Any colour - as long as it's black

[Cyril Haearn]

For instance, why are black rims the same price as silver ones?

That’s not always the case. Choose a colour and watch the price change. This probably reflects what the market can bear rather than production costs, though.

I agree that some brightness is needed somewhere on the bicycle. Black on its own is pretty miserable. Especially matte black. But the other day I saw an unexpected success with black rims and chainrings. They allow the pale green of the frame to stand out by contrast.

You need CRAP for good design whether in bicycles, the printed page, or a building: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Typographers have studied this for five hundred years and monks for a thousand years before that. You can learn a lot about design from what they have discovered.

What does CRAP stand for?

[cycleruk]

........... but why does carbon fibre only come in black?
I can understand the desire for lightness and stiffness, but why only in black for bikes?
Carbon fibre is used in many other sporting equipments, but it comes in a variety of colours.

Carbon fibre doesn't start black but changes colour through the process in making it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki1aCdkMSeo

Trek:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT4yS5wTkY0
Interesting testing and goes some way to see why they cost a lot. All hand made.

[thirdcrank]

Are the posters who don't like black bikes Remainers?

[Debs]

The colour & style of a bicycle is individual, personal, subjective, and for that reasoning i wouldn't waste by breath criticising other peoples options

As a happy and satisfied Trek customer i will admit they have many present colour schemes that don't appeal to me, and i have actually suggested to the local Trek store salesman that Trek have deliberately produced awful colours so people buy the Project One custom paint job - it was in jest tho'.

Last year i purchased a Trek Silque after a very convincing test ride, and i have no regrets, it is the best bike i've ever owned

Black is beautiful

[Samuel D]

I had a black Kona Dew Drop,black everything but for whte decals and a bit of yellow plastic on the Turbomatic 2 saddle, that bike trned more heads than anything else I've owned
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipO ... vJ8i3DeGQw

Unfortunately that photo doesn’t load for me (us?).

What does CRAP stand for?

As I wrote (but could have been clearer), it’s a silly little acronym for contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Those are sometimes considered the key elements of page layout design, but if you study a satisfying design in any field from haute couture through industrial design to architecture you’ll encounter them.

[Cyril Haearn]

Are the posters who don't like black bikes Remainers?

Ja aber, yes but..
I don't care what colour a bike is. One important consideration maybe: boring colours might be stolen less

Would that BoJo had been appointed transport minister!

[reohn2]

I had a black Kona Dew Drop,black everything but for whte decals and a bit of yellow plastic on the Turbomatic 2 saddle, that bike trned more heads than anything else I've owned
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipO ... vJ8i3DeGQw

Unfortunately that photo doesn’t load for me (us?)..

Sorry I lack the technical ability to sort it

[freiston]

My bike's listed colour is "black forest" - it's a metallic black that looks dark bronze when caught in the light in a particular way. I didn't choose the colour - they provide it in one colour only which changes with each year's model. If given a choice, I wouldn't have chosen either the metallic black that it is or a more standard black. But the bike ain't bad looking (to me) and I thought it to be a good bike for the price and it was the kind of bike I wanted. Thinking about it, I'm sure there's a premium above the standard price below which I would have splashed out for different colour but above which I would have considered it too much for pampering to vanity. Off the top of my head as I feel now, I would say about £40.

If I was spending £9,500 on a bike, it would have to be exactly what I want and the colour would have to be my choice. Spending up to a grand, and I will choose and take from what's on offer; if everything else ticks the right boxes, then the colour would have to seriously offend me for me to not buy it.

As it happens, I haven't got that kind of money and the Trek bikes ticks none of my boxes.

[reohn2]

Sorted:-

[Samuel D]

Thanks, reohn2. Nice, but too black for me. My eye hunts down the few silver bits for relief. However, sometimes a bicycle gives a different impression in real life than in a photo.

One important consideration maybe: boring colours might be stolen less

I think it’s the other way around: black is the thief’s favourite colour because it’s easiest to resell and hardest to identify as the owner’s. I had a bright yellow Vespa for a few years (seen here and here and here on its adventures) and I always thought it was the last thing a thief would choose on a typical Parisian street full of drab vehicles.

[reohn2]

Thanks, reohn2. Nice, but too black for me. My eye hunts down the few silver bits for relief. However, sometimes a bicycle gives a different impression in real life than in a photo......

I take your point about it being too black,but it looked good in real life
My point was the bike's attraction to others,much more attractive than my bronze coloured Vaya.

[NUKe]

Black is beautiful

Debs
you have style Love the pink/black bar tape just sets the whole thing off

NUKe

[Debs]

you have style Love the pink/black bar tape just sets the whole thing off
NUKe

"Matte Black" can really lend itself to carbon fibre, especially when set on the organic curvature of that stealth-bomber Trek IsoSpeed frame.
My bicycle colour options are generally open minded, but IMO Trek presently have too many bikes in far too glitzy glossy black with some red and which isn't to my taste.
The half black / half pink handlebar tape is how it came, i don't mind but like the matte black it didn't influence the purchase at all, and i actually have some new replacement tape which to my sense of style is preferable, more classy less flash... [job to do].

What would be really boring is if bicycles all came in the same colour. It's good to have choice, different colour schemes, designs, personalisation.

In the early 80s, i had a Reynolds 531c road race bike custom built with choice of colour - i choose metallic emerald green. It was a bright shiny happy colour. Most biker friends at the time didn't like it, "it's snot green" or "the bogie bike" or words to that effect were a common utterance to offend my pride and joy. However, a decade later in the early 90s people generally loved it, green was cool... funny how fashion swings it's pendulum to and fro.

Nowadays i'm not as green as i am cabbage looking, and wise enough not to care a hoot about negativity from others

[100%JR]

Both my current bikes are black.My two previous Road bikes were black.The four FS MTBs I owned between 2008&2015 were black.My HT(purchased/built in 2010) was Lime Green...I liked it for a while but when I rebuilt it in 2014 I had the frame powder coated black.
I hated the day-glo colours of MTBs in the 90s and don’t particularly like the return of those garish colours.
When I decide to build a new road bike no doubt the frame will be black.

[Marcus Aurelius]

........... but why does carbon fibre only come in black?
I can understand the desire for lightness and stiffness, but why only in black for bikes?

Carbon fibre is used in many other sporting equipments, but it comes in a variety of colours.

Carbon fibre is Carbon. Which is black, because the molecules absorb all the wavelengths of the incident light, in the visible region of the E.M. spectrum. Any Carbon fibre that appears to be a colour other than black, is painted with a material that reflects some of the light, or the resin with which the weave is impregnated, is doing so.