Originally Posted by
Kommisar89
What is it about these new retro bikes...they are getting better but they still seem to be designed by people who just don't quite "get it". They have retro styling queues but they also have things, like the fork in the this case, that just don't fit. Like they assigned the job to some 23 year old designer right out of college and said, "Design a retro styled bike" and he just looked at pictures of old bikes without really understanding the history of vintage bikes, the styling, or the things that totally turn on or off the people would actually buy these bikes. In this case it's pretty minor. If you could get past the $1500 price tag it would be simple enough to swap the fork for a nice curved chrome fork assuming it had the correct rake. But some of them are beyond redemption with sloping top tubes and TIG welding. You can't fix that stuff. I think the worst so far has been the Bianchi. Decent frame, nice celeste paint job, but a carbon fork, low spoke count wheels, and black components everywhere...oh, and a $3300 price tag. Now those guys were smoking something.
So far the Electra seems to have the most thought put into it but it's painfully obvious they are copying Grant Peterson over at Rivendell with the super tall head tube and sloping top tube. That's unfortunate as it's allowing function to get in the way of form. If horizontal top tubes are the pointy toed high heels of the bicycle world so be it. We all know that you have to suffer to be beautiful
I'm as reactionary as they come with respect to fork bends, top tube levels, tubing shape, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. Aesthetically, I hate the hideous crap they are making now.
However, try to imagine how traditionalists felt when bikes like the Spaceliner came out. Now these are considered great classics.
Over time, unfortunately and often for economic reasons, great features can be removed or modified, and, as time passes, the degraded feature/innovation (i.e., straight forks, no fenders/racks/lights, racing bikes or mountain bikes for town riders) becomes part of the definition of the technology in popular consciousness.
Even a resurgence (driven either by nostalgia, a market-based need for aesthetic freshness, or even practicality) can see these new versions without these useful or beautiful features.
Yes, as I get older, I see the problem of having much of the design work of our society done by young people. You can see this in the "new" bike designs on design blogs. Despite an aging population and an increasing social need and desire for practical town bikes, the "new" designs you see are almost invariably mountain bike designs with straight forks (mostly an aesthetic consideration, I guess), exposed chains for soiling and grinding up your pants, riding positions that have you looking at the ground or craning your neck to see straight ahead, etc., etc. Designers see themselves as bringing fresh rethinking of fundamental human-technology interfaces and innovative ideas. Yet what they mostly deliver is nothing new, or even anything old that's good, just, like futurism, an extrapolation of things that are bad about the present into an even more undesirable future.
Hmm. Somebody hasn't had his breakfast.