Here ya go:
http://www.competitivecyclist.com/ht...ad_riding.html

Brad

Gahhh!:eek:..... I cant believe it, there is such a thing:eek:....I guess we can learn everyday!:thumb:

Chombi

While I like my frame size (61 cm), there is one exception. Very short wheelbase frames, like track bikes look weird.

Could be because I endoed a 58cm track frame while using the front brake and hitting a camoflaged pot hole. One broken elbow, and supershort wheelbase bikes in my size look dangerous.

Boy, are you guys missing the obvious. A bike's aesthetic beauty has nothing to do with the size; it's all in the quality of the build, nothing more. Pick one:

http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/a.../freehuffy.jpg

http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/a.../track2001.jpg

Point proven, thanks

Obviously, people tend to like the look of bikes in their size. Duh. But I don't believe that's what the OP was getting at when this question was posed.

Look at mens' shoes in shoe ads. The art directors who design these ads can choose any size shoe they want – but they all choose the same size: 8D. Why? Because, design-wise, that size shoe has the best proportion of height to length; visually, it makes all men's shoes look better.

It's the same way with bicycles. Visually, smaller bikes tend to have a better proportion of height to length. They "look" right. Large bikes look too tall, ungainly and unbalanced. They appear top-heavy. It's a design thing. If you're not an artist or a designer, you may well think what I'm saying is BS, but if you have a "good eye," you know what I'm talking about. You can like whatever you like, but in terms of design, smaller bikes look better. It's not subjective.

I was with you the entire way until this. It is still subjective. Designers just happen to use a standard. It's still subjective.

Er... I am an artist. (Maybe, I draw comic books and cartoons, and many a wall artist has insisted I'm not an artist). Your criteria are entirely subjective. There are many more factors than simply size that factor into aesthetics and balance. Look at the two bikes I posted above. Now tell me which one is more aesthetically pleasing. If you answered the Huffy, your eyes, good or not, are missing and you need to go look for them.

This entire argument is like saying a beautiful woman can only be a certain height. Having dated both women shorter and taller than me, I can say any assertion that height is a determining factor is pretty bogus. Admittedly, it was hard to find a woman taller than me...

A Motherwell can be aesthetically pleasing, as can a Durer. Just like if the Serotta were 48cm and the Huffy 62, their aesthetic would be entirely reversed.

Seriously, claiming that a "good eye" tells you smaller bikes are more aesthetic reminds me an awful lot of the snobbish wall artists who would try and tell me Jean Giraud couldn't draw and his pages were an abomination.

http://lambiek.net/artists/g/giraud/...futuristic.jpg

And they'll say the same about Carl Barks and countless others.

I'll send you an address where you can ship that.

Not to me, I have enjoyed his work very much, primarily moebius in Heavy Metal magazine.

Brad

On a classic double diamond non compact frame over 25in and under 52cm look odd. The sweet spot being 56-61cm If you scale a shorter bike on 24in or 26in wheels the visual is better.

i think blue bikes are definitely better than green bikes.

I've seen plenty of bikes that were both quality builds and aesthetically dysfunctional. Most any Rivendell, for example.


:innocent:

Can somebody post a Bike Friday, those things look totaly ridiculous. 20" wheels and a 4' seat tube. They remind me of clown bikes.

You make several very good points. Thank you. It seems to me that we are dealing with two categories of criteria: 1) By virtue of our environment, we have adopted a sense of what a bicycle is suppose to look like, i.e., an assumption; 2) From the point of view of more objective (if possible) analysis based on the "rules" of composition and what comparative size triangles and circles look best together.

I agree that this thread is totally pointless. However, it did get me thinking about the composition question.

It would not surprise me at all to learn that the main triangle/rear triangle ratio, on a 56-58 Cm bike, are in a proportion very close to Phi, or the Golden Mean. Just eyeballing it, they seem to be-- as does the ratio of wheel disc to main triangle.

I think 55 or 56 cm looks the best proportioned.
.
Lucky me! Thats exactly my size.
.

There sure are many sorts and sizes of beautiful women. I'd guess many women find several different body types of men agreeable as well.

Seems to me that bikes can have a similar range of aesthetically pleasing sizes...

http://i.imgur.com/wkZde.jpg

Tall is beautiful.

Here's the rub: "rules" of composition change depending on what you're doing. I've had this discussion with wall artists who fail to grasp comic books are laid out with a different set of underlying assumptions (wall artists tend to make awful comic book artists). They also shift over time.

And there are often other issues going on in aesthetic choice; it does not exist in a vacuum. Take New Yorker's assertion about the perfect shoe size. Having worked for more than one ad agency (mostly storyboarding) I can say that aesthetics are one of their very last considerations-- it's more about selling, and a big part of that is allowing people to imagine themselves using the product. Hence, you make the sizes of stuff very "average," because they will fit the highest number of people and the most folks can put themselves in the product. Simply sales, not aesthetic at all.

On bikes, I think we tend to find bikes our size most attractive, because one element (a very important one) of a bike's aesthetic quality is the ride. That is an aesthetic experience in and of itself, and if you can't ride it, you can't and don't get it. Pretty simple stuff.