Which bicycle manufacturer is the most innovative?

First off, all of the companies that have been mentioned are excellent and they all have very innovative porducts. My oinion, is that lately, specialized had had some of the best and most innovative ideas on the market. This does not however undermine the efforts of cannondale, which continues to place on the market, simple, elegant and very smoote riding machines. It is true, cannondale uses mostly a single pivot designs but if you have ridden one lately, you will realize that these are still great porducts. As for Giant, I am no judge. I have neither seen, ridden or herad anything good or bad abouth their new lines of products.
I do have to say though, of the three companies, i would probably purchase a cannondale as my next bike, mostly because of its smoothe simple ride and its elegantly welded frames.

P.S.- Where does Rocky Mountain fit into this picture?

Specialized tops the list

Cheers,

"I Will Never Draw Ethical Circles Around The Things That I Do".

well I am by no way a pro or have a lot of experencebut, my $250 giant still runs like a champ and when prefering a hard tail over full susp I still ride it. ( I did today)

I'm actually thinking of taking a trance frame and using all the parts off my Iron horse Warrior Pro... I think the price-performance of Giant is great!

although each one of them make great bikes, specialized has to take that title

I've owned several, so I agree with you...

Walker T

Off the road, on the mind...

well trek just came out with the new Fule EX, and let me tell you those things are nice
GF has the 29ers and 29ers=sweet
Giant has the brain shock

I have to go with Trek, but hey they pay me

Giant has a brain shock, that's cool...

You know, I'm into the Fuel EX. That's a 5" travel XC race bike, right. I hear it has great race potential, which I like to hear...

Walker T

Off the road, on the mind...

ok, so here's a late contribution -- what about the little guys? yeah , spec and giant and cannon all have huge budget to do research and play with the intricacies of shock valving, etc. but are they really being innovative? it's a question worth asking in mho.

my nomination for most innovative is jeff jones -- http://www.jonesbikes.com/ -- this guy is exploring some truly new designs and ideas. i haven't ridden one, but gawd they're beautiful.

seems to me that it's frequently the little guy on the cutting edge. remember the ibis bow ti? small company, left field idea that was an amazing execution, although a flawed design. think gary fisher in the formative years. think amp. a lot of what they developed was not so great, but a lot of it has been integrated into today's standards.