If I get another FS, I think it will actually be a Transition. Just been eyeing up this Smuggler
I want a Spur. I'll never be able to afford one, but I want one just the same. 😁
Last Tarvo Acto5 and Ra, probably the best looking I've seen in person.
Raaw look great too.
Unno looked terrible.
New smuggler looks great. Shame about the price of a frame!
I like the look of my flaremax. Not neat and tidy with external cables but I like the skinny tubes look. If only I'd been more patient and got the gloss purple one.
Depends on your aesthetic I guess. I REALLY like skinny tubes and a form follows function look, so to my eye my bike looks great.
That Enve and Ohlins equipped Stanton caught my eye for the wrong reasons, wtf is going on with the routing.
Commencals from a few years back had a nice purposeful look to them. Saw one in raw in the flesh and it looked even better.
Have not quite cracked image linking but a link from this fair website:
https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/commencal-meta-am-29-team-review/
so to my eye my bike looks great.
That its mostly hidden in that shot with light doesnt inspire confidence. Its interesting how many photos in the thread are from somewhat odd angles.
My aeris looks fine when I am on it so who cares about how good looking it is for anyone watching. Frankly I am far more offputting that the poor bike for some trying a decent photo.
so to my eye my bike looks great.
I like the look of my Spesh ebike, but to the majority of other people it's without doubt, absolutely gopping 🤣
Think we have a winner with Transition, there's been some lovely example posted, bravo! Egerie also floats my boat, as I think the Curtis might if I can decide to get along with the swing arm.
For someone with strong opinions I assume Scotroutes is trolling with that eye bleach Occam? The other Orbea is better but "Anything with a bent top tube automatically qualifies as ugly, sorry".
The Santa Cruz still has that B&M head tube area, looks like no thought went in to it at all. Shame as they used to make nice looking bikes. Thumbs down for the Privateer unfortunately.
Trek, Canyon and Specialised aren't offensive.
matt - that "transition" between seat tube and shock angle hurts my eyes.
Where does gopping come from? Seems to be a forum favourite word but I don't think I've ever heard it in the real world.
@STR
REEB sst 120mm...... It's on my ' I'll never be able to afford/justify one' list
https://reebcycles.com/collections/full-suspension/products/sst-coil-gx-build
Yup, another vote for spur.
Straight line from HT to rear dropout, vertical shock, done. Lovely. Transition nail it.
Make that shock horizontal, no matter how you drive it, and it all goes to pot.
See also the poor man's Spur (Izzo). Lovely looking things.
Nothing above comes close to the Spur.
I think my Geometron G1 freshly polished looks fantastic in the flesh with it's shiny weldy chunkiness. They don't look as good in a picture though.
Make that shock horizontal, no matter how you drive it, and it all goes to pot.
Was going to say similar earlier when I posted the Stanton. Even though I love it and may one day own one, would look so much better with a vertical shock
There's far worse-looking FS bikes than Orange IMO.
Transition are mixed for me - those Spurs are lovely, but the others with the swooped tubes do nothing for me. Am I straight tube kinda guy?
This is, in my heavily biased view, pretty damn good looking:
"Oh look, there's a good looking Nicolai"
Said no one, ever 😉
“Oh look, there’s a good looking Nicolai”
Said no one, ever 😉
😉
I'm another one who's a sucker for a straight line from head tube to drop out.
Modern Transition frames obviously, not the previous gen swoopy ones.
Last carbon frames, very similar to transition.
Airdrop new Edit MX. Almost had that line.
All three have vertical shocks in front of the seat tube as well.
That Reeb SST wins the thread. Pure class.
Starling bikes look nice, not to overly complicated, although I rather like the Carbon Wasp frame.
That Transition wins so far. I have a 5010 but would love a Jibb..
Seems most people like double diamond style full Sus frames or those hiding the shock completely.
Commencal bikes always look good. The various Meta bikes are pretty awesome looking although the Tempo is a bit fugly + through headset cables yuech. I can accept a bent/curved downtube but toptube just looks awful especially anything with an horrid weird hump/bend near the headtube junction.
Swarf Contour is nice above.
Transition have it bang on at the moment - I love the look of my Sentinel Carbon - but also the alloy one I had looked good.
Ive also got a thing for the Forbidden Dreadnought and the new Druid - although too much bike for me on the Dreadnought front sadly.
I used to think my Stumpjumper Evo was a good looking bike, until I got my Ragley Marley.
There is definitely something about having straight tubes that align. Having top tube and chain stays on one line definitely helps.
If it’s a vertical shock then it needs to be as close to parallel with and not interrupt the seat tube.
Colour can help massively to accentuate the nice lines and hide the messiness.
This is Arsene Wenger ''Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home' territory isn't it? I'm quite partial to my FlareMax, partly because the mad orange glittery paint is gorgeous. Most carbon full sussers look a bit meh to me, steel tubes are nicer, unless the frame's some sort of extended XL modern gate thing, in which case they tend to looks spindly and wrong. Most frames look nicest in a medium...
i quite like the Atherton stuff as a sort of mix of what's right from both ends of the spectrum and the Pivot proto that Bernard Kerr rides too, similar aesthetic. I think I preferred the raw ti joint sections, but hey, it's all subjective no?
I think the straight lines of the current Transitions make them look good. My only real issue with them is the quality of the frames isn’t aligned with their vastly expensive selling price. Which is why you can get them a bit cheaper, second hand.
And thats from someone with a Spur in the garage (albeit my other half’s bike now).
Stumpy Evo, minging with the side arm on the frame. If it didn’t have that, similar to the new SL, then it would be an improvement.
Can’t get on board with any high pivot bike ‘looking pretty’. Functional yes, pretty absolutely not. Qualified to comment, as my other half also has a Claymore, which isn’t a looker & I have a HB916, which is no oil painting either 😆
I find myself looking at some of the bikes and half-agreeing with he comments on the straight line between top tube and rear triangle; it's a pleasing thing to my eye and so I find myself drawn to that. The Transitions above please in that respect.
One thing that does grate though is the lack of parallelism(?) between fork/headtube and seatpost tube. Too slack in the head tube and the bike (to me) looks like it is going to collapse, too upright and it just looks odd. That is, I think, the reason that the Smugglar is not an object of desire; my eyes think it is subtly "off".
The same with weird angles, extra bits of material or shapes. I want a bike that looks smooth, clean, neat. Possibly with some subtle curves rather than brutal straight lines and sharp corners. As an example, I used to want a Bronson. It was more bke than I would ever need, but it ticked _that_ box. The latest model just looks a bit wrong though. It's gone "sharp edges" and it has lost its shine.
Oddly, I look at motorbikes and all that goes out of the window. The Ducati 1098 ticks every single box on the list of things I like and is very much an object of desire.
Thanks for all the replies. Plenty fall in to the perfectly acceptable without being 'wow' category IMO. Looking at the first Swarf, Raw and Nicolai. The Pivot, Airdrop and Rocky Mountain suffer the same fate as a down tube that curves 3 meters from the bottom bracket will never look good, even if the rest of the bike does.
I really want to love the Hope bikes and might get one if my preferred choice go under but the down tube makes my teeth itch. Atherton, seat tube.
Unpaved is nice in a 1996 Fat Chance Shock 'a' Billy vibe, the Reeb looks well, as does the Swarf Countour.
Still struggling with the 'Orange single pivot is out of date' line when the vast majority of bikes posted up seem to be a variation on the Horst Link that's been around since pretty much the start though.
my orbea occam looked great, just a shame it was badly designed and the rear triangle has wobbled since 2 weeks old, new bearings fix it then it goes wobbly again
orange have never done it for me. and i'm less than 10 miles from factory.
chatting to a mondraker lady up on cutgate at the weekend her XC full sus (possibly a Raze carbon) looked very very nice.
