Bike appearance vs quality ride....?

Now we’ve had a debate all morning about this issue especially this bike. We got a Project One bike with custom paint and the bike build is awesome and very expensive but the color is not everyone’s cup of tea. What is everyone’s opinion of this?
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Danmtchl said:
Now we’ve had a debate all morning about this issue especially this morning. We got a Project One bike with custom paint and the bike build is awesome and very expensive but the color is not everyone’s cup of tea. What is everyone’s opinion of this? View attachment 48397
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Green or blue bar tape would improve it. Not bad, but not worth my $$$ for a Project One paint job. I prefer this
E19DEAF2-69E7-43E4-ACAE-42E188485662.jpeg

Which cost $600 out the door in 2007.
 
Danmtchl said:
Now we’ve had a debate all morning about this issue especially this morning. We got a Project One bike with custom paint and the bike build is awesome and very expensive but the color is not everyone’s cup of tea. What is everyone’s opinion of this? View attachment 48397
Click to expand...

Perfect for a road bike. Loud paint will hopefully increase your visibility to motorists .

That paint scheme on a MTB, not my thing.
 
BigTex said:
Quality ride, to a point. Can't ride an ugly bike, tho. Just picked up a Giant Revolt gravel bike, and it's black. Not ugly, just black. I'm tired of black bikes (I now have five, and all but one are all or mostly black). But my options to get the spec I wanted were any color I want as long as it's black. This is one of the things that really annoys me about bike manufacturers - make a frame in several different colors, but only one color per spec, no getting this frame color with that spec. So now looking at some ways to add some color - bar tape, pedals, maybe even some vinyl to add some splashes of whatever color.
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But if they are all black, the new one looks the same as the old one to my wife :whistling:
 
Danmtchl said:
Now we’ve had a debate all morning about this issue especially this morning. We got a Project One bike with custom paint and the bike build is awesome and very expensive but the color is not everyone’s cup of tea. What is everyone’s opinion of this? View attachment 48397
Click to expand...
IMO, road bikes should be as loudly colored as possible to provide a visual statement to our foolish fellow automobile drivers with whom we share the road.

I like the color scheme. :thumbsup:
 
Danmtchl said:
Now we’ve had a debate all morning about this issue especially this morning. We got a Project One bike with custom paint and the bike build is awesome and very expensive but the color is not everyone’s cup of tea. What is everyone’s opinion of this? View attachment 48397
Click to expand...

Fade looks great. Rider needs to be fast though, or will look like a bit of poseur.

kazlx said:
But if they are all black, the new one looks the same as the old one to my wife :whistling:
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This is brilliant! But what do you tell her when they start having babies?
 
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mike said:
Roger. Downtube shifters will always have a piece of my heart. Same with quill stems. Pass the Geritol, eh...
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I’ve got a vintage road bike with down tube shifters, quill stem too. With orig Suntour build. It’s a Raleigh Supercourse. I bought it right before the ‘84 Olympics! I’ve had that bike 35 years!!! Take some of that Geritol, and pass it down
 
MolarM said:
I’ve got a vintage road bike with down tube shifters, quill stem too. With orig Suntour build. It’s a Raleigh Supercourse. I bought it right before the ‘84 Olympics! I’ve had that bike 35 years!!! Take some of that Geritol, and pass it down
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You're really letting out the ghosts, Mike. :thumbsup: I have not heard that model name uttered in decades.

My first bikepacking buddy owned one...14 year olds getting psyched on getting away from parents. I inherited my dad's Nishiki "American Eagle" in '74 and rode it hard. Suntour pantograph-design shifting was somewhat novel outside of high end, and it worked so well. It had to if you had any hope of getting your shifts down with no trimming. Dialing it in on downtube shifters was a bit of an art – one lost to indexed shifter years later. As you know! :)
 
well that escalated quickly.jpg

I'm going to blame you guys for this one......
After reminding me that I still didn't have a Whyte PRST1 in my life I decided to have a look round again at what was out there. They come up occasionally but are either pretty flogged out or go for drug money. A quick look on evilbay showed two for sale, one looking pretty tired with a battered frame and the other looking tidy(ish) but going for drug money. I did the responsible thing and decided to watch them to see where the market was at (just for research wifey, honest).
Anyway a couple of days later and the drug money one has been chopped in price by nearly a third..... I take a closer look at the ad and find a few things, firstly its not a complete bike, its got completely mismatched componentry (campag crankset, SRAM wheels etc) and the seller admits he has no idea what its worth. Anyway remembering forgiveness is easier than permission I got in touch with him and made a ridiculous offer. The dude writes back in 5 minutes and accepts...... :poop:, now I have to tell the wife what I've done :Roflmao after explaining my bargain of the year (and signs she is definitely a good 'un) I get a high five in response.

Anyway I present to you the sinfully ugly Whyte PRST1!
IMG_0345.jpg
A quick bit of history about this rather bizarre machine. The design was drawn up by two blokes stuck in an airport riding out a typhoon. Jon Whyte and Adrian Ward both had a Formula 1 background, they also designed Marins suspension at the time. The idea was to come up with a fork design that got round the limitations of the telescopic forks of the time (1997). They liked what they had and took the design to Marin, who turned it down. Not to be put off they created their own brand (Whyte) and the PRST1 was their first bike. Why PRST? Some people remarked that the design reminded them of Preston a robotic dog from the british film Wallace and Grommit.
preston.png

Heres a close up of that fork design for your amusement.
IMG_0346.jpg

Apparently they were working on a 6 linkage version of the fork design that even had tunable anti-dive properties when the Fox 32 Forx was first released and killed of any more development work.
The bike has some other pretty cool features considering when it first came about. The wheel quick release system is quite interesting. The hubs have these machined bobbins attached to the ends.
IMG_0342.jpg

The dropouts have this pretty naffly named quick release system.....
IMG_0344.jpg


Current plan is to slowly rebuild it over time. Hopefully all of the reviews I've read about the way this thing rides holds true.

Anyway, I think this confirms I'm a function over form guy :Roflmao
 
For me, it has always been value and function over looks.
I guess that is one reason I never bought a new bike.
Bikes are just tools. Eventually, they break or get replaced by something better.


I don't demo bikes either.....
I'm not sure why. I just never done it before.
I find a "used" bike that is my size with the right components. I try to negotiate, and if the deal is right I pull the trigger.
At times I wonder if it the right approach, but I can't see myself paying $1000 in sales tax for my "dream bike".
 
Lost Kiwi said:
View attachment 48553
I'm going to blame you guys for this one......
After reminding me that I still didn't have a Whyte PRST1 in my life I decided to have a look round again at what was out there. They come up occasionally but are either pretty flogged out or go for drug money. A quick look on evilbay showed two for sale, one looking pretty tired with a battered frame and the other looking tidy(ish) but going for drug money. I did the responsible thing and decided to watch them to see where the market was at (just for research wifey, honest).
Anyway a couple of days later and the drug money one has been chopped in price by nearly a third..... I take a closer look at the ad and find a few things, firstly its not a complete bike, its got completely mismatched componentry (campag crankset, SRAM wheels etc) and the seller admits he has no idea what its worth. Anyway remembering forgiveness is easier than permission I got in touch with him and made a ridiculous offer. The dude writes back in 5 minutes and accepts...... :poop:, now I have to tell the wife what I've done :Roflmao after explaining my bargain of the year (and signs she is definitely a good 'un) I get a high five in response.

Anyway I present to you the sinfully ugly Whyte PRST1!
View attachment 48554A quick bit of history about this rather bizarre machine. The design was drawn up by two blokes stuck in an airport riding out a typhoon. Jon Whyte and Adrian Ward both had a Formula 1 background, they also designed Marins suspension at the time. The idea was to come up with a fork design that got round the limitations of the telescopic forks of the time (1997). They liked what they had and took the design to Marin, who turned it down. Not to be put off they created their own brand (Whyte) and the PRST1 was their first bike. Why PRST? Some people remarked that the design reminded them of Preston a robotic dog from the british film Wallace and Grommit.
View attachment 48555
Heres a close up of that fork design for your amusement.View attachment 48556
Apparently they were working on a 6 linkage version of the fork design that even had tunable anti-dive properties when the Fox 32 Forx was first released and killed of any more development work.
The bike has some other pretty cool features considering when it first came about. The wheel quick release system is quite interesting. The hubs have these machined bobbins attached to the ends.
View attachment 48557
The dropouts have this pretty naffly named quick release system.....
View attachment 48558

Current plan is to slowly rebuild it over time. Hopefully all of the reviews I've read about the way this thing rides holds true.

Anyway, I think this confirms I'm a function over form guy :Roflmao
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For some reason that bike reminds me of a praying mantis...am I crazy here??
 
mike said:
Awesome, @Lost Kiwi :thumbsup: – thanks for the state of the art (from last century). :geek:

I gotta know what is this drug money you speak of. I sometimes have one but never both – I must be doing it wrong... :cool:
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Antipodean colloquialisms at play @mike. Drug money = expensive, Beer money = cheap. So to answer @Cyclotourist the asking price started out at drug money and I paid beer money (not quite a third of his initial asking price).

mountaingirl sara said:
For some reason that bike reminds me of a praying mantis...am I crazy here??
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The fork linkages kind of does make it look like it has arms reaching forward so I think I get what you mean :thumbsup: otherwise, no, your crazy :p
 
Lost Kiwi said:
Antipodean colloquialisms at play @mike. Drug money = expensive, Beer money = cheap. So to answer @Cyclotourist the asking price started out at drug money and I paid beer money (not quite a third of his initial asking price).


The fork linkages kind of does make it look like it has arms reaching forward so I think I get what you mean :thumbsup: otherwise, no, your crazy :p
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I’ll take that as a compliment ;):D
 
Lost Kiwi said:
Antipodean colloquialisms at play @mike. Drug money = expensive, Beer money = cheap. So to answer @Cyclotourist the asking price started out at drug money and I paid beer money (not quite a third of his initial asking price).


The fork linkages kind of does make it look like it has arms reaching forward so I think I get what you mean :thumbsup: otherwise, no, your crazy :p
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and here I was just thinking there were a lot of former mountain bikers turned tweakers in the UK, looking for a quick score...
 
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