Bike Anti-Porn - When Things Go Wrong

Audax racers (if an audax is a race)

Honestly looks like something I'd have seen when I used to live in Qatar

Not to my taste but its not so bad. Would have been HHSB porn a few years ago

^^ Would ride that ugly beast!

Sadly reminds me of ...... me

Nope, that's rad. There's a matching Allez Sprint frame

Looks like an 8 year old designed a bike on MS Paint in 2007.

And its glorious

The things that's most offensive is the rear wheel cut out, then the rear wheel is about a foot away

Do u evn aeroz?

First of their paint jobs that I've liked, but the frame is still essentially an ugly modern fixie conversion. Looks like they at least remembered to take the dr hanger off this time.

I kind of like the paint

I think they did it as a homage to the Jeff Koons art car BMW.

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I'm working on a Genesis volare at the mo with a similar theme (t's been on hold for a few weeks now tho)... it probably also deserves to be in here!

(This is no where near finished by the way, before you start mocking my shoddy work...)

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Tbh that's actually quite nice

I love it already.

I wonder if i could achieve something much worse and embarrassingly crap with a variety of coloured vinyl.

Miles better than that Specialized.

One of the designers (did a load of the custom paint projects for them too, recently quit to start his own company) at specialized did something like that a while back for laughs.. looked ok for what it was!

Check his IG, @swiznooski

Some incredible paint on that gram.

Yeah, he's a talented dude. The man behind a lot of the crazy one off specialized bikes in the last couple years. He recently did the Filipe Pantone style paintjob on Ken Blocks new Specialized MTB.

I've chatted with him a bit over the last year or so about paint stuff, and how hard it is to do anything truly original these days (an issue we've both struggled with, as trends and fashion dictate that people always seem to be doing similar stuff at the same time).... he's a really nice guy to boot. Looking forward to seeing what he gets up to now he's free of specialized.

Yeah, shame all his amazing paint jobs were wasted on specialized bikes really.

Must be difficult to stand out conceptually due to the trends, but like anything concept is one thing, execution is another and you guys are at the top of your game and pushing it.

I see where you're coming from with the distaste for Specialized. They have done some pretty ruthless shit in the industry, but that's business innit. I'm not really into the whole fixie Crit racing shit that is massive now, but don't like they way they just decided to throw money at Red Hook to become the main sponsor, and recruit the best racers in to dominate the series for their team. Was a bit gutted for Cinelli who supported RHC from the get go.
I do however like their idea of completely re branding the team for each race, and giving a different member of the specialized design team free reign to do what they want... that's pretty cool in my book. You won't see any of the other big manufactures letting staff get creative like that on a project with such a big audience. How to to PR right in my book.

As far as big multinational cycling companies go, you can do a lot worse.

(Thanks for the kudos by the way... I've taken A huge gamble to have a shot at making a living doing what I really enjoy, so it's a real motivation boost when people say they dig it!)