jnicholz
04-16-2007, 02:16 AM
My roadie is a 2004 Giant TCR Carbon (the one right before they started putting all those terrible graphics all over the frames). It looks ok...the raw carbon look with some yellow accents or whatever. Recently I built another bike out of spare parts/ebay pickups with the intention of giving it to my father. Anyways, it is a decent bike but pretty ugly IMO (2001ish trek 1000....bright yellow with blue metallic trek logo and matching blue anodized rims).
So with the nice weather a friend and I took the two bikes downtown and rode for a couple of hours. I was really surprised at how many comments my friend got about the yellow trek. "Nice bike!" was heard at least 4 times...although to be fair one the compliments came from a propositioning prostitute so it may not count. Even a homeless guy stopped at a light and was asking him all kinds of questions about it.
Now Portland tends to be over-run with 'alt bikes', custom frames, and fixies so it's never a surprise that my soul-less carbon frame doesn't get any attention...but I was really surprised that people seemed so impressed with a run of the mill aluminum trek frame.
Anyways, my bike did get some attention. When we stopped at a bench for a minute someone came up and said "is that one of those carbonite bikes?" I said "carbon fiber yea". He then said "wow, I heard those bikes only weigh like 10 pounds". I said "well, this one weighs about 18 I think...". He then shook his head and in a bit of a grumbling tone said "pssh thats not that light" and walked off...
Anyways, that was my day. Always fun to get out and mingle with the people.
So with the nice weather a friend and I took the two bikes downtown and rode for a couple of hours. I was really surprised at how many comments my friend got about the yellow trek. "Nice bike!" was heard at least 4 times...although to be fair one the compliments came from a propositioning prostitute so it may not count. Even a homeless guy stopped at a light and was asking him all kinds of questions about it.
Now Portland tends to be over-run with 'alt bikes', custom frames, and fixies so it's never a surprise that my soul-less carbon frame doesn't get any attention...but I was really surprised that people seemed so impressed with a run of the mill aluminum trek frame.
Anyways, my bike did get some attention. When we stopped at a bench for a minute someone came up and said "is that one of those carbonite bikes?" I said "carbon fiber yea". He then said "wow, I heard those bikes only weigh like 10 pounds". I said "well, this one weighs about 18 I think...". He then shook his head and in a bit of a grumbling tone said "pssh thats not that light" and walked off...
Anyways, that was my day. Always fun to get out and mingle with the people.