Deontologist

Why do most road bikes today simply have the company's logo plastered on its top tube and down tube?

What happened to graphic design? If we're lucky we might get a few colors on the bike. But nothing other than that.

Stucky

I'm wondering the same thing. I don't want my bike to be a rolling billboard for some manufacturer's logo. I DO want color choices other than combinations of black, red and white!

If I have to ride something which has little more visual appeal than an old bike with a spray-can paint job, why not just keep riding that old bike? All the gimmickry they keep coming out with to make people want new bikes...perhaps if they'd try a little visual appeal.....

And the groupsets are just as bad. The Ultegra on my '13 Spesh has black carbon(or is it just plastic?) levers....looks no different than something from Walmart.
By comparison, my old Klein with it's beautiful "Carribean linear fade" blue paint and shiny DA7700 levers, looks 100x better. I don't see myself buying a new bike anytime soon! In fact, when I do buy another bike, it'll be a C&V, from the days when they made real bikes.....

fietsbob

just off the turnip truck? nobody sits for portrait Painters any more , they take Phone Selfies.

Asian Contract Manufacturing .. because another factory makes them , and the CAD Design was Just for branding Logos.
actually a lot more , but that is a product management choice between Importer and the other factory making Multiple Brands

there is cost cutting so it will not be too expensive to sell to you .. want different , Hire a repaint.

they're still real, just Outsourced to be more profitable in the distribution chain without selling for too much More

You do get more Gee whiz shifting gizmos for not much More ..

Dave Cutter

Everything was more "artful".... once upon a time.

Modern bicycles are designed with todays consumers (and manufacturing technics) in mind. I ride modern most days. But I proudly keep a C&V bike hanging on my wall.... like the art is really is.

chaadster

I don't buy the premise that there was a time when paint jobs were generally more elaborate. There are always standouts, but generally bikes are single color with brand graphics.

I might even argue that bikes are more graphical now than they've ever been, because it can be hard to find a plain, solid color design now.

Take a look at Trek, for example. In '00, you could get a red road bike with white brand/model designations. By '05, they were full into the curvy, multicolor accents. By '10, the panel painting thing started, where they'd create a line on a portion of a tube to mark a contrasting color block on the underside, for example. It's basically the same thing they're doing still, doing lots of graphic detail work to give visual interest rather than just painting the frame a solid color.

So yeah, I get that matte black is en vogue, but I don't agree there is less graphic design than before, and in fact think there is more. It may be there are fewer color options for any given model, though, and even that paint trends are towards matte finishes and abrupt transitions, and less of the glossy fades, but again, that's different from saying there's less graphic design.

Deontologist

This is an example of what I'm talking about:

2003 model - not much going on.




2005 model: on fire!



2013 model:

Stucky

I'm not a huge C'dale fan, but I once saw this C'dale- dunno what model- it was white, blue and green (And tastefully done- not like some others I've seen with those same colors, which also had huge ghastly logos)- I'd be tempted to buy that bike just because of how it looked!

chaadster

Huh? You make my point...

That's not a progression away from graphic design, but towards increasing graphic design sophistication.

I think you have your tastes, which is good, but framed them in a confusing way.

MichaelW

You see big logos on the lower surface of down-tubes of MTB ; this is for the benefit of those Big Air jumps on corners when photographed from the outside of the corner.
Roadikes are best photographed from the inside of a corner. Do they have more graphics on the top side?

Stucky

I was thinking the same thing- all of those KHS's look pretty nice!

Looigi

Style continually evolves. Wait long enough and whatever you used to like will become fashionable again.

Stucky

Haha! So true! Reminds me of a running joke in my family, concerning an uncle, who kept an old blue suit so long, that it came back in-style!

fietsbob

Some pricy Italian framebuilders went in for multicolored Paint jobs , but most people are Price conscious when paying for Bikes
so paint simplicity is a cost reduction..

And, some European companies , get China to make the Bare (carbon?) frames and all they do is paint them.

Marcus_Ti

I dunno if I'd file this under evolution so much as profit margining.

Remember the good old days when a head tube badge was just that....not a $0.01 sticker under the clearcoat? Head tube badges probably are not coming back to anything, other than handbuilts that still have them, because it costs more money. Ours is an era of bean counters.

lopek77

To me - less is more. It's not ok if my bike is a mobile billboard, unless it was new and free.
I love simple, minimalistic graphics on my 2010 Specialized.

MichaelW

What is the worst factory paintwork/graphics ever? Obviously custom painters have free reign to be tasteless.
Personally I think Colnago veers into "so bad it is good" territory, and always executed with craftsmanship.
Cannondale team bikes have few redeeming features.

chaadster

The Breezer Venturi still has a real, painted (enameled?), metal head badge:

chaadster

Of course, I'm also of the opinion that the 35th anniversary paintjob that graced the '12 Venturis may well be the most elegant and classy paint job of any production bicycle since the turn of the millenium.

Yes I'm totally biased and yes that's total hyperbole, but it is a great looking graphics and paint package that looks backwards towards the classics yet does so without looking dated. IMO, anyway.

quicktrigger

I'm sorry, but for the amount of money these companies are expecting, they can do a much better job. Hell, Wal Mart has much nicer looking bikes than allot of the big players in the bike world. Raleigh has some flat good looking bikes. Kona, one of the smaller players is not afraid to do something with some bright flashy colors. If these smaller players and Wal Mart can do better, then there is no way that it's going to make that $1500 bike too expensive to buy. What it is about is that fattening the profit margin. Order 5K exactly the same, and get an additional $10 per frame off the cost.

IMHO, the though of paying someone to repaint your bike you just spent $1K, $2K or more on, is just dumb. They want my money, they will do better. It's a make it to order world now due to computerized automation (including painting). The days of "you can have any color you want as long as it's black" are long gone.

QT

Lanovran

You want color options? You may have to pay a bit more for something custom (from any bike brand/builder), but you've got options...

quicktrigger

WaL Mart, Target, Academy, Bikes Direct, Raleigh, Linus fail to agree. If the first two can, then Trek, Cannondale certainly can.

Look at all the color in those Trek bikes. NOT!
FX - Trek Bicycle