Arriving at road.cc in 2017 via 220 Triathlon Magazine, Jack dipped his toe in most jobs on the site and over at eBikeTips before being named the new editor of road.cc in 2020, much to his surprise. His cycling life began during his students days, when he cobbled together a few hundred quid off the back of a hard winter selling hats (long story) and bought his first road bike - a Trek 1.1 that was quickly relegated to winter steed, before it was sadly pinched a few years later. Creatively replacing it with a Trek 1.2, Jack mostly rides this bike around local cycle paths nowadays, but when he wants to get the racer out and be competitive his preferred events are time trials, sportives, triathlons and pogo sticking - the latter being another long story.
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6 comments
Trends come and go. Basic single colours, minimalistic or bold but simple logos/lettering and simple frame design are always in.
Amazing it’s taken the mainstream bike industry 30 years to figure out that bikes don’t require ugly stickers and stripes and multi-color tones. You don’t see the car industry doing that so where did it all come from circa 1988?
The latest from the likes of specialized, trek, Kona, etc are looking tasteful indeed.
Because for the most part the car industry brands are pretty established and the manufacturers try their best to ensure their own cars have distinguishing designs to make them recognizable.
Having said that, while cars don't generally have branding stickers everywhere, the manufacturers badges suddenly increased in size 15 years or so ago - compare a Ford badge from an old Sierra with that from a current Focus.
Bikes however all look very similar, with far fewer options to distinguish the a brand in the design of the bike, leaving only the paint to inform people of what brand they are looking at.
It takes a confident bike brand to make their decals more subtle - something that until recently tended to be the smaller niche manufacturers, which is perhaps a bit strange, but then the subtle aesthetic was often one of their big selling points.
I think you’ll find that custom respray companies like Fat Creations and Kustomflow have 12 month plus waiting lists because a hell of a lot of riders don’t want a bike that looks bland these days. Bright colours and logos are in high demand now. Bland and black is dead and manufacturers are starting to shift away at last. Looks like Scott are a wee bit behind the times now.
These are lovely
Really love those gumwall tyres. Funny how things come around if you wait long enough...