black components, and deep (matt black) rims with fat tyres was eye opening about how far bikes have come in my lifetime.

The Giant would be a faster bike, without a doubt. However there's no way it would give me the same sense of pride of ownership I get every time I ride the Gitane, and I suspect the ride quality isn't.up to that of the Gitane either.

Stadjer

I can imagine that, it's even worse for the designers than for the consumers. But I can accept the shape of a perfectly optimized design, then it's form follows function. It it's only the maximum strength for the minimal weight and air resistance for example there's beauty it's functional perfection. But that's usually not the case because it's not a bike that's going to be used for a world record attempt. It's also citybikes that have that crank that looks like a mutilated obese starfish.

But also if they didn't optimize it only for the physics but designed it to look good, there's a general lack of crisp, clean lines and curves. Everything seems to end up a bit rounded, no visually sharp edges anywhere. Like the result of modern methods for mechanically optimized designs influences the designers taste in good design, or are they actually limited in their freedom to make things beautiful by the tools used?

BocaJr

Somewhat on topic is this article from Business Insider ranking the 2018 TdF bikes. https://www.businessinsider.com/tour-de-france-bikes-ranked-2018-7#no-1-trek-segafredos-madone-22

I think the celeste Bianchi of Team Lotto should be #1 !

iab

Neither.

There is in no way a design rockstar like Ives, Bangle, Newson, Starck, etc designing production bikes. Maybe one-offs at best. And while the frame designs are mechanically optimized, there is freedom for non-functional design in every frame made today. So the pure form follows function for today's bikes is pure hooey.

As for a particular tool not giving the "freedom" for one person on the internet does not make it so industry wide. Not even close.

Nope. It is really simple to what's driving today's bike design. The customer.

T-Mar

I actually like a lot of the modern frame designs. Carbon monocoque construction gives designers a flexibility that they never had with steel tubing. The resulting frames more closely resemble the designer's vision of the ideal bicycle. I buy my bicycles for their riding characteristics, not their aesthetics. The ideal bicycle would disappear beneath me and make me think I'm riding on air. If a bicycle could do that, I wouldn't care what it looked like.

dsbrantjr

In all of the Solidworks training exercises, at the end they have you fillet/radius everything. Well, that is a single mouse click for the CAD guy, even complicated intersecting radii, but quite another story for the poor machinist who has to have all of those curves blend perfectly, just because a guy who does not understand the process clicked a button. I get that sharp inside radii are weak spots, so fillet them for strength. But they get guys used to doing it everywhere because it looks so sexy in the renderings, without thinking of the implications of doing so.

Senior Ryder 00 

Sorry folks,
I didn't mean to insinuate that we were being "duped" by the marketing people. A lot of good stuff is slow getting to the public because it is not properly marketed and a lot of junk gets sold because of a successful, but not necessarily honest marketing. Having considerable experience in sales and marketing to the semiconductor industry, I consider marketing a worthwhile business function, but it must be done in straight forward and honest manner.

Regards,

Van

Bandera

There has never been a time that the bicycle industry has produced product that was/is not simply to be sold to consumers and advertised and marketed to them.
Speed sells, sex sells, a healthy active outdoor lifestyle sells. This is not a recent revelation.

iab

Molds are build with edm or cnc. It is automated, the poor machinist doesn't do squat. There are no implications whatsoever to the machinist.

So what's with all the ID hate?

63rickert

Saw that in today's TdF stage to Roubaix teams switched to aluminum bars. Because they are less likely to crack in a crash and less dangerous when they break. But us consumers should be riding CF handlebars because the pros do. Also teams switched to rim brakes so that reasonable wheel changes would be possible. But do as the salesman says, not as pros demand when it gets serious.

iab

Most people don't ride cobbles at 50 kph.

Bandera

With the flexibility of modern design tech and materials mfgs now produce machines that are optimized for the requirements and demands of the particular parcours of World Tour racing.
No longer unable to do more than spec wall thickness of tubing and few spokes more or less modern designs are optimized in many ways for the demands of a given course and rider.
Sprint, mountain and pave' stage designs as well as the TT have evolved as race winning choices for teams, each different enough to make that crucial "incremental improvement".
Oddly enough this amount of choice is a good thing for riders and the sport in general. A rider on the windy great plains may favor an aero design over the climbing bike chosen to ride in the mountains while my local chip-seal is becoming rough enough to consider a full-on pave' bike w/ all of the compliance doo-dads built in.......

-Bandera

63rickert

While it is true that most people don't ride 50kph on cobbles most of us will take a fall sometime in our riding career. All of us will change a wheel. Very few of us will have a handy team car and team mechanic when that occurs. If carbon handlebars are not safe enough for the pros why do ordinary mortals ride them?

'Incremental improvement' has driven up the cost of sponsoring a pro team and increased the advantage that the best funded team has. It has made the bikes available to consumers far less versatile. In living memory, mine, it was quite ordinary for club rides to include gravel sections and brick streets. And the bikes handled that with aplomb.

robertorolfo

On shaft drives and other such gimmicks, so long as all of the MotoGP bikes are using chain drives I will never be convinced that there is something more efficient (or a better package in terms of weight and performance).

No offense (and I realize that's nearly impossible, since commenting on the looks of someone's bike is like commenting on the looks of their child), but the font for the word "Culprit," and the graphics behind it, do not look good to me.

Likewise, while I personally LOVE the Start Trek The Next Generation font seen on the top tube for "Croz-Blade", it doesn't match and has no business on a bike. Sorry if that sounds harsh.

Chombi1 

Good point about preference to bikes that "dissapear" under you when you ride them. Thst's exactly what I love about my favorite bikes in my stable. They disappear, no noise, no harsh vibrations or impacts, no noise and feels like an extension of my body. Two of my C&V CF bikes feels exactly like that.
I'm sure I can get the same or better with modern bikes, but I just love the aesthetics of classic bikes too much to switch over to modern ones.

cbrstar

I might be coming at this from a ex BMX punk perspective...But after watching this video (Road Bike Party) You can't tell me Road Bikes aren't 100X more stronger and durable. I hate to say this but we used to take old Road Bikes BITD and see just how bad we could break them, and it didn't take much to completely snap them. Some bikes the wheels would bend just hoping off a curb! Face it not a single vintage bike would survive a single stunt in that video.

I do find the current trend of everything being blacked out boring and pretty cookie cutter, but that's just a matter of personal taste as I like seeing some color and individuality.

Kontact 

What kind of budget did you have to take LBS quality bikes that were relatively new and attempt to destroy them?

I don't think new bikes are any stronger than a 1980 Klein, except maybe the rims.

vinfix

I went for a ride yesterday on a route that's popular for time-trial types- wide open, relatively flat. I found myself going faster than usual and in the drops more, too. It reminded me, this was one of those rides where an aero bike could help squeak out a little more speed. Then it started raining, and I headed back in a thunderstorm. When I went to slow down, I was reminded disc brakes would have helped if I needed to panic stop.
However, I did not find I needed a bigger logo on my bike.

Dave Cutter

I have to agree with you there! We have a coffee table ipad at our house.... I can't imagine switching back to paper-based books.

Meanwhile.... I have a bright yellow '88 lugged steel Trek hanging on my wall in my man-cave. I do get it down and ride it... (rarely). But mostly it does exist for it's aesthetic value....as art. I like to look at it on gloomy cold winter days... and it inspires me to ready my flat-finished modern fat-tire gravel-grinder with disc brakes and the panniers of winter gear..... and brave a few miles.

To me.... these modern bikes are like grandkids! As much as I love my children...……. I have plenty of love left for this new breed of off-springs.

clasher

I took out my Columbus SL road bike for a rip last night with challenge Paris-Roubaix tires on it and found it to be a harsher ride than my carbon road bike on the same wheels. Both bikes are orange so I don't think the paint was a big factor... I like the look of both bikes so I dunno what the fuss is all about, it seems a lot of posts on this forum have turned a "love of vintage" into a "hate of modern" and it kind of makes this forum a lot less appealing to read... I also broke a vintage steel frame this month, having the seat-stays snap off the seattube and the top tube break away resulting in rear wheel lockup... thankfully it was a city bike and I wasn't hurt but certainly most broken frames never get repaired, regardless of material so I dunno why it really matters; most people don't even bother replacing a damaged rim.

Stormy Archer

cbrstar

In the early 90's it was almost if you could find one at a garage sale every week for only a few bucks. Everyone's Dad's or older Brothers had bought them back in the early 80's did one little tour then hung them up in their garages to collect dust for 10 years. I remember my friend jumping a particularly nice Norco off a picnic table and the forks actually snapped off, the stem and handle bars bent, along with the wheels completely tacoed. I don't think we trashed anything really high end though I wouldn't have known the difference at the time.

Carbon Fiber, as long as it doesn't get hit does last longer then any steel bike according to the tests even Klien. I cant seem to find it but on the Sheldon Brown site there was a link to a test with the first early CF frames and they beat out both Steel and Aluminum, and since then there has been huge improvements to CF

Kontact 

The test you're referring to was about long term wear, not impact durability.

cbrstar

It was long term wear, Impact durability is CF's weak spot.