If you want to talk about functional what-work-ism, surely that honour goes to Surly? Most of their bikes are as about as glamourous as a pair of beige socks.
Yep, I’d agree with that. However, as a company Surly are also prepared to do slightly crazy things like build and sell Pugsley or Big Dummy frames so there is a reasonable amount of innovation at work. Maybe not innovation in the sense of ideas being brand new, but they are bring these ideas to the market at a price point that other companies are not.
I have to say I am a bit of a Surly fan. No, their products aren’t flashy, but they’re well built, not too expensive, they work and they should last for ever (unless you crash them into something hard at speed!). And some of their staff are complete nutters, which is nice.