Marin – for people with beards who speak as if they have blocked noses and know all the specs of all the bikes – beardy brochure whores or do more MTB magazine study than riding.

Hmm not sure about that messiah I always thought marin riders couldn't give a stuff what was on the bike aslong as it got them around – an sfb bike.

Got to be custom to be cool, no first page of the catalogue top of the line ready built bike is cool. You've got to have laboured over every decision of which part to go for. And getting the most expensive of everything and lashing it together doesn't work either gotta be something esoteric in there too. Custom frame helps too but doesn't guarantee cool eg I personally don't think jones are cool.

But cool is soooo subjective.

bikes are cool. bike companies aren't

Got to be custom to be cool[/quote

I dunno, I think to 99% of the public those custom frames look unfinished and old-fashioned

I want a good bike, not a cool bike.

Sorry, I want a GREAT bike, not a cool bike.

I find it really interesting how many people on here come out with comments like "grown men riding push bikes aren't cool". In that statement, heard many times in many threads, is an implicit idea that bikes are kids are adults do serious things. I don't believe we'll ever have a cycling culture if even supposed 'cyclists' come out with this rubbish.

Bikes are cool, FACT.

What mansonsoul said.

Bikes and bike companies can be cool, but it's the adventures you have on them and the good memories they provide that make them really cool.

I can't really comment on which bike companies I think are cool, the difficulty is identifying which companies are genuinely cool and which companies have the most money to pay the best marketeers to make them look cool.

Also, "cool" doesn't always equate with "good". I don't necessarily think Specialized is a cool brand (too big, corporate, money driven), but I do think their full-sus bikes are excellent.

ahwiles – Member

Iain Gillam – Member

Charge seam like a "cool" brand or at least one that is trying to be

trying to be cool, isn't.

Therein lies my point, they are trying to be cool so they shouldn't be, but they kind of are (at least in my opinion.)

Iain

it's the adventures you have on them and the good memories they provide that make them really cool.

That's true. But on a mountain in the middle of nowhere you shouldn't be worried about cool. There's no one to see it.

£6000 mountain bikes too pretty to get dirty n' scratched – not cool!

All my bikes are cool when they have me sat on them.

All my bikes are cool when they have me sat on them.

The cooler bikes are the ones you tend to sit "in" rather than "on"

The Top Gear cool wall criteria is a good one. Would the fact you ride a Surly and not a Specialized impress Kristen Scott Thomas?

To take this further can someone who is uncool make a cool brand uncool by sitting on it?

I am very uncool, so worry I am sullying the coolness of my Dialled PA every time I ride it (badly) 8)

The Top Gear cool wall criteria is a good one.

Its Top Gear though, probably the uncoolest programme on TV – unless your a middle aged man who finds Jeremy Clarkson funny.

So Kristen Scott Thomas would be impressed by your choice of bike then? 🙄

Jeremy Clarkson, he is the pied piper of all that is uncool.

Having scratches in your paintwork is cool. Having a drive train that works flawlessly because you've tuned it, is cool. Making a shop floor gleaming bike hideously filthy is cool. Being overtaken on a DH run and at the bottom finding out it's a girl or a kid is cool. A fantastic view and massive descent after a killer climb is cool. unexpected air, and then landing it, is cool. the sky at night on a frosty night ride in the middle of December is cool. Frosty night rides are just cool anyway. Summer evening rides are cool. a girl admiring your legs on a commute is cool.

Don't matter what the brand name on your bike is…

So Kristen Scott Thomas would be impressed by your choice of bike then?

I dont really know who she is but after a quick look on wiki I gather shes a 50 year old actress whos been in a number of dull films so she's probably not best placed to judge

This is about the only bike I can think of that would qualify as cool

Saw one yesterday at the Warwick Cycle Races – truly lovely.

onewheelgood

This is about the only bike I can think of that would qualify as cool

Saw one yesterday at the Warwick Cycle Races – truly lovely.

Yes, the bike is cool. But put anyone, and I mean anyone on one and it instantly becomes a w*nk chariot.

This is the most pointless another pointless thread. Even if everyone on here could agree what was "cool" that would instantly render the agreed thing uncool.

Having said that, if something is uncool enough it might actually be pretty cool………

Worrying about what brand of bike is cool is seriously uncool.

Pigeon-holing brands and likening them to car brands is uncool.

Fixies and retro bikes look aestheticly pleasing because of the lack of cables (minimalistic), but if you can't ride it up a hill, or like to pose with it outside the local cafe, you are very uncool.

No branding is cool.

Old beater bikes are cool.

Being on a bike, cycling, and enjoying it is cool.

she's probably not best placed to judge

Exactly, she's (probably) not a cyclist. Which makes her perfectly well-placed to judge. And feel free to replace her with any other fashionable celebrity. I dunno, say, Alexa Chung. She's probably more appropriate outside of Top Gear denim turn-up land.

I think a distinction needs to be drawn between:
(a) cool to other cyclists; and
(b) cool to people who are actually cool

onewheelgood

This is about the only bike I can think of that would qualify as cool

Saw one yesterday at the Warwick Cycle Races – truly lovely.

That looks utterly hideous to me. Everyone to their own, but I'd be embarrassed to own that, let alone ride it. And it's probably silly money anyway, making it even more daft.

Beating the cars and buses through central London is cool. My folding Dahon is cool simply because it looks utterly rubbish but is properly quick. Riding for the hell of it and getting scabby knees
from falling off is cool. Not taking yourself too seriously is cool.

Spending a pile of cash on a bike then not riding it is extremely uncool, as is fastidiously polishing and fettling every aspect of your bike after every ride.

I think a distinction needs to be drawn between:
(a) cool to other cyclists

not hard…you can just run one gear ffs

(b) cool to people who are actually cool

almost impossible

I think we agree oooOOOOooo. This Venn diagram might help some others:

davidtaylforth – Member

The cooler bikes are the ones you tend to sit "in" rather than "on"

like this?

Exactly – he most definitely is a 'dude' and hence cool.

IMO you cannot buy cool, you either have it, or you ent. However, wanting to be cool is shallow 🙁

The king of bike cool!

specialized, trek, cube and almost any other mass produced brand is uncool.

steel frames are cool.

a Cube hardtail is cooler than a Cube FS. generally Hardtails are cooler than FS.

and anyways… having a "cool" bike doesn't mean shit if the person to whom it belongs pushes it up and down the hills.

carbon is very uncool and is a substitute for ride prowess….

Carbon statt Kondition.

Think finbar pretty much sums it up. 🙂

Also, discounting things that are really good just because they are too popular for your insecure sense of being 'an individual' isn't very cool in my book.

"This is the most pointless another pointless thread."

Sorry you feel that way dude. You may have misunderstood my intention. I wasn't looking for consensus on what is cool – I appreciate that it's massively subjective. It was just a lighthearted query to try and understand a little of what seems to be a curious facet of MTB culture (and any other sub-culture for that matter). Namely that there are perceptions of what is cool and not cool, as apparent through the many threads I have observed through this and other forums/magazines etc. As such I assumed there may be some kind of cultural resonance of some kind to the query – even if it is a little silly and, clearly not a hardcore enough opinion to express for some.

I thought is might be nice to understand on what basis people tend to decree something – in this case, mountain bike brands – as cool.

See – I've gone and got all serious now, which isn't what I intended at all. Uncool.

I think for a brand to be cool you need:

-Innovative "quality" products
-A pedigree
-Passion / a message
-A smaller more focussed product range helps – otherwise you'll be seen as a jack of all trades-master of none

Cool companies to my mind – Spooky, Dialled, Yeti, Cannondale, Indy Fab (FAT), Nicolai, Turner

UNCOOL companies – Specialized, Marin, Cube, Dawes, Saracen, Boardman ..
I would have said Trek was bordering on uncool until I saw this …

http://trekmountain.typepad.com/king/2010/08/trek-prototype-meet-the-broadsider.html

Kudos!

Specialized not cool eh?
I beg to differ!

and the section in "Dirt" where he's riding on the grass banking next to the dry stone wall? It doesn't get any cooler than that!

IIRC Specialized came about when soon goon decided to Rip-Off Tom Ritchey's MTB design, set up mass production in the far east and called it a 'stump-jumper' – for that 'original sin' specialized are forever uncool for me 😉

Does anyone really believe that any successful brand isn't working hard in order to be cool to some of the buying public?

Cool spesh

Just read my most recent reply again. I may have been being a bit precious there, sorry (find me someone that likes being told their queries are pointless and I'll buy you a kit-kat). As we are discovering, "Coolness" is pretty tricky to tie down (and a possibly redundant concept). I once heard it said that the problem with wondering if you're cool is that –

1 – The only people who can corroborate that for you would have to also be similarly cool
2 – cool people don't do that sort of thing.
3 – If you seriously think about your cool status – then you probably aren't.

That said – and returning to a point someone made earlier – I am looking forward to gently taking the mick out of my brother in law who recently bought a lapierre and is soon to be putting some money down on an audi. (I'm just jealous really)

Now, what would go with my peugeot 307? 😀

oh yes…Tom Ritchey….the epitome of cool…….

…..on which planet? LOl 😆