#!markdown
Really its the aesthetics as a whole? If I'm being honest-bordering-on-brutal,
if you took off the shiny parts, hung a bunch of Alivio off it, and changed
the Rocky to CCM… I'd completely believe it.
I'm not in love with the "utilitarian" look of the current crop of Rockies.
You can do all these fantastic things with carbon, and they've made… a
bicycle. And while I can see and appreciate the appeal of function>form, I
just can't help but think they're really comfortable inside the box, so to
speak. And they topped it off what I'd say is a 'kinda mailed this one in'
frame, they've painted it with 'meh'.
As a reviewer, its not really your job to speak to the aesthetics; we the
commenteriat are perfectly capable of making up our own minds on what we think
is good looking (and being the internet, will speak up!). And everyone will
never agree on what's good looking, and what's not. Someone else in here will
skewer me for thinking this is ugly. That's just like, your opinion, man.
BUT (and its sort of a big one), it probably IS your job to speak to how you
think it looks. As the saying goes, you eat with your eyes first; the biases
formed at this point will, like it or not, follow you through the review. On
extreme end, it'll be hard to fall in love with a bike you find hideous no
matter how good it is, and vice versa. So it is possibly worth a mention as it
gives those of us on the other ends of The Tubes an idea of where your
cognitive biases are with a bike, brand, etc.
Before I ramble on for too long and this ends up longer than the article I'll
leave it with a quote from Bill Lear, of Learjet, that I tend to agree with as
it applies to most design.
"If it looks good, it will fly good."
April 25, 2016, 11:36 a.m. - Cooper
#!markdown Really its the aesthetics as a whole? If I'm being honest-bordering-on-brutal, if you took off the shiny parts, hung a bunch of Alivio off it, and changed the Rocky to CCM… I'd completely believe it. I'm not in love with the "utilitarian" look of the current crop of Rockies. You can do all these fantastic things with carbon, and they've made… a bicycle. And while I can see and appreciate the appeal of function>form, I just can't help but think they're really comfortable inside the box, so to speak. And they topped it off what I'd say is a 'kinda mailed this one in' frame, they've painted it with 'meh'. As a reviewer, its not really your job to speak to the aesthetics; we the commenteriat are perfectly capable of making up our own minds on what we think is good looking (and being the internet, will speak up!). And everyone will never agree on what's good looking, and what's not. Someone else in here will skewer me for thinking this is ugly. That's just like, your opinion, man. BUT (and its sort of a big one), it probably IS your job to speak to how you think it looks. As the saying goes, you eat with your eyes first; the biases formed at this point will, like it or not, follow you through the review. On extreme end, it'll be hard to fall in love with a bike you find hideous no matter how good it is, and vice versa. So it is possibly worth a mention as it gives those of us on the other ends of The Tubes an idea of where your cognitive biases are with a bike, brand, etc. Before I ramble on for too long and this ends up longer than the article I'll leave it with a quote from Bill Lear, of Learjet, that I tend to agree with as it applies to most design. "If it looks good, it will fly good."