The "hideous" appearance tag is a convenient cop out. It doesn't explain at all the many references to expected frame failure. Grin, grin, cackle, cackle. Unless some folks' notion of ugly correlates with difficulty in making a bike structurally sound.

There is a difference between "can't please everyone" and never seeing a positive comment on the brand here. Face it, it is the Bike Forums equivalent of middle school bullying. The parallels between adolescent school clique behavior and bicycling poserism are amazing. What could look more like a vigilante mob than a peloton sweeping down the street. Just look at the posts about some interloper trying to join an established paceline. Classic parallels to adolescent cliques. Folks pile onto Treks because of mob mentality. Cannondale and Specialized in are the "cool" crowd. Trek's are the nerds. Nobody really cares about how good or bad they look. It is just sport to make derogatory comments about them. If his Trek is bad, then my Cannondale makes me superior. Then when the bully is challenged, the retort is something about how too sensitive the Trekkies are. It's dishonest BS but an interesting sociological phenomenon for sure. This is all more serious than it seems in light of the recent teen suicide reported in the news over the last couple of days. You may think I exaggerate, but the behavioral patterns are strikingly similar.