All them bikes in that last post are fakes.

Nothing that good tbh, let me get some pics of my Five! 😀

Love Ringo’s (what is it?), the Blacksheep and that pink Singular looks spot on, too.

So what’s bike pron then? Being delicious? Over the top expensive? Exclusive? Rare? Exotic?
Probably craftsmanship, attention to detail, ingenuity and aestethics play a role.
Unattainability even? And yes, nice pictures help to appreciate it.

And is bike pron what you necessarily want to have in your shed? I don’t know, I like the pictures but I don’t necessarily want to live with them every day and here’s probably a parallel to the real pron. 🙂
What I like though is that some people can still build them and that some people spend their money on it and even ride them. For us all to admire them (the bikes) and to share the enthusiasm for them.

So the picture below is not meant to be bike pron but it’s probably the Cindy Crawford of my bike youth:

Germans Team Ultrastrong (the yellow stuff is solder, it’s fillet brazed, blasted and then clear coated)

All them bikes in that last post are fakes.

cheap chinese copies, just like them bikes of yours 🙂

uuuuhhhh, a little thick make-up but definitely bike pron

and the bike from next door that could win a beauty contest any time

cheap chinese copies, just like them bikes of yours

Mine are all copies of cheap chinese copies. 😀

Hock how long is that stem on the specialneeds ?

Mine are all copies of cheap chinese copies

i’m jealous now 😥

voluptuous 50s bike pin-up

Hock how long is that stem on the specialneeds ?

too long for my back nowadays… 😐

there is something quite lovely about that white stumpjumper.

(ignoring the stem obviously)

do we mean ‘porn’? – or do we mean ‘beautiful’?

porn is something you wouldn’t show your mother.

beauty is audrey hepburn.

(i’ve been drinking chimay – i may not be making much sense)

mines one of them fake indy fabs 🙂

(this) Serotta = pron
the Stumpi = beautiful (despite the dodgy stem)

mines one of them fake indy fabs

I think theyre all fakes

So what’s bike pron then? Being delicious? Over the top expensive? Exclusive? Rare? Exotic?
Probably craftsmanship, attention to detail, ingenuity and aestethics play a role.
Unattainability even? And yes, nice pictures help to appreciate it.

For me bike porn is exclusive, rare, exotic, superior craftsmanship and basically everything you have mentioned there except OTT expensive. Reason being that you can buy a custom steel hardtail from any of the manufacturers mentioned in this thread quite easily for what you would pay for a good full sus bike now. i tend to ride hardtails most of the time and keep the full sus for the trail centres so hardtails do it for me. A lot of people on here would think nothing of dropping £3k on an off the peg full sus bike and i’m sure you can buy a custom hardtail for that.

OP pic 3, I just had a “welding” moment….

so, I’ve always wanted an Indy Fab Deluxe, but doubt I’ll ever buy one.
where do you get the fakes? how do they differ?

Anyone with an EWR OWB! There’s niche for you!

Sofaking imports the fakes, email him for more details

Seeing as we’re allowing custom fillet brazed British steel, here’s a ’94 Dave Yates Swamp Donki. One of his Donkis Nobs with longer top tube and custom mounts for the old Hope mechanically actuated disks. 2×8 gearing and short cage mech another future prediction.

Right by nick3216, on Flickr

These days I mainly ride this

It just works by nick3216, on Flickr

Obviously what floats a persons boat is totally subjective, but these bikes strike me as being akin to a jag e-type replica in a world of ferrari 458s and 911 turbos.

More Lotus 7s in a world of Monster trucks. Many of these bikes are the result of years of riding, and while they may not be as flash and expensive as an off the peg full susser built up with bling parts the “performance advantage” of which you speak depends on the use to which you’re putting them. And some of the riders don’t need skill compensating travel and wide bars and stannah shorelift trails to get their kicks.

porn doesn’t all have to be all brash Jemma Jameson in perspex heels.

I’d like to give Sofaking’s Phil Wood 29er a good spanking

Can’t seem to post images on my iPad but I would have thought stuff like this is more bike porn than ordinary pictures of ordinary looking bikes that cost extraordinary amounts of money.

http://www.thefancy.com/things/283752327/Titan-Luxe-Track-Stem
http://www.thefancy.com/things/245430033/Montante-Maserati-8CTF
http://www.thefancy.com/things/283771253/Fast-Boy-Cycles-Custom-Bicycle

when i saw that serotta t max,a little bit of wee came out 😳 😀

nick3216 –
short cage mech another future prediction.

We were running road mechs in 1988.

And some of the riders don’t need skill compensating travel and wide bars and stannah shorelift trails to get their kicks.

Ha ha…need to justify your choice? Steve Peat needs skill compensation then?

Ha ha…need to justify your choice? Steve Peat needs skill compensation then?

Ha, your inferiority complex is showing.

At least I have the skills and confidence to make that choice. I don’t have to justify it to myself never mind Internet keyboard warriors. And indeed, sometimes I do ride wide bars and longer travel. My world is not black and white.

Steve Peat uses those things to enhance his already not inconsiderable skill. I remember him riding and beating people in a narrow barred Kona hardtail though. What a fatuous non-sequitur you raise.

Wow that black sheep stuff looks gopping!

At least I have the skills and confidence to make that choice.

Good job cos that hunter thing is bloody hideous. Looks like a wolfhound having a shit. Did you get those wheels for free? 😀

Hmmm, I just don’t get it.

Bikes can be nice looking, or ugly. The name that is written on the downtube and how nice they look are not related IMO. So then it’s just brand snobbery. You can talk about the time invested and what not, but an off the shelf (top end) FS bike has had far more man hours put into it’s design than virtually any custom made hardtail.

For me bike porn is exclusive, rare, exotic, superior craftsmanship

Something like a Scott Scale 899 fits that bill. Does that count? Or does it not have a cool enough name on the downtube? If a Stumpjumper counts (which fitted none of the criteria when new) will the 899 count in 15 years? What changes in that time? It gets a bit older.

It all seems a bit “I’m going to swoon over this because I feel I should”.

What’s the point in having a fake IF?
It’s not like a gucci handbag – surely the point in ownership is the craft and people that crafted it, not the stickers!

Anyway – here’s mine. Still haven’t taken new photos nearly 8 years on…

Shame about the brake mounts on the forks, but hey

Hmmm, I just don’t get it.

clearly. its as much about all of the above mentioned factors and having a bike made for you specifically as opposed to a general off the peg bike. Seems we’re gettting away from the original topic here though. plenty of people saying they dont get it and these bikes look ordinary. Go look at something else then.

How many times have you heard about angles being tweeked year after year. A custom builder will do that for you first time around and its 9 times out of ten perfect.

Aah, I see, so people are posting things that aren’t cool enough to be in your ‘club’, which is skewing it.

I didn’t say they looked ordinary, I said that it seems slightly odd that people are getting all excited about something because of what it says on the downtube. If all the bikes in this thread were totally unbranded how many of them would be of interest?

How many times have you heard about angles being tweeked year after year. A custom builder will do that for you first time around and its 9 times out of ten perfect.

But there is no panacea, it’s not a case of ‘getting it right’ – or there would only be one bike design. A custom builder can design to your spec, and IME all the custom bikes I’ve seen look pretty awful, generally with 2ft of head tube or sommat, so presumably owners feel they have to pursue that avenue as they’re too freaky to ride off the shelf.

Or… custom builders feel they have to do things radically different to the off the shelf manufacturers as you’d be a bit peeved if you went to a custom builder and got a Specialized replica at 5x the cost.

Seems we’re gettting away from the original topic here though. plenty of people saying they dont get it and these bikes look ordinary. Go look at something else then.

The thread title is bike porn, people are disagreeing with your definition. Very defensive aren’t we. You basically admit in the OP that i’s not about how the bike looks it’s about the name on it.

So then it’s just brand snobbery.

Basically. If people feel good about having a ‘special’ bike then why not I suppose – I just wish they would be a bit more honest with themselves about the reasoning behind it.

lol getting head angles tweaked, frame builders building what you want etc.

People don’t know what they want, they know what they like.

A lot of people were set in a mind set with old school geometry a few years ago and would have happily carried on with steep head angles etc, except the industry including the likes of Brant etc tried new things and everyone is now benefiting from their ideas and test bikes.

So its typically that someone wants something unique, but that rides no different from your average Taiwanese frame.

Sofaking imports the fakes, email him for more details

i am too busy now and handed over my import franchise to the tollah. ring him or email him and he will sort you out

What’s the point in having a fake IF?

it almost rides like a real one, or so ive heard 😕
well the few ive owned do anyway.

I thought my IF was real until the flaws were pointed out to me

yeah they are not easy to spot from the real thing

Shame about the brake mounts on the forks, but hey

never mind the brake mounts what about your lawn!

Anyway – here’s mine. Still haven’t taken new photos nearly 8 years on…

are you sure thats real ?