roseskunk

hi guys- anyone have a thomson seat post? i'm thinking of getting one for my commuter, the bike is going to the powdercoater this week and will be black. i'd get the thomson elite seatpost, but i want to be able to take off the damned logo. anyone have experience doing this? is it just a decal or is it in the metal? thanks in advance!

btw- if thomson wants to sponsor me and send me a seatpost for free, i'll be happy to advertise for them!

tsl

It's not a decal. As I recall, it's lasered in to the anodizing.

roseskunk

damn. what is it about logos? i hate that everything you buy today is plastered with a logo. this bike will have a headbadge and that's it. and i'm not going to buy a thomson if i can't easily get the name off it. if the quality of a product doesn't speak loudly enough to recommned it... i'll be damned if i'm going to be a riding advertisement for some company.

i think velo orange insists that the products they sell don't have logos. i wish more folks would do that. maybe i should wear a velo orange logo...

Shimagnolo

I'm building a Soma Double Cross with Thomson seatpost and stem. As the previous post said, the name is etched into the surface. They are works of art. Why gripe that the artist signed his work?

cbtumedic

Asking someone to not put a logo on their product that they put time and money into designing and as such are proud of would be akin to asking Da Vinci to not sign the Mona Lisa (OK maybe overexagerated but you get the point) if you want a plain seat post then why not just get a no name seat post, but then you wouldn't be able to tell them "yeah thats a thompson but you can't tell because I took the label off."

stevesurf

I respectfully disagree!

For a company like Thomson, who's got great designers, customer service, has a great product and is made right here in the US, I'm quite proud to have his logos on my seatpost and stem. This goes along with the likes of Chris King, Kent Erikson, Tom Kellogg and many other talents we are lucky to have in this industry. Imagine if these folks were not around or there was yet another poorly attempted reverse engineered product in its place. You'd be changing parts a great deal more often.

Hard to justify the cost or logo? Ask around. Most will tell you how happy they are with their logo'd stuff if it's a quality product. Of course, Velo Orange represents a unique and quality product, and if VO chooses to not use a product logo to remind people where it came from, that's up to them, but that's pretty different.

mechBgon

Email them and ask if they'll make you one without a logo. This is no problem for Chris King, although I don't know how they handle it when you're the end user instead of the LBS.

That, or stick some reflective tape over the logo

x136 

I have a black Thomson seatpost and stem on one of my bikes, I just put electrical tape over the logos.

A valid comparison, if Da Vinci signed his name in giant letters across the Mona Lisa's face.

I'm fine with the manufacturer's name being on an item in a small way. The embossed text around the top of a King headset? That's fine. But the large "KING KING KING KING KING" around the top and bottom cups... I find that to be obnoxious and unnecessary.

Not that Chris King is the epitome of bicycle-related overbranding, of course. It seems that the more carbon fibre something has, the larger and more numerous the logos. Load-bearing decals, perhaps?

gear

I purchased two Seven frames and asked them to leave off the labels and the folks at Seven were happy to accommodate me.

No one will care what brand seat post the OP uses, no one will ask and no one will run out and get a particular bicycle part because they saw some average Joe using that part. If a pro racer uses a particular part it might influence someone but otherwise it will not make any impression on anyone.

P.S. I also asked the contractor who built my house not to paint his company logo all over the front of my house.

roseskunk

for some reason the bike industry seems to think everything needs to have a logo on it. and i don't mean just "on it", but all over it. take a look at all the new bikes. how many times does cannondale write cannondale on their frames? i think it's fine if you're racing- but remember, those logos are there because that company sponsors the rider. it's all a trickle-down style from racing. frankly i also think that it's ridiculous that weekend riders are riding eight thousand dollar bikes when they've got as much a chance of being in the tour de'france as i do. ridiculous. if you want to pretend you're the next lance or eddy, more power to you, but you ought to be able to choose. and i do think there's a difference between huge logos that are on everything and a simple signature in the corner of a painting. one simply signifies authenticity, the other screams "buy me"!

i'm sure i'm in the minority here, but that's fine. i generally don't follow crowds.

Garfield Cat

I think its an extension and restatement of a central theme: a sense of identiy and belonging. I find the same thing amongst the college campuses with their sweatshirts branded with the school name and such. Gang members do the same. The Kobe Bryant jersey is the top selling NBA jersey.

Garfield Cat

Actually my Thomson seatpost came with a nice cloth pouch and two logos decals inside. One is white lettering and the other is black. I slapped mine on the water heater in the garage.

Retro Grouch 

I tried counting the logos on a Red Line BMX bike once. I don't remember what the final tally was but it was a LOT.

Bob Ross

So did mine. But both decals were in addition to the white laser-etched logo that came on the silver seatpost. (Which barely shows up to the naked eye unless you're looking for it.)

IMHO Thomson "gets it" ...they know how to make an elegant product with discreet branding that realistically shouldn't offend anyone's sense of aesthetics.

Unlike, say, Look.