Today over at NameWire — a corporate branding company — they’re discussing a new South African mountain bike called the “Silverback.”

A Silverback is an adult male gorilla. This got them thinking about other bikes named after animals, but the only one additional ones they came up with were Kestrel (bought last fall by Fuji, who are clearly beefing up their American lines) and Mongoose.

I can’t think of any off hand, either. Would Yeti count?

But it got me thinking about Marianne Moore, the New York poet who was asked to propose some names for the Ford automobile that eventually became the Edsel. Among the names she penned? Resilient Bullet, Utopian Turtletop, Pastelogram, Mongoose Civique, Andante con Moto, and the Varsity Stroke 3. Any of those would make fine monikers for a bike, doncha think? Watch out, Big Dummy and Karate Monkey!

Resilient Bullet = carbon road racer

Utopian Turtletop = steel commuter with fenders and matching helmet

Pastelogram = recumbent tandem

Mongoose Civique = BMX cruiser with a hatchback saddle-bag

Andante con Moto = kids bike with card in spokes

Varsity Stroke 3 = Schwinn fixie conversion

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Bike Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.