Articulating the Bike Beautiful

If you follow the general trend among London-based fixed gear riders, you'll not only be into the mechanical elegance of the bike you ride - and its effect on your performance - but have some personal ideas about an aesthetic approach to it too.

Hip Hop Slavedom has already been coined as the name for one identified approach to aesthetics.

We have the Stealth aesthetic.

I'm not sure if Lo-Pro frames dictate a subgenre or not....?

Then what about bikes like Tommasito's, with its lovely handlebars?

• each has its detractors, each has its fanatics - but I was wondering if anyone had thought about terms to encapsulate other approaches to Beautiful Street Bikes. Just look at the Bike Porn thread and there are many different looks posted, yet some you had never imagined and some you are in awe of regardless of your own personal taste.
  
  

It doesn't have to be about finery. Beaters fall into looks too, even if that look is "undesirable shitheap". I was working on the Clapham Slapper to this end and enjoyed it immensley and still loved it dearly.

My new build's nothing special compared to some of you guys' and gals' showboaters, but I'm kicking off with what I think it follows as a look. I'm calling the look "Neo-Classicist." It's basically a road frame conversion that's respectful, but of the moment. In its nod to current ideas (eg white tyres, chopped risers) it leans a little towards the hipster end of things perhaps, but I'm thinking of Bobob's Stan Butler (RIP?), Jacqui's Mercian (disagree if it's not correct), Snowy-again's Joe Waugh etc. in this category.

One more shot - there's a kind of bike which seems to advertise its big, brass, clanging, low-slung balls - I'm thinking of shootthebreeze's Fuji, snowyagain's and RJS's new Bob Jacksons and of course many more...... I'm thinking Bully Boy as a look for this one. While I would never go for this look (perhaps due to a distinct lack of clanging brass balls), I love it all the same.

That's it, you might be going WTF?? but i thought it'd be interesting to see how we classify bike aesthetics. Just thought the forum was a bit quiet tonight...