TimmyT 

I'm not fussy, but vintage French bikes can be a real pain to work on. Also, anything with top tube cable clips is a pill to portage across an un-ridable surface --- I'm thinking of instances where you would need to hoist your bike onto your shoulder.

Michael Angelo 

Oh, and the NEXT brand pretty much SUX.

RobbieTunes

I was set up by a '75 Pug mixte, that rehabbed very well.
I then began a 3-year fight with about an '84 and it won.
So, no Pugs for me, but loathe? Nope. Respect and detest.
They made surprisingly balanced and accurate bikes for the price.

auchencrow

There are a lot of reasons why any stodgy C&V guy like me should dislike c'dales.

Big fat tubes.
Aluminum.
No lugs.
Irreplaceable brake housing guides that can break.
Some non-traditional, "look at me" paint jobs.

I rehabbed this bike for sale, but it instantaneously joined my stable in the first 25 feet of the road test. I was amazed at how responsive it was, how well it climbed, and how it did not have any of the harshness you would expect from aluminum.

...Must be the steel fork.

kaliayev

I guess everyone has a different perspective. The C'dale I owned was incredibly harsh and I'll never own another.

daf1009

Any brand that is bought because of marketing...

Probably...Trek, Cannondale, Specialized, Giant...the big volume names...when you go to a ride with others...95% of the bikes come from one of those four...I like being the "non-conformist"...even though I may be on a Pinarello...

trailmix

[QUOTE=auchencrow;16398636]There are a lot of reasons why any stodgy C&V guy like me should dislike c'dales.

Big fat tubes.
Aluminum.
No lugs.
Irreplaceable brake housing guides that can break.
Some non-traditional, "look at me" paint jobs.

I rahabbed this bike for sale, but it instantaneously joined my stable in the first 25 feet of the road test. I was amazed at how responsive it was, how well it climbed, and how it did not have any of the harshness you would expect from aluminum.

...Must be the steel fork.



I totally agree. For me there is nothing better than an 80s Cannondale with a Tange fork but some people can't stand them. To each their own I suppose. Nice bike!



As for bikes that I hate Specialized, Giant, Trek, NewCannondale.

vitaly66

Not a fan of Velo Orange, mostly on aesthetic grounds I guess. Their stuff looks overtly faux and cheezy.

Phil_gretz

Had one. It was my first 10-speed. The braking wes shockingly bad at speed. I still enjoyed riding it (I didn't know any better), and I learned a lot from that experience.

I'm not sure that I have a brand that I don't like, but I don't like stamped steel cantilever brakes, really low-end suspension forks, or one-piece non-Ashtabula cranksets. This all translates in my loathing the bottom-of-the-barrel MTBs that members of my church family bring to me to recondition so that they can ride once a year. A frustrating waste of my time, but I'm compelled to help them graciously. Conflicted...

There, I said it.

a77impala

Any bike made in China and rebranded with US company logo. Also any Specialized, they are all rebranded. I
prefer USA made bikes so am restricted to older used ones as my finances don't permit new ones.

dweenk

I'm kinda "meh" on Pugeot. My brother-in-law had a UO-8 many years ago that looked like it was painted by a child. I blamed it on the price point of the model until I saw a PX-10 with the same crappy paint job. That said, I'd still buy one if the price was right.

pastorbobnlnh 

I was worried for a while there. I was convinced it was going to be "Presbyterians" because after all I've personally found my own national organizational "brand" rather annoying for the past several years.

But our beloved Schwinns! Horrors!!!!! And Cannondales!!! The irrationality of it all!

You know, irrational hate is just the opposite of irrational love. Both don't always make sense!

Since I'm late to this thread, I've only read through the first 25 posts before responding (still need to go back and read the rest). Since my name was mentioned in vain at the beginning of this tirade I had to respond. Here goes. I'll do it with a picture and it is more "model" then "brand" specific. I irrationally loath----



I mean, what's the point!?! Corn cob gearing, short cage RD's, short reach brakes, proprietary shifters, pricey, pricey, pricey, just for the name! And a few less grams! Sheeeesh! Give me a break! And something practical like a freewheel with a 14-34 range, a clunky long cage RD that can handle a 26T granny, and heavy centerpull calipers which can stop my oversized body!

SJX426 

I "loathe" the extreme expression of subjective opinons about inanimate objects. I have discovered pockets of goodness in what I previously thought was crap! At the same time, if the crap wasn't there, the discovery wouldn't be as much fun! Learning to open my mind to possibilities of enjoyment is liberating! I really don't loathe anything anymore, focusing on what i do and can value is more satisfying and is good use of my mental energy.

KonAaron Snake 

I loathe lamp.

rando_couche

+1 There are a lot of overrated bikes, but those aren't worth the trouble of loathing.

SP
OC, OR

rootboy 

If it wasn't for bad bikes, good bikes wouldn't look nearly so good.

osteoclast

Wisdom.

Rocket-Sauce 

well biked

Like some others, I'm not sure I really loathe or hate any brand, but there are a few that come to mind that I don't like a whole lot for one reason or another.

Maybe at the top of the list for me would be Cannondale, and not because of how they're made, how they ride, etc. What bothers me about the brand is remembering how well they seemed to be doing in selling bicycles during the late '90's and early 2000's, and during this same time period hearing about them developing a motorcycle line. It was amusing at first, then intriguing, and then you'd read that maybe it's not such a good idea, then you'd read that they had better be careful, then it came out that they had spent millions upon milllions of dollars from the bicycle division to try and develop this motorcycle that might never make it to market. Next thing you know they were bankrupt or bought out, or both. The stupidity of it really made a bad impression on me, I thought they had a really cool thing going with their bicycle company. Seeing what the industry has become in recent years among the big American brands, big changes would have undoubtedly come around anyway, but something about that failed motorcycle venture and the original owners losing control of the company soured my image of Cannondale from that point forward.

Ironically, I'll always have a soft spot for Schwinn, which also made dumb business decisions and put themselves into bankruptcy. Probably because I rode Schwinns as a teenager and younger adult, and that's the association with the brand I choose to remember.

Fahrenheit531 

I don't have enough time in the saddle to have real opinions yet. I'm still approaching things on a bike-by-bike basis. But I'm reading this thread with real interest, because a) it's entertaining as heck, and b) little gems like iab's 4-word summation and auchencrow's Cannondale epiphany are really cool.

Keep 'em coming! Subjective is fun!

Rocket-Sauce 

We all have our tribes that we are loyal to.

I don't understand the love for the electroforged Schwinn boat anchors. Can't say I loathe them, but I will admit to having looked down on them as not "real" bikes.

I can dig the funky 60s and 70s psychedelic colors, but they were heavy! And you could get them at the department store! Or even at the hardware store!

As we all know, REAL bikes were only available at a real bike shop. Preferably, a shop staffed by a crusty old Italian (or French) guy with heavily callused hands wearing an apron.

A Campy apron.

browngw 

I feel like a curmudgeon today. Any bike name or part thereof that ends in a vowel including "y". eg."campy", pinarello, et al.

Bandera

No loathing but a communal groan would go up in the shop when a truck arrived at the back door with a load of sagging, misshaped & battered shipping cartons w/ "Peugeot" on them. They would eventually emerge as fully functional bicycles but it was Purgatory to get them in that condition after the intercontinental battering they endured in shipping cartons that might make it across town if handled like eggshells.

I wouldn't care for a classic Peugeot today for the same reason one doesn't drink the potion that produced one's 1st hangover.
"Erp", can't go there.

-Bandera

repechage

I think you need to expand on that. I think the loathsome character in the Confente drama is probably William (Bill) Recht, the original financier of Custom bicycles by Confente and Medici. I do admit to owning a few. As bikes go they do get attention, might be overpriced but there are other brands that can capture just as much monetary attention.

repechage

The Peugeots that arrived to the West Coast in the 70's went together really fast and were well protected, they used a version of shrink wrap to encapsulate the bike that was quite thick, the challenge was removing that safely, after that they were one of the bikes that if you had a system down, you could assemble in under 20 minutes. The equal Gitane of the time was a disaster by comparison, and it helped to have extra foil graphics on hand to make the bike not appear as a battered youngster. Those bikes also almost always needed the chain wheels to be trued, that was a pain.