Having become more interested in bikes again after years away from cycling, one of the things I noticed was how radically different the majority of new bikes look compared to what everybody was riding back in the 1980's and even 1990's. Even a relatively cheap bike from the 80's will at least have a presentable looking lugged frame with pleasingly slim tube dimensions, and simple geometric shapes. The intricate high quality stuff from respected makers was almost a work of art in its own right.
Fast forward to the present day and what we get now is oversized tubes squashed at each end so they spread out and very un-pretty welds. On a small-sized triangle frame there can be more frame than daylight between the tubes these days - they look really crudely built.
Then if you start talking about CF bikes, the frame ugliness is taken a stage further, with things like rear wheel clearance cut out of the thickness of the seat tube, weird looking seat posts, straight forks that look like a couple of kitchen table legs, and having them sticking out from the bottom of the headset at a funny angle like the bike has been involved in an accident and the forks have been damaged!
The vast majority of what is on sale now, regardless of price level, I would not have in the house on the grounds they are mingingly ugly. Am I just a dinosaur with my dislike for current bike design or are there others who also much prefer the clean lines and slim tubing dimensions of old steel machines?. And before anyone blames the MTB craze for this, remember most MTB's from the 80's and early 90's had frames very similar in terms of appearance and geometry to old-school 3-speeds!
