Giant, Trek, GT, Scott
…. American mega-brands, yeuch !
Cannondale ok though
Anything from Halfords

bout the same for me, inc specialized. just dont like the big brands with big tubes.
also a full susser. never had one and never will, ugly ugly….

Fat-boy-fat – Member

Northwind! Was it you that nicked my beloved Carerra Krakatoa in 1994? Swine!

I bought it new! (I actually found the receipt last year, it’s possibly the only bike I own that I can prove ownership of)

Can’t believe no one’s mentioned Cube….

Bright random colours and popular with chav’s who can wheelie for miles….. Swines!

Brands, just On One/PX, because of a family customer service issue.

Had issues with Orange but that was 27 years ago now and I’ve almost forgiven them.

All the big brand bikes I’ve ever owned, Trek, Spesh etc have been spot on.
Not always the case with smaller companies, sadly.
I’m sure it’s luck of the draw, but it does influence decisions sometimes.

Types, well probably not a DH bike, but anything else is fair game.
🙂

Any make that, apparently, has a ‘soul’.

Anything with electric gears, irrational but i really can’t be doing with having to charge my bike up to make the gears work.

Anything over £2.6k, cos I’m a tightwad but more importantly this is the point that the law of diminishing returns is fully extrapolated

Full suspension with 150mm travel, i don’t get the appeal of something that is only good for standing on and is a bit crap to climb or ride on the flat and have to wear tons of armour to get the most out of it… Don’t get it.

I want to say Evil. But they are soooo nice, so I’ll say that I would buy one (more likely several) if I were a millionaire and could just buy a new one if/when they broke. Prob have a couple of spares. Otherwise, no chance. Not a big fan of specialized for a few reasons.

You only ever hear about the bad customer service. I’ve had loads of stuff from On-One and never had an issue with it. “Worst” customer service I can come up with was them using a courier who wouldn’t leave in a safe place and forced me to drive the 50 mile round trip to the arse end of Perth to collect from the depot.

As for stuff I won’t buy: if it’s described as “a [thing] with attitude” it can **** right off.

Is the orange/ filing cabinet thing a bit old? Might as well say i wont by carbon because i have a pencil/ charcoal.

Still funny though.

Specialized and Giant – no reason, other than I’m just not attracted to them. Even Trek would be preferable. To be honest, I don’t look at much now and think that I’d love to own it, I’m more than happy with what I’ve got.

Santa Cruz anything. I dont buy this boutique thing given they are part of one of the biggest bike companies out there. Also given the number of people they appear to sponsor and the number of bikes those riders get compared to the number they sell I begrudge having to fund this. I know all bike sales fund sponsorship but its about perceived proportions

t

he gas pipe ogre i am riding now feels loads nicer to ride.

It even looks ‘right’, well for you anyway. 😉

Me, I’d never consider a fatbike, ever since I commented to a guy who was on one (not an On One) ‘That looks like hard work’, & he said ‘if it was easy everyone would do it’. Well fill ya boots then pal.

A 29er.

Don’t think I’m ‘anti’ any decent manufacturers though.

A 29er.

you would need to carry a pair of step ladders round to get on it……………. 😆

I wouldn’t buy another road bike, not a racy one anyway. It bored me senseless. But I’m too fat for Lycra anyway.

Wouldn’t rule out any brand in particular.
Yeti maybe, due to that cracking swing arms thing but there’s probably as many with perfectly good swing arms.

I couldn’t imagine buying one of those expensive, tiny wheel folding things, but a UK success story so I fully respect them.

YT and Canyon _ Truly shocking customer service experienced by friends from both brands.
Planet-X, again shocking customer service.

chrismac – Member 
Santa Cruz anything. I dont buy this boutique thing given they are part of one of the biggest bike companies out there

Boutique part of it died long ago.

But they are f’in awesome bikes, lifetime frame and bearing warranty, excellent service, at least in UK (Jungle). Expensive yes. You can get a bike that does the job for far less, yes. But then you could get a Fiesta instead of a Ferrari (though I wouldn’t compare a Santa Cruz to a Ferrari. Santa Cruz are more reliable 😛 ).

takisawa2 – Member
But I’m too fat for Lycra anyway.

I demand the right to offend cake shop customers everywhere.

I do sport the occasional baggy, but strictly for comfort reasons.
But if we have to stop wearing underwear in public I’m jacking it in, tbh.

Car branded bikes
A TT bike – my neck, shoulders and desire to enjoy myself seem incompatible with this
Proper racey road bike – see above
A downhill bike – I’m just really, really not brave or good enough to consider I could justify it although I’d love a go one just to see what it’s like! (which reminds me I need to use my jedi vouchers that the wife got me for my birthday)

I like my Specialized a lot – sorry haters 😉

Road/gravel bike. Nothing wrong with it but I hate the road and I don’t bare my arse in Lycra.

Specialized – no soul.
Giant – Trance is great but long stem and narrow bars they continue to persist with? Bonkers in 2012 let alone now.
Yeti – infinity and beyond my arse
Ibis – mojo is hideous.
Nikolai – saw a geomotron thing recently, looked like scaffolding
Intense – love the new ones, look ace, but £10k? Do me a favour.

No issues with O-o over the years. Had frames & a complete build, no problems and would buy again. You get a hell of a lot of bike for your £’s imo. I can’t understand the bashing they get? (Usually from people who have no first hand experience). On balance – they have slid a little since Brant

oink1 – Member

I can’t understand the bashing they get? (Usually from people who have no first hand experience)

You need to pay a bit more attention tbh! This forum’s full of people with first hand experience. In my case, they sold a frame which fell apart then refused to honour the warranty, telling a series of contradictory lies along the way including claiming that the warranty was shorter than it was. They sell cheap tat with no concern for quality control, and they’re crooked. It’s a terrible combination.

And the thing about the faulty frames where everyone gets told “first one we’ve seen like that, must be a one off”, well- if that’s the attitude, and if that’s the quality of construction and level of quality control, what else is wrong?

That’s why a lot of us won’t buy On One.

Northwind – Member
oink1 – Member
I can’t understand the bashing they get? (Usually from people who have no first hand experience)

That’s why a lot of us won’t buy On One.

Fairy muff! Never had an issue?? Lucky I guess 😆

Specialized – horrid corporate attitude and their bikes are spec’d with loads of cheapass crap

Giant, Trek, GT, Scott
…. American mega-brands, yeuch !

Giant – Taiwanese
Scott – Swiss

So just ‘mega brands’ then?

I’m not entirely sure I’d actively avoid any brand. There are loads I wouldn’t buy because I just don’t like anything they make – Orange spring to mind, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t buy one if they did.

Wouldn’t spend any amount of money on a Planet X/OO for all the reasons mentioned, but wouldn’t avoid them either.

My O-o experience involves lying folk on the phone; “Sorry, we don’t have any of those wheels left and have no plans to offer them as a paid upgrade.” 4 days later, lots in stock and as an upgrade…That and the fact they can’t even recognise which mech hanger goes with which bike…Oh and the way their guy comes on here and is quite fluid with his marketing…And their denial about the London roads.
Other brands
GT; triple triangle…yes but that was 25 years ago…
Trek/spesh…road bikes seem souless.
Cannondale; fugly.

Don’t think I’d ever rule out a specific brand but I’d steer clear of any model with proprietary components.

e.g. Giant – seat post, Specialized for the SCS hubs. Trek – G2 geometry etc.

I’m sure there would be no issues and I excluding some great bikes, but I try to keep my bikes a long time and don’t want future problems sourcing parts.

My last On One experience was 3 days before Xmas when building up my Sons inbred. The rear break mount was welded on so far out that when I put the Calliper on it locked the disc solid. Luckily I took the frame to work put it on the CMM worked out how far out it was then made a bespoke adapter to straighten up the calliper. Apart from that the bike is great! The earlier 456 frame was perfect so think QC has dropped quite a bit.

Me too. It’s embarrassing when you get a different lie from each person you speak to.

Kona

Warranty is not honoured, tubes coke can thickness

Ellsworth.
They may possibly ride well, but they are the most phenomenally ugly collection of tubes to ever make it off a drawing board.

I mean, you can have zero aesthetic sensibilities but your designs can end up with a brutish beauty through purposeful engineering but it’s like he’s actually tried to make them as hideous and harmoniously incoherent as humanly possible.

Still, some folks like em… 😀

I’m rather have a Trek, Giant or Specialized road bike than some of the Italian boutique brands like, say, De Rosa. They just don’t speak to me at all for some reason.
There are plenty of others though that I don’t dislike as such but I think would always be a long way down the list of things I’d consider – Orange spring to mind.

Any ‘big’ name- Specialized, Giant, Trek, GT – no idea why, probably because of the ‘standards’ debacles.

Any road bike- there’s enough misery in the world without me adding to it 😆

Nicolai, Ellsworth, Raleigh.

Santa Cruz anything. I dont buy this boutique thing given they are part of one of the biggest bike companies out there. Also given the number of people they appear to sponsor and the number of bikes those riders get compared to the number they sell I begrudge having to fund this. I know all bike sales fund sponsorship but its about perceived proportions

To bad fair, this could be applied to any number of companies; Yeti, Intense, Ibis, Evil make bikes as or more expensive than SC, the amount they make is utterly irrelevant.
Spesh and Trek spend far more than SC do on sponsorship, and again they are in the same price league at a given spec. An enduro S-works frame is like £300-odd more than a nomad, so the mass-produced ve cost argument applies more to them.

scotroutes – Member

Me too. It’s embarrassing when you get a different lie from each person you speak to.

It’s offensive, isn’t it. I can appreciate the effort and craft that goes into a good lie- holding your line when challenged, twisting things to support it. Bad lying lets the side down.

Like, Mark Anthony Bikes. I accidentally ordered something from their ebay store. 10 days later, it hadn’t arrived. I emailed, realised who it was, went oh shit. They looked out the window, responded “Yeah it’s the snow mate”. And it was snowing, at the time, it just hadn’t been snowing for the 9 previous days when they hadn’t bothered to post it. And they stuck to that line with an impressive level of shameless bullshit, actually getting offended that I didn’t believe it and declaring themselves to be the victims, then complained when I left negative feedback, then tried to bribe me with a puncture repair kit (for some random reason) to remove it. I kind of approve of that, it’s still bollocks but at least they put their backs into it.

I’m more likely to get a SC than a Yeti, Intense or Evil myself.

If only ‘cos the Tallboy 3 has almost the same geo as my old Process 111 – but is no doubt considerably lighter and probably better pedaling.

Why isn’t everyone making bikes like that yet?

On-One / PX also sounds like a dreadful place to work, FWIW.

I still haven’t forgiven Giant for the overdrive debacle. Foisting unwanted new standards on the market is virtually guaranteed to ensure that I take my custom elsewhere.

Other than that, I wouldn’t touch an Evil – too many stories of poor customer service, nor would I own a Yeti. Santa Cruz is out because their warranty isn’t stellar although the price is.

I don’t quite get the lack of love for Specialized though, as a customer I feel that Spesh has absolutely gone out of it’s way to keep me happy.

On-One / PX also sounds like a dreadful place to work, FWIW.

Not having a phone capable of making outgoing calls could certainly make life a bit of a drag, but I guess it keeps the bills down.

Santa Cruz is out because their warranty isn’t stellar although the price is.

Lifetime warranty and free bearings seems pretty good to me, whose is better?

Trek – G2 geometry etc.

Nowt proprietary about G2, different fork offset, but both RS and Fox sell forks with the same offset, and you can change it if you want.