Bike marketing ..model names and affect on choice ?

I've never bought anything from Gusset. It makes me think of a sweaty gooch.

Current bikes are called Sight and 141. Not exactly thrillingly evocative.

I always liked Charge Bikes naming, after kitchenalia.

I had a Charge Plug.

My wife and other women I ride with find the naming difference between Giant and Liv models almost offensive.

The Giant road bike is called DEFY. GRRR. BIG STRONG MAN WILL DEFY YOU.

The Liv version is the Avail. "Here, love, let me as a woman help you with that".

I also don't imagine many women ever bought a bike from Cove.

I ride an Evil, and their naming is obviously daft but it's tongue in cheek and I do listen to a decent amount of metal so I'm into it.

I don't think I've ever been positively influenced by a model name, though I've seen a few that might have put me off if I'd otherwise been interested in them.

A famous mountain biker with a big fish,
A walk in the hills or mountains, nearly 4000.
A chasm with a bundle of fibres made from neurons.
A winged vertebrate with the quantity of nothing.
Stimulated action to play old school computer games.
Word for distinctive name with a meaningless alpha numeric code.
A continental car race on an electrical railroad.

Bought Gusset grips because they were cheap, would buy again.

Handjob, Stiffee and Pompino are hardly manly names but are all real bikes. 🤣

Prince Albert, anyone?

My wife and other women I ride with find the naming difference between Giant and Liv models almost offensive.

I can't say I've ever been positively affected by a model name really.

When you browse through bike model names ( particularly the more expensive ones ) you will often notice a trend towards names that portray qualities such a “sporty”, aggressive, macho, adventure etc ..for obvious reasons .

Nowhere near as bad as the SUV / pickup truck market though!

Raptor, Ranger, Thunder, Defender.

****.

It would be interesting to devise an experiment where only the model name is changed to something dull/less aspirational.

Just buy the bike and change the name. My brother replaced the decals on his bike with a set from a Raleigh Budgie.

I also don’t imagine many women ever bought a bike from Cove.

One from here did and posted a pic - can't remember the details of cleverly re-jigged decals though

Nowhere near as bad as the SUV / pickup truck market though!

Or the the macho caravanning brigade in their Marauders, Conquerers, Firestorms.

Or the the macho caravanning brigade in their Marauders, Conquerers, Firestorms.

Oh, this. Way worse / funnier than bike names as they are so prominently displayed, either weidly macho or promising clealry outlandish levels of luxury. Seem to have adopted the style of 6 Star hotels in Dubai, but with a healthy dose of random numbering. The Swift Elegance Grande 845, anyone? Can't believe the family stuck on the A5 in Wales are experiencing any of those words. Maybe 845.

Or the the macho caravanning brigade in their Marauders, Conquerers, Firestorms.

There's a car game you can play with that, just put the word "Anal" in front of any caravan name and see how it works.

Passes the time on long motorway journeys.

Just add ‘anal’ in front of any caravan name.

Never think about/bothered by bike names.

Prince Albert, anyone?

Never stand next to someone who has a PA at a urinal

the wife loves her throbbing gristle 😕

In my garage we have reactor, cascade, process, pro carbon Evo, 2 marlins, a nucleus which is a female version. I don't think any are particularly macho, Reactor I suppose but not really.

If I combine the names of my Canyon road bike and my Specialized mountain bike, I have the Ultimate Chisel. 😂
Go me!

I’m surprised someone hasn’t called their massive child killing pick up truck the Penetrator yet.

There is a fire truck in the Phillipines called the Anos Penetrator. But they've updated the site and it won't let me show you it in all its glory.

I’m not keen on Nukeproof, stupid name. I have one despite it.
Some of the silly PX names, can’t remember now, coffee-agogo, and the cream egg one.
Edit- I do like the ‘you’re my wife now’ ones.

My bikes are named after:

A shotgun calibre
A massive tree
An alpine assistant
An inhabitant of Scottish mountains, or a film.
A number that looks like a word that is a trademarked name of another bike.

Couldn’t care less.

I do know some folk that get their knickers in a twist if a bike is named after military hardware though. 🤷

My favourite bike ever was named after w porn star.

My favourite bike ever was named after w porn star.

Chopper?

I have an Intense Sniper. Love the bike, hate the name, really don't like their gunny thing. If there had been anything comparable when I bought it I would have chosen the other.

Conversely, I actually avoided riding a Kona back in the day because I hated their naming conventions so much. They were so puerile, and I can’t imagine having to call my bike ‘stinky’.

I also hate ‘Nukeproof’ because it sounds like a name made up by a not-very-bright 13 year old.

I used to think the same about the Dogs Bollocks brand.

My favourite bike ever was named after a porn star.

Kobe Ti?

The anal caravan game is much better played with pickups these days.

Ranger, warrior...

I also hate ‘Nukeproof’ because it sounds like a name made up by a not-very-bright 13 year old.

I've always looked straight past all their stuff - I know the name, don't really know what bikes and bits they offer -  I've just assumed they have nothing to offer me.

It's not really the job of marketing to make you like stuff - really it's just to let you know if something is for you or not. Its a very short term strategy to encourage people to buy something thats not suited to them so if you don't like how something is marketed then it might be safe to assume you wouldn't like the thing either. So maybe Nukeproof stuff just isn't for me and thats fine.

My favourite bike ever was named after a porn star.

Kobe Ti?

Uncle John?

Hang on, it wasn't a Boris Bike was it?

[b]Raptor, Ranger, Thunder, Defender.[/b]

You forgot the Mitsubishi Walloper

"Kobe Ti"

Yep, I bought Mike's off him. I still have the frame but unsure what to do with it.

The only bike I'm keen to test ride any time soon is called HB.916

Sounds like a pencil.

I once saw a BSO mountain bike called the Margherita Pro. Talk about total non associative naming, Margherita was odd but Pro?!?!

I always thought the ultimate test of this was the whole Cove sex-acts naming protocol. Kind of like a short-lived drunken joke that you could never get rid of. Personally I didn't really want to own a bike called a Stiffee or a Handjob or a Hummer, no matter how nicely it rode. It always felt like it marked the owner out as someone whose sense of humour was trapped in late adolescence and considered Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure as some sort of cultural pinnacle.

Then again, I'm sure actual owners - and I knew a fair few - just filtered the whole thing out after a week or two. or until the inevitable 'Nice bike, what is it?' moment when you bumped into the local vicar. Or your mate's mum.

But Cove aside, I've never really been bothered by bike names. Or caravan ones, though Marauder makes me smile. Someone must have had a lot of fun naming caravan models back in the day.

Maybe we should find out what Pompino and Uncle John are really named for...

Does Brant, Brant, Brant still work?

APF

Cove naming - very tacky branding. The Lynx Africa of model names...

Could be the best bike in the world, but I’d still pass on owning the Pivot ‘Shadowcat’. Just sounds rubbish.

Most car and bike names are pretty cheesy to be fair. Saying that I always wanted a Karate Monkey or an El Mariachi because I liked the names. I’ve never thought about it too much though. Can’t say a name would put me off if the bike rode well. The exception being anything made by Specialized as they spell their own ****ing name wrong!

I like that Santa Cruz named a bike after a Police Academy character. More bike companies should do that…

A range named after Last of the Summer Wine characters would be great.
Compo for the DH…

PlanetX had a Compo model. Or was it On One?

I've got a Five, an X and a CR1 amongst others. Quite dull really.
Beargrease sounds odd but is at least named after something relevant.
Plasma, Rocket, Solaris and Escapade, nothing too weird there, El Mariachi sounds vaguely exotic.
I had a Stinky before the Rocket, one of Kona's more pronouncable ones. Kona means something rude in Portuguese.
I've also had an ASR-C, a PR6, a 6000, an XC100, an SL Pro, the whole numbers and letters thing seems to have fallen out of favour nowadays, the three which I have in that category are quite old

I'm not even completely sure what incomprehensible string of numbers my Orange is. It's a 222 Evo Evo Evo Evo I think.

You forgot the Mitsubishi Walloper

And the Trojan, which of course sounds (like all the others really) like a condom brand.

I had a Hummer, which you could sort of get away with as it was particularly Canadian. Then I married a Canadian...I have an Enduro, which of course Spesh were hoping they could monopolise and makes me sound like a wannabe, and Yeti ARC which I'm only waiting to hear is some unfortunate acronym. Anal Rectifying Component, or something amazingly dull like the Agricultural Resource Conference.

Came here to slag off the name Nukeproof, but been done already! so... pedantry instead!

supernova
I used to think the same about the Dogs Bollocks brand

Roberts was the brand. D.O.G.S.B.. etc was one of their frames.

To be fair to Roberts with the Dogs Bollox and Dave Yates with the Donkis Nob, iirc they were a jokey response to the various american brands with their wannabe nasa acronyms.

The Intense sniper/carbine etc. gun references all make we wince as bit as well. QBP brands all seemed to have cool names but of late they seem to be tripping themselves up with them.

Kraken
Terrago
MTB Team
Storm
Hybrid Team
Hack
45650b
Prophet
Pickenflick
Inbred
45650b
BigWig
Fortitide
Escapade
Contour
Pompino
AerisAM
Vandal

Literally zero of the bikes i have owned in the last 18 years have been bought because of the name.

Talking of names… don’t you have a full sus bike now? 😉

Bike names are HARD to come up with. Even harder than picking colours.