ricohman

I like and ride them both.
Although the new carbon bike is light years ahead of the older Marinoni in terms of comfort and road noise. And that Marinoni is still pretty loud paint wise.

Puget Pounder

I'm going to start a new thread once this one gets past the 1st page.

shadoman

That Meech is fantastic, buldogge !!!
I love the color combination ! That wide fork even looks good when it's a color other than black...

You're just egging him on...

gomango

If they all looked this great, there would be no quarrel.

Man, you have good taste.

....and where are the big pics on this forum?

It has a classic connection, so strut it already!

mixtemaniac

I'm sure you realize that all that "oversized" stuff is for performance not aesthetics?

Italuminium

I really doubt that a fat FSA crank is stiffer than a pretty alloy Super record one. Not in the domain of forces manageable by meager humans. And it looks fugly. Therefore, last gen alloy records take the cake for me, pretty, normal sized and usable with modern equipment and gearing choices.

rhm

I have no objection to modern materials and modern componentry, though I do agree they come up with some remarkably ugly gear. My real problem with 'modern' road bikes is the designer's inability to reexamine the basics of the design. I see no reason for such large wheels, for example; I'd love to try a modern road bike with the new Shimano 11-speed IGH, 20" wheels, and a BB low enough that it could have short cranks. Something interesting and innovative, not just a re-hash of the same bike they've been building for a century or more. A Moulton would be a good start. I just can't afford anything like that.

dbakl

Nothing wrong with new bikes, they just don't have any appeal to me. My wife rides a carbon fibre wonderment and she loves it. And I can claim to not knowing how to work on it!

I've always said, owning something new just requires a credit card; using something old and cool requires a little more effort. I'm still riding the stuff I rode when I started riding. I certainly have the means to buy something new, but I'm still in love with these old things...

Honestly, I don't pay much attention to new stuff.

dbakl

Here's what I don't understand: I thought the sloping top tube was designed to get the bars higher. Yet I look at the Specialized and the bars are no higher than if the top tube was level. Seems frame should be bigger. And the foot of seatpost just looks awkward to me.

Its really about making 3 frames sizes rather than 6.

Do you have any trouble climbing on and off the Maronni?

The increased length and leverage of the seatpost can't be an effective design decision.

dbakl

Bad accident, wacky repairs? I'd love to know what design flaw they thought they were solving with that...

gridplan

Improved handling owing to the shorter wheelbase.

embankmentlb

That is not the reason for a sloping top tube. Its just a different design allowed by long mtb seat posts. All contact points should be in the same positions regardless.

dbakl

OK, now I see it.

Yeah, quicker, squirrelier, I guess it depends on your definition of "improved". Quite a complex solution compared to a curved tube or two smaller tubes as a seat tube that the tire passes through. (Rigi?)

OK, seems unnecessarily stress inducing.

wrk101

Its a Quintana Roo Aerial. When I bought it the bike was set up as a tri-bike, with tri-bars, barcons, etc. I pulled the DA brifters out of my parts stash, along with the Ritchey bar and matching stem.

JunkYardBike

Looks like a dedicated tri-bike frame given the reverse sloping top tube. Judging by your stem angle and bar height, seems a level or upward sloping top tube would be more suitable. But I'm sure you know that.

atmdad

I like them...



They both have a fairly comparable ride. The Giant is the "relaxed geometry" and not the twitchy race geometry you see alot of the weekend warriors out on. The Giant is noticeably stiffer particularly when i'm climbing out of the saddle. The modern 10 speed drivetrain provides many more gear ratios so that I can find the perfect combo to keep up a nice cadence. Since I have swapped out the 5 speed to a 7 speed freewheel on the Miyata I can get nicer cadence gearing. The Giant is the goto bike if my plan is get out and hammer and/or I know my route is going to have a fair amount of climbing. The Miyata I take out for cruising around and heading up and down the coast at a moderate pace. The Miyata has a coolness factor since there are not to many older steel bikes out in my area. I can admit that the graphics on the Giant are gaudy, but I get past that quickly when I get on the saddle and start pumping down the road.

JohnDThompson 

I thought it was for "billboard space."

Paul01

The point of this thread was the look of traditional bikes and everyone who reads BF knows that CF cures cancer and athletes foot.

JohnDThompson 

Try telling that to UCI. They control what a racing bike looks like, and the marketing departments for the manufacturers have decided to let the appearance of racing bikes drive the appearance of their mid to high end road bikes.

JohnDThompson 

Frame design depends on the intended purpose of the bike and also current fashion. Criterium bikes were felt to need short wheel bases, thus the profusion of designs to accommodate this fashion. And Rigi wasn't the first to use a split seat tube to shorten the wheel base. British builders has made such frames decades before the Rigi appeared. Builders often used design features like this to set themselves apart from other builders, regardless of the extra effort involved in executing the designs. The British split seat tube frames were built during a time when when an unimpeded chain line was felt to be important, and internal gear hubs were widely used in racing then to allow the straightest possible chain line with the fewest possible contortions (Campy addressed the chain line issue in a different manner with their infamous "Cambio Corsa" system). The Rigi appeared at a much later date when derailleurs had become firmly established in racing. As a result, Rigis require a special front derailleur (from Gian Robert); this wasn't a concern with the earlier iterations of this design.

Modern bikes are not immune to this; "stiffness" is a compelling fashion issue in bikes these days, with designs favoring sloping top tubes, oversize frame members, straight fork blades, and radial spokes. I fully expect these features will also be regarded as quaint in the future.

canyoneagle

Whoah. sky hoods.

I always thought that QR was primarly into triathalon stuff, and, by the steep seat tube angle and 24" (?) wheels, this appears to be a re-purposed tri bike ??

*EDIT* Just noticed the post below confirming the tri bike

canyoneagle

sure, I'll play, even though the topic gets kicked up once a month, it seems.

I love high-end lugged steel for its aesthetics and its ride, whether modern or vintage.
At present, my only C&V ride is a modern build (using classic-styled components and an IGH) on a 1983 frame that I had completely refurbished, so it is essentially a new build.
My commuter is a modern steel-framed, belt-driven IGH bike with discs.



I've been an anti-carbon guy for years now, but have come around, and wouldn't mind having something like this as a full custom frame with road race/Gran Fondo geometry and Campagnolo Record.



I still get a bit freaked out with carbon, but also acknowledge that much of my distrust is unfounded. I still am very leery of carbon steerer tubes, stems and bars.

I generally dislike the vast majority of the mass-produced CF bikes - I think they are ugly, and I'd far prefer titanium, stainless or top-end Chromoly.

I am repulsed by Shimano's new (7900/6700) cranksets. I think I just vomited in my mouth a little just thinking about it. At least they fixed their STI shifters to be not AS fugly and corrected the cable routing.

happytramp

Hmmm lets take a look. Case in point... Pinarello






It's as if someone showed Michael Bay a classic bicycle and asked to re-imagine it as a horrible pile of crap guaranteed to upset all it original fans.

mazdaspeed

Not trying to make this personal but if you don't care about racing or performance for whatever reason that's fine, but it doesn't make stiffness a 'fashion issue'. You obviously haven't listened to interviews with veteran pros talking about vintage versus modern bikes, they invariably cite frame stiffness as a performance improvement.

Seems like there are a lot of slow old dudes on this forum that simply can't (or refuse to) appreciate the performance of modern bikes

Chombi

I concur, nothing looks remotely elegant on that Assymetrical, lumpy looking Pinarello....blehhhh......
the large graphics seem to just be an attempt to distract the eye from all the fugliness....blechhh....
The 80's were the last time we saw such clean and graceful lines on bikes.

JMOs

Chombi