Darth Lefty 

Or rather that my wife wants...

We are bike shopping for her. She has an old blue Schwinn MTB, she's not starting from scratch. We started out with a blank slate yesterday at REI. She had seen an Electra Townie on the Internet but the salesman steered her to 700c and a little more upright. She test-rode the Novara Mia and Fiona. She liked the latter; it had a 27-speed Alivio drivetrain, which she really liked, it's noticeably better than her old MTB. She wasn't sure about the suspension fork which is a bit crude, and it doesn't have the internal cables of the Townie, and the polished bits seem a little too blingy. But what she really doesn't like is the color. It's white, with some chalky brown and blue bands on the downtube. We started shopping around for similar bikes; nearly every manufacturer has one. And this year, it seems like they are all white, white, white, white, black, gray, graphite, silver. There are models with color (notably from Bianchi, Schwinn, Norco) but they're still pretty sedate this year, sort of powdery or slatey; and the colors don't usually go along with this groupset level, sentencing her to either a black or white bike with Alivio, or a wrong-color bike with freewheel, Tourney, and grip shifters. She'd like a nice purple or a dark blue.

Wanderer

Occasionally, better color options are available in the woman's models...

Grey.

I take it you haven't looked at Trek yet?

7.5 FX WSD - Trek Bicycle Pink

7.3 FX WSD - Trek Bicycle Blue

7.2 FX WSD - Trek Bicycle Purple

dynaryder

Buy bike,strip frame,repaint. Or send it off for nice powder coating. Then it's any color you want.

Darth Lefty 

We did look at Trek. There's a Trek linked in my original post. It's gray. These are not the bike style we are looking at. They are too leaned-over, none of them are step-through. But saying we did want an FX, the only step-throughs available are at 7.0 and 7.1 trim, which are dreadful. And also gray.

We also learned today that our local Trek salesman has a serious mansplaining problem; she took out an FX, a similar Giant, and Neko. Because he didn't have a stepthrough, he kept bringing her bikes too small for her. She complained about slow upshifting on the other one (RD barrel adjuster needed a turn) and instead of listening to her, he told her she was crosschaining. She's had a triple ring MTB for twenty years, for God's sake, she knows about crosschaining. Nothing he showed her went above Acera shifters despite hefty price tags; of course no one shopping for an unserious bike deserves any better. My wife is a psychiatrist who works at a looney bin; her poker face is epic. She came home very annoyed.

Actually I'm thinking buy bike in color wanted, replace drivetrain with this.

catonec 

buy her a bicycle based on color alone. (I never thought I would give this advice)

then replace the drivetrain with that deore listed above,

or over the course of the next months/years/ birthdays and holidays you can upgrade each component one at a time and get multiple "thank you awards".

If she doesnt like the color of a bike, even if its superior, it may quietly bug her on the inside and become a reason to not ride or covet something else.

Grey.

Trek is apparently replacing step-through frames with "Womens Specific Design" frames. Honestly i've never met anyone who actually liked the stagger frames and a few of my female friends have said they wished it was easier to buy a regular bike that was simply tailor sized for women, which seems to be what Trek is doing. But, to each their own.

Darth Lefty 

I understand that attitude. My wife has frequent back trouble that is often set off by some sudden sweeping movement, and so she worries about flailing a leg over.

Grey.

That makes sense. Assuming there isn't a bike out there somewhere that meets all of your requirements and simply hasen't been found yet, you may have to settle for picking the least-offensive color you can find. Or, having the frame resprayed as dynaryder mentioned.

quicktrigger

For the money bikes cost, the freaking manufacturers can do ALLOT better with the colors. When in the market, there were many bikes I flatly REFUSED to consider due to crap color. Every shop I went to, I told them if it was black, gray, silver, or some combo to not freaking bother to even mention it. If I'm going to pay that much money, the manufacturer can do better. Nor will I buy a bike and have it repainted, nor change the drivetrain. Again, manufacturer's can do better, and I refuse to consider any who consider it too much trouble or might cost them a dollar or two more. That is part of the reason I ended up with a Specialized Sirrus Sport (plus I LOVE the way it rides for me). LOVE the blue color. Then for a mountain bike, I ended up with a bright neon green (almost got the neon orange one instead) Motobecane 427HT from Bikes Direct.

Darth, have you looked at Specialized Pitch line. Definitely some color in those bikes. All the links are for non women specific, as my GF found them to be much more comfortable to her than the WSD bikes. She has back issues as well.

Specialized Bicycle Components

Also the Rockhopper's have some color.

Specialized Bicycle Components

Maybe the Crosstrail Series that my GF LOVED.

Specialized Bicycle Components


Otherwise look into Jamis. Some of their bikes have some nice color to them.

QT

dynaryder

YHO. I like black,grey,and silver;I have 10 bikes in those colors. C'dale's Bad Boy line are known for being black. As for components,manufacturers spec their bikes to a price. Bikes aren't cars;Honda will prolly sell as many Civics as Giant,Spec,and Trek's entire combined lineups,so economy of scale comes into play.

quicktrigger

I'm certainly glad you like those colors. Makes it much easier for you.

I'm well aware that these aren't cars. I know Cannondale bikes are known for being black, and that arrogance made them a non-starter when buying my hybrid. They only offered black, End of story ==> END OF CONSIDERATION. Specialized won because I loved the bike AND the color. Second choice was a copper colored Kona that was very near buying when I found the Sirrus. When I bought a mountain bike, I went back and found a bike I liked, and was available in yellow for some sizes, and black for all sizes. You guess it. Could not get my size in yellow until March 2015 (I was looking in November 2014). So again I voted with my $$$, and they got nothing.


I know some like those colors, and I in no way advocate not having bikes of those colors, but the different brands can do MUCH better. Some brands manage this just fine, and many of the "women's" bikes come in many many colors. If they can do that for those bikes, then they CERTAINLY can for "men's" bikes which they probable sale far more of anyway. Not to mention many of the smaller brands do a much better job in offering color options. Bikes Direct does a much better job than Trek with color and they are tiny in comparison. So that kills that small quantity argument. There was a time 30 or so years ago where many car makers tried this same crap, as it was cheaper for them. Didn't work then, and ultimately will not work now. To offer ONLY those colors as so many brands do, is arrogance. My $$$, so don't tell me what color I have to have.

QT

dynaryder

Okayyyy...

Just curious,ever contact any of the bike companies and give them your feedback?

bwfox

High end or nice mixtes are becoming scarce. I would look at Civia and Raleigh. They do a good job on filling niches.

Grey.

It's not "arrogance" it's marketing. Bikes typically don't change a whole lot year-to-year but bike companies still need to sell new bikes, and year-exclusive colors are one of the tricks they use. When the 2016's start getting announced in August we'll see a couple of new colors being offered per model, and again in 2017, and so on and so forth.

As you said, it's your money, so I don't know why you're trying to convince us of your decisions.

quicktrigger

grey/dynaryder,
I am a strong willed and often stubborn. Statements I make are often very matter of fact, pointed, and no nonsense. Therefore I accept my responses probable come across as harsh. That does not change the sad state of choice in the current bike world, nor am I defending anything. My original post in this thread was a confirmation to the OP that it is in fact a sad state of choice in the bike world in regards to color selection. I then proceeded to offer up some common options to the original OP. The though of buying a standard mass production line bike only to have it repainted because there are only black/grey etc is ridiculous. I heard many excuses while bike shopping, and was basically told "you can have any color you like as long as it's black", and that I should be happy for it. But the excuses were full of holes, and my follow up response was to show how those excuses are lacking when analysed. AS for marketing, I understand what you are saying, but there is so little real difference from one brand of bike to the next, then differentiating oneself with color options etc would pay dividends. I'm hardly suggesting having 20 colors for each bike, but 3 very different version for the entry to mid-range would seem wise, and 2 options on the mid to higher end, and then 1 at the very highest end. Marketing like any other profession just gets lazy. Working with professionals in multiple fields, I see it all the time. Remember the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and Android to name some obvious examples, and there are so many more. Other bad moves that was lazy marketing driven, you have Windows 8 trying to make a desktop computer work like a phone/tablet, and Windows Vista/Me that were just bad hack jobs driven by marketing arrogance. Oh, and "The New Coke". So IMHO Cannondale offering only Black on their entire "Quick" line is arrogance. They simply do not believe they need to offer anything else. Trek is not much better.

dynaryler,
To your last question, I told every bike shop owner/manager that I could, so that they would tell the sales rep which might get listened to by some of the higher ups. Plus for the larger companies, they should have people monitoring these and other forums. Any reasonable sized company will have an intern, or other similar person do this as part of their marketing, looking for an advantage, and their public perception of their image. If they aren't then that just further demonstrates their disconnect with their customer base.

Eventually, one of the large manufacturers (my guess is it will be Giant) will figure out they can ship over bare primer coated frames of multiple models, and have them painted to specific colors/styles on demand by an automated system for a fee (say $100). Should be easily accomplished, for not a large initial investment, and would give someone like Giant a significant innovative/marketing advantage.

QT

B2mac

The Fuji Absolute and Breezer Greenway Series bikes come in Stagger frames. My wife got a Greenway LX last year with a carbon front fork and deore rear derailleur for $575. She is 60 and has osteoporosis. She is much more comfortable and confident getting on and off this bike. She also has aTrek 7.2 WSD design but mounting and dismounting can be difficult.

Lanovran

The current models of the 7.2 and 7.3 FX WSD are also available in a stagger-frame, in their respective purple and turquoise colors (I work at a Trek dealer, and just confirmed that they're available to order in all sizes). If you're not looking for something like an FX, though, have you looked at Trek's more upright comfort hybrid, the Verve? The WSD Verves have step-through frames; the 1 is available in purple, the 2 is available in white/pink, and the 3 is available in either white/blue or black/turquoise.

I am sorry to hear about your local dealer's "mansplaining" issues, in any case. It's a shame that a potential customer should end up leaving a shop feeling annoyed by their treatment at the hands of the salespeople.

Darth Lefty 

Thank you for pointing out the step-through versions of those bikes. The Trek website didn't make it obvious. Still, the 7.4 is gray, again. The Verves are not available with nice enough components. She keeps circling back around to talking about the shifters on the Novara, which were Alivio. They were the only rapid-fire rather than EZ-fire shifters she tried. I can only hope she never learns of XTR Di2.
@B2mac thanks for those.

Darth Lefty 

Despite a late feint toward FX/Vita/Escape type bikes, my wife today got a Raleigh Route 4 as a self-selected birthday present. The color was indeed the major sticking point, she liked everything else. The build and the bike shop assembly were both good. She likes the EF65 shifters in spite of hating the EF50's on some others she's tried.

The color was a dark gray. Not sure if it's the decals or the shop lighting but it seemed to me to have a little brown to it. Very ugly. The plan is to get it repainted in a blue-green color. I've never done this or had it done, it will be a learning experience either way.

Raleigh's website doesn't show the women's model on the page for it, but the men's. The women's version in addition to the stepthrough frame has shiny instead of black wheels, stem, bar, and seap post.

TakingMyTime

Exactly what I did. My wife was set on Pink. She's oblivious to anything technical about a bike. Just Pink. We found a nice entry level Masi that she liked the color and I bought it for her. Low end components etc etc, but she loves it. Over the next year I'm going to be upgrading all the components and she'll never know the difference. She will notice it rides and responds better but she will not care that her Sora crankset has been upgraded to a 105 crankset. All she knows is that she has a pink bike and she's happy.

Redflea

My brother just powder coated his wife's hybrid in electric blue, cost about $170. Looks amazing, she's thrilled.

JehD

This reminds me of when I was in the Army in the Mid 80's. I was stationed at a small post in Bad Hersfeld and on a run to our Battalion HQ in Fuld I stopped at the PX and they had one of the first Mountain bikes that I had ever seen. It was a Pugeot with 15spds, knobby tires ect, in a nice subtle shade of Yellow. I picked it up on my next trip to Fulda and cramming in to the back of the Jeep I was driving. I was the 1st guy with a brand new Mountain bike.

By the end of the summer there were about a dozen of these bikes on post. And you could get any color you wanted as long as it was Yellow.


As for myself since I like black, grey and silver, this will be a banner year to pick a new one.

STEVESKI

Yes, this is true. My wife just got the 7.3 FX stagger in blue. The funny thing is that another shop we talked to when we were doing some research said that it didn't exist. They must be new or just uncommon because people don't seem to know about them.

Lanovran

It could be because of the way those particular models show up on Trek's primary distributor website. The WSD models of FX are listed separately from the men's models, but lowstep WSD FX models are mixed in with the standard-frame versions, and aren't immediately obvious unless one knows what one is looking for. That threw me off at first until I figured it out.