The Ugliest Mountain Bikes Of All Time!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ค. 2024
- Mountain bikes these days all look pretty good, from the simple lines of a hardtail to a full suspension’s functional angles and linkages! But there was a time when mountain bike design wasn't so great let's say and that resulted in some pretty unusual and perhaps even ugly-looking bikes!
⏱ Timestamps ⏱
0:00 - Intro
0:40 - Whyte PRST-1
1:35 - Trek Y33
2:20 - Structure Cycleworks
3:12 - Mongoose Black Diamond
3:48 - Specialized Demo
4:34 - Rocky Mountain RM7
5:28 - Karpiel Armageddon
6:30 - Cannondale Raven
7:24 - Trust Fork
7:48 - GCN Monster Bike
8:06 - Blake Samson's Orbea MYO
8:34 - Early E-Bikes
9:11 - Retro Klein Bikes
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What do you think the ugliest bike of all time is? Let us know down below! 👇
You forgot the Klein Mantra
Kona Stinky. That swing arm is one of the grossest thing I’ve ever seen. Pair that with a poop brown pain job and you’ve got the ugliest bike ever.
*Yo' Momma.*
:)
J.K...maybe....but You did set urself up for that one tbh.
the bike with steel cable for down tube
@@ThisGuyRides oh yeah...was that a Ritchey?.. can't remember the maker..but I got the image burned into my nightmares :(
I think the Trek Y33 looks awesome, it’s so different from other bikes at that time. And it’s a time piece cuz you know right away it’s the 90s it came out. There weren’t many carbon bikes back then because it was so expensive unlike nowadays. Bikes these days looks almost the same.
Exactly. It was one of the best looking bikes of its era. I don't ride my Y11 anymore, but when I started riding it in 1997, I got nothing but positive comments about its appearance.
Also, carbon was nearly unheard of and there weren't any reasons to screw around with fancy materials that would need intensive testing to know if they were reliable or not due to how obscure it was. Making a carbon MTB in the 90's would be the today's equivalent to using materials only available on Venus
Marin Quad DH, Kona Entourage, Specialized Enduro 2012 gen, Zerode gearbox bike, Foes Mono DHS ( bike that I love but is not a looker), Foes Zigzag, Slingshot, Titus Quasimoto, Da Bomb Bouncing Betty, Sinister Splinter MX, Yeti 303 first gen with double rails
Pretty sure they just put that in there to drive up comments. Pretty stupid choice.
Whaaaaaat? the Y33 looks awesome! I wanted one in the 90s so badly! :-) And the Klein Paintjobs? Amazing. I am missing something like this today.
imagine watching this video and your bike shows up lol
Blake be like
It did LMFAO... Had that exact Rocky Mountain RM7 but with Super T on it... 🤪 😅 🤣 Still thought it was a good Ugly like that chic at the bar ugly face put a bag on it I'll get on that ride 😂 😂 😂
The dream! 😂🔥
Mine did...😳😫...& it stung a bit!!! 🤣
I had the one in the thumbnail 🤣
I had that exact Y33 and no one thought it was ugly back then. Everyone wanted one.
I actually like the first Cannondale Raven. The headlight even makes it look a a sea monster!
I loved the look of the Raven . Still for the time period a cool looking bike I purchased the Cannondale SV 2000 aluminum bike looked identical and it was actually a lbs lighter . Mine was a 4” travel XC bike that weighed 28# in 1997. The wheels wouldn’t stay true but that was a light bike .
The shock didn’t have any adjustments and I had to run it with too much sag I went with a shorter stem and riser bars . Then the bike got better handling and was fast as £={€ . The Headshok of 80mm travel was junk and blew on me .
The cockpit was too short also .
I slacked the geometry, shortened the stem , gave it a taller front end with the wider downhill riser bars . Similar to todays bikes . I wanted a 29” front wheel. A few years later folks were doing that.
I always wondered why it took so many years for the industry to start to change to the geo and bigger wheels that actually works. These old bikes weren’t even safe . I endoed going uphill twice on that old Cannondale SV 2000.
Full suspension has always been what I preferred and a bit longer travel than what was intended for say an XC or trail bike. Now a trail bike is called a DownCountry and trail bikes category is heavy with longer travel.
My trail bike I build up from a 2013 Kona AbraCadabra 26” wheel bike is now a 31# 27.5” 170mm Lyric front travel 160mm rear bike.
How could you not like the Y-33?! You're nuts. I had the Y 5-0 paint job back in the day. Granted, it didn't ride near as good as modern designs, but it didnt look like anything else.
woke channel
I agree, it looks amazing even today. And the raven too.
Trek Y33 is one of the best looking bikes ever made. Terrible to ride but beautiful to look at.
Terrible to ride compared to today's designs, but back in the primitive days of full suspension, it was hardly the worst out there. My Y11 would hold it's own against bikes of that era - once I'd replaced the Rock Shox Indy noodle for a proper Marzocchi fork.
You can't pick the Trek Y33 without mentioning the Klein Mantra. (Even though I still want both.)
Thanks for the Mantra memories, that orange beam of a top tube, and that was about it, seemingly minamilist bike, so advanced back then.
I agree on everything there, but Klein!! NO WAY, all the 90's fade's look amazing (as long as they haven't been out in the sun for very long).. Look at the prices on the early Gary Klein frames!!
Usually, the more convoluted the design, the uglier... That's why I personally think the Trek Y33 is a piece of art. So slick! I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder...
Took the words out of my mouth!
Agree, it was aesthetically a great design. And this is coming from someone who despises Trek!
Cannondale raven was always my dream bike! Loved all the super v bikes.
The paint on my Klein is still stunning after 32 years (ignoring 32 years of scratches that each tell a story of their own) - it's one of the handbill Kleins when Gary Klein still owned the company.and the attention to detail was off the charts. Still rides great too. Love y'alls show
Klein holds a very special place in my heart! I still have my original "It Could Change Your Priorities" poster! But I never had the funds to own one of his bikes.
I can't believe you added Kleins to the list. Back then they were my dream bike, I still love to have one. Just like back then still out of my price range. Glad my cannondale prophet or my GT-RTS3 wasn't on your list
Ah man, I always liked the Y33😎
No Way, Those Trek Y33's were sweet.
Cannondale Raven was, and is still, a work of art.
Trek Y33 is HOT!! I used to love that bike when I was like 13
Thank you for showing us these timeless classics!
Glad you like them!
the DEMO was never ugly, E-Bikes r ugly ;)
I actually like the look of the Black Diamond. The RM7 is pretty nice too, you just used an old grainy photo which made it look worse.
Man, I don’t know. I can’t agree with you on the Trek Y-33. I thank you for the alternate ‘URT’ definition. Spot on, there. But I don’t think the Y-33 is actually ugly.
KLEIN??!!!! BLASPHEMY! Kleins are the very definition of beauty!
Very few of these bikes were considered ugly in their time. Most of them were considered game-changers and impressed a lot of people. The Raven was really hot and sold quickly. Sure, their designs have been long-since abandoned, but they paved the way to today's great bikes.
I loved the Rock Mountain RM series with the THE mudguards so much but could not afford one. Also Trek did a Y in a very cool hawaiian inspired paint job. And talking about paint jobs, whoever said that the Kleins are ugly has to be fired. What the heck?
I remember one ... Checker Pig was the company, it had some kind of a carbon ring that was supposed to be the rear suspension ... I loved the name and the weirdness.
Raven is not ugly😭. I love the unique style. I have a couple bikes like that a second generation raven, votec c9 light, strock organic and klein palomino🤟🏻
Yeah I have one and I love it!
Hi....im a TREK man for life for mountain and road bikes....I thought the Y33 was totally amazing looking....I heard it didn't ride greatly due to the high pivot...but aesthetically I loved it along with the similarly shaped road bike at the time....love TREK!
Y33 was so cool at the time! RM7 Was also so cool...damn showing my age. That wasn't even the Karpiel Amragerddon in your Pic!
As a Swiss cyclist, I have to say that form follows function in the world of mountain biking. While some bikes may not have the sleekest design, they are built to handle tough terrain and provide a smooth ride. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but performance is key. What do you say?
It might be ugly and it definitely doesn't ride as well as modern bikes but I still love my PRST-1 and it always makes people smile out on the trails.
Bike I wanted back then because it could wipe the floor on steep tech likes without the dive
Still got my Klein Attitude with Dolomite paint job - it is a thing of beauty!
I had for several years a Klein Palomino. It was metallic pinkish orange. It was brilliant up hill, and I was pretty sure no one would ever steal it.
I love the Trek Y33, Cannondale Raven, and the RM7. All dream bikes when I was young and couldn’t afford any of them
You forgot to mention the monsters that came out of Nicolai's factory back in the day. They looked like they were designed by Viktor Frankenstein himself. Also, anybody remembers the Lahar carbon DH bikes from the early 2000's? Their "organic" design and hidden gearbox gave them their characteristic alien look.
I still have a Trek Y3 in my garage
demo9 is almost identical to seven, and it’s beautiful, i had one and it was the best looking and working bike ever!
mine was 23kg and i used it also for 1300 mt UPHILL rides. agile, sturdy and you could even pedal it
Man the rm7 is cool. I’m from the area it was popular and the riding style that used it so that might be why I like it even still.
I've always had a soft spot for that bike... nothing kinky likes. ;)
but!.. I gotta agree wiv Ya.. I'm more of a HardTail bloke... but I'd sell a Kidney for one of them RM's
Please also make a video with the best looking bikes of all time! Great video as always!
My buddy had a trek Y back then and they looked ok when they came out but didn't age well for sure.
I have a funny Y bike memory. I was hanging out in downtown Los Gatos way back when some dude cruises by slowly in his freshly cleaned and polished black sports car. On top is his freshly cleaned and polished matching black Trek Y bike. Not sure which was shinier! He cruised back and forth many times, showing off his stuff! It was so funny. "Go ride that thing & get it dirty instead of parading it!!!!" I wanted to shout.
I think here’s some brutal lack of respect for the heritage of our sport going on. Might be ironic but still. Back in the days those bikes shaped the future that we are now in.
I'd still rock a Struture if I could. It's awesome, you're just old. There.
What the? The trust fork looks like from another universe, but cool!
Karpiel is a small Polish manufacture, they were hand made it think. Fun fact: the company still exist and their page says "Classic models are still being produced in small numbers for collectors" so there is probably still a chance to buy them brand new.
Karpiel Armageddon was a thing of beauty!
Klein did some tasteful paint jobs, with the exception of "Mardi Gras" that just looked like a toddler had attacked the bike with a few coloured spray cans.
The karpiel apocalypse was something else, pretty rad bike back then and even now...
ProFlex Animal had to be the most garish bike ever!
Klien Paint-Jobs?... Naaah!!..I'm not 'avin' it! That's SACRILEGE!.. Those Paint-Jobs were always..and still are bee-ee-Ae-Uutifulz.
We have to agree with you on that one!! What was Martyn thinking!?
I had a Gary fisher Level Betty FH1, Lime green Y frame, one of the first bikes with dual crown Rock Shock Judy XL front forks. Went downhill quite well, a pig to pedal uphill.
I still have my Raven...how dare you! :)
Telelever might be funny looking but it’s brilliant on a GSA anyway
Telelever is even different from these though. But you're not wrong. Also, I do believe that unconventional isn't the same as ugly. It's just... well, unconventional. Unusal maybe, but if it works, it works and I love hte engineering and out of the box thinking. Until now both bikes and motorcycles have reverted time and again to the same boring and antique solution of forks, but the problem is they are simple, developed beyond every measure and cheap. No competition to that.
I don't think the RM7 belongs in this ranking. Neither does the Y33. The RM7 is a beautiful bike, especially with the Shiver.
Owners of these bikes be like: "there are no ugly mountainbikes, only ugly mountainbikers".
Say what you will about the Trek Y and the Cannondale Raven but 14yo me lusted hard for those bikes. I had the Y5-0 poster hanging up in my “workshop” and remember drooling over the Raven in Mountain Bike Action magazine. I still want those bikes today.
Funny that the Softride mountain bike did not make it into the list.
You forgot every Orange bike in existence ;P
Great video 😃 not only are they ugly ,they also look dangerously scary 😱😱 and I really like Blake's Colorful Orbea❤
😍Honestly, there is something strangely pleasing about an absurdly ugly bike.
The Allsop softride should have been in that list. I had one when they first came out and they were decent handling bikes but they looked like they had been designed in the dark
The cheapest used bikes all have Softride beams. I feel very sorry for the poor sap who bought a Softride tandem. You can't even give them away!
Thanks for jogging my ugly memories. I just remembered riding a softride one afternoon, it had a suspension stem also. Horrible stem, the bars would rotate with any travel. So glad dual suspension trickled down & took over.
😅 i didn't expect to see my Haibike on this list. Still shredding the old girl every now and then. I didn't consider it particularly ugly to this day though 😄. The piggyback battery is in fact great if you commute with it and want to take the battery with you.
Those Kleins are awesome 👌
Unpopular opinion here but I’d have to put most modern high pivot bikes with an idler on the list
Modern mountain bikes all look the same. Some of these "ugly" bikes are iconic looking like the Raven, and if you were mountain biking back when these were popular, chances are you lusted over at least one of these.
My first full sus was a barracuda showdown and it was epic, still wish I had it :(
Klein paint jobs are sweeeeeet!
Rm7 absoluter Favorit ❤
Blakes MyO is the purple tentacle reborn as a bike.
Who cares if its ugly , if it works it works
You forgot the Ibis Szazbo. That thing looked like somebody stole parts from a bridge when they designed it.
I started on a Wal-Mart flying v in 2020 😂
Wish I had a pic to submit but when you did the honorable mentio. For Klein you should have showed the Klein Mantra! It rode horribly compared to today's bikes but back then it was pretty sweet and I even thought it looked good! (Back then anyway)
The sweets Rich mentioned in the colour of Blake's Orbea was Bruisers.
raven and trek Y are still dream bikes for me. 😉 sure, they're outdated, but hell, they had a goddamn great look. ❤
Had a Trek URT. It just about shook itself apart on a fairly mild descent. Awful off road, impossibly slow on-road. It was stolen, I wasn't too bothered.
The NERVE to have the RM7 in there(aka every 2000s kids dream bike) and not include the Kona stinky or stab deelux…
Hey, I was riding a Stab Deluxe recently, and while the long rear linkage did look like a grasshopper's legs, it looked more like a bike than the RM7. The RM7 likely did not experience as many frame breakage failures as the Stab/Stinky, etc. style frames of the same vintage.
@@davebrown9725 Oh no doubt the RM7 was utter trash reliability wise haha, it just looked so cool at the time. those warped downtube stabs were monstrosities...but actually pretty killer bikes. frame breakage was just the name of the game in that era, I can think of at least one of every brands bikes that I saw broken working in a shop back then.
Delighted not to see a GT LTS in here! Not the prettiest bike in the world, but I love mine!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 😍
Should have put the Lawill on the list and the Elseworth ID for that matter.
While I can kind of excuse the early, wild looking and still experimental full suspension bikes shown in this video, I believe there's no excuse for the ugly looks of modern bikes like the BH Atomix, the Haibike Nduro or (I may be stoned for this) all Orange full suspension bikes.
I don't understand some people even defended the trust fork by romanticizing it on its price.
Neil looked very angry about that subscribe button
Just looked up the Rotec Mtbs. Don't remember them but they look pretty cool, even a yamaha coloured one, very MX
I like the Y3's looks, clean and simple. But the URT.....done that, no thanks. The Klein paint jobs are awesome.
The mongoose black diamond isn't too bad.
"easily ruin your bike by choice" 🤣🤣🤣
Ah yes the good ol Chartreuse and fuchsia, brings me a smell of juicy couture, beer, cigarettes, glitter and loud music
Motobecane mCross - The drum brake monster from the 80s - Same weight as a small planet!
the cannondale raven, oh man. hahaha googling that bike leads to funky results.
No sillier looking then Cannondale's single sided front fork
@@vydkeryx9524 Cannondale currently sells a toddler balance bike with a "Lefty" fork. Almost as crazy as the balance e-bikes for toddlers (not kidding, real thing).
That bike looks like Rhubarb and custard sweets from the 80’s
I'm just waiting for the industry to embrace linkage forks as the next big thing that everyone has to have.
It has to happen. Because that's how the industry works. Telescopic forks are as good as they're ever going to get.
There was not an ugly bike on this list, especially if you judge the more vintage bikes in the mindset of the time when they were new. Some might look unconventional and some may not ride well. But everyone of these bikes has its own beauty.
Ι like the trek😀🤟
I wonder if current bikes will be considered ugly in 20 years :)
i actually quite like the mongoose black diamond xD
Way back an enamoured suitor upgraded and gave me his carbon Cannondale Raven lefty it was light but rode like a bag of shit and creaked like crazy. In the 90s I had a polished girvin parallel linkage fork and it was tiddies.
I think the reason that bikes were so ugly wasn't that they were experimenting. I think they were trying to be over the top trying to get the "WOW" factor. There is no reason the Raven or the Y33 had to look like that. Just look at the Schwinn Homegrown URT. Other than its bass boat paint job, it was fairly normal looking.
You forgot the Ibis Bowtie, Mountaincycle San Andreas, Brooklyn Machine Works or how about that Slingshot?
Why didn't your editor put a full pic on screen of the Structure Cycleworks? It looked like it may have been the ugliest of all but we never got to see the whole bike on screen! Attention to detail my friends.
Cumon guys the Karpeil armagedon wasnt shown theirs loads of pics around it was completely different and better looking to the disco violante shown
i rode a trek y, so terrible, if you didnt cut the seat post just right the rear triangle would hit seat post so you either had the saddle too high or too low all the time depending on how you cut it.
And every Orange full suss ever........