Toespeas

my philosophy lately is basically staying away from anything brand new , some of these bike companies are trying everything to drive the cost of a bike up , specialized has bikes that cost 13,000 for a road bike with a stupid dampener , WTF , bike companies should be driving the cost of bikes down using trickle down technology , thats what shimano does and they sell tons of parts because the cost is always coming down for the performance you get , trek is biggest offender that abandon their best bike designs in favor of the new shiney POS that doesn't even function as well , all these bike companies should be supporting their frame designs that work , you will find more people on the older used frames than on brand new ones , more people buying used than buying new , bike companies just dont understand how to sell bikes , whats worse is they have tools to see what works because people are still riding their old stuff and make new stuff that doesn't use what works and make an entire line of bikes with flaws , then get terrible feedback until they change it back to what worked 2 years later , so dumb and so wasteful

Clyde1820

Yes.

The HeadShok and steerer tube approach that Cannondale took. (Had one and, while nice enough, it made after-market fixes later on a cast-iron pain.)

Oddball shapes on the seat tube. For the same reason as above.

A new "standard" that only a tithe of the world's "major" manufacturers currently support. I'd absolutely wait until it became yet another mainstream alternative that had widespread support ... and, thus, options for me to select parts based on that "standard."

jlockwood98

I recently sold a Specialized mtb because they no longer would service the shock/brain on a 5 year old bike. There was a third party company that did it, but with shipping the wait time was over a month.

When looking for a new gravel bike recently, I purposely avoided Trek and Specialized because of their proprietary "suspension" parts. No thanks.

I won't even buy wheels that have proprietary spokes. Several times I had to wait a month or more for the shop to try to locate and obtain the correct spokes.

Sy Reene

Not sure even about seatpost.. if proprietary you have to live with whatever setback your size bike comes stock with. And not just the stem also is an issue, more bikes with full proprietary 1-piece cockpits (eg. Canyon Ultimate etc).. you're stuck with single combo size of stem + handelbar width; including inability to flop the stem to change the angle. Makes the idea of going and getting a professional fit kinda pointless.

ClydeClydeson

Mentioned above: SPecialized suspensions that do not use parts from common manufacturers. They've been doing this since they had their own version of the Rockshox Mag21 in the early 90s.

Also, I was watching le Tour yesterday, and many/most of the pro riders seem to have standard round seatposts. Who are they making the aero seatposts for?

Also a potential pain in the ass (PPITA) are the bikes with built-in seat masts that must be cut to match the rider. "I'd love to sell you my two year old high-end bike, but you're a cm taller than me so it won't work."

fietsbob

I've gotten service after the sale from the Bike Friday Company.