I want a colourful bike

[Mick F]

What Henry Ford may or may not have said on the matter is a source of dispute.

Ford wrote in his autobiography that in 1909 he told his management team that in the future “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”.
I haven't read his autobiography, and until this morning, I didn't know he'd written one.

Anyone got a copy?

[Brucey]

my grandfather had a copy of it; I've never read it but it might be kicking around somewhere. It has to be said that no-one fact checks autobiographies on stuff like that; it is possible that there are things in there which he just made up with hindsight....

I know you can't trust what journalists say either but here;

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/features/model-t-ford-the-car-that-changed-our-world-790395.html

it casts doubt on whether he actually said it and this view is (rightly or wrongly) widely held. If we (collectively) unequivocally get to the bottom of this it will be a miracle I expect.

cheers

[Graham O]

This thread cheers me up. I thought I was the only one who doesn't like Ninja bikes. I was after a Cotic Roadrat frame but they only have Gritstone at present = dark grey and dull as dishwater. The duck egg blue ones won't be in till Spring 2014! Love the frame, but I can't wait that long.

[deliquium]

1992 GT Karakoram frame an forks - original paint with splatter. The winter shopping bike

Click image for BIGGER

[Benethi]

I like a bike to look like a bike, that is, a piece of useful equipment, not a toy..... and would also never buy a white bike. Or white bar tape.....

So.... you want functionality, huh? One of the measures of functionality is ease of inspection.

Hey, I never said anything about functionality, I just said I didn't want it to look like a toy or a tube of toothpaste.


As for choice, there never seems to be as much choice in the colour you want as the colour you don't, whether you like bright drab or anything in between. That's just perception. Certainly when I bought my last bike, I couldn't have the one I initially wanted because it came in a revolting white blue and green. Almost Aquafresh. So I kept looking and got a different one.

Bikes come in all sorts of colours, unfortunately each model only ever seems to come in one colour. Back when I bought my 'first' bike 13 and a half years ago, I had a choice of two colours for the same model. Never seem to get that any more. In fact, the lack of customisation in the major brands always seems a bit of a shame. Why can't I say, 'I want that frame with that groupset, except I want a slightly nicer rear derailleur, and I want it in that colour in that size and I'll have fries with it please.'

[Brucey]

well once you get your head around light colours, some bikes look less toy-like; they can have stripes galore in places where they are not likely to crack....

If you buy custom or do a DIY build you can have what you like; in a shop full of factory bikes, I doubt many people would pay for the time it takes to start swapping things about willy nilly; you would soon get up to a custom price tag, I reckon.

BTW I have known people buy two bikes, mix and match as they wish for the bike they really wanted, and then make another (quite nice) bike from the leftovers that they then sell on.

cheers

[Vorpal]

Or you could try papier mache. This looks like the comics. It appears to have been laquered or shellaced, as well. It was raining when I took these & although it made the handlebars look grayish, I suspect the colours would come out again when it dried. A few parts also seem to have been painted randomly.

[JohnW]

I feel really bad about this - I have three bikes on the road at the moment. My "best" bike has an orange frame, but the other two have black. I have my frames built, so the choice of colour was unlimited. Black is the easiest colour to touch-up when the paint gets chipped - and it will get chipped - and a clean, well polished black bike with all it's accessories clean, polished and shiny does look smart and eye catching. I still feel bad about it though - since reading this thread.

Perceived wisdom locally is that black bikes are stolen less frequently.

In my youth, I had a zany friend who painted his frame red on one side and green on the other and he had different colours of bar tape and brake-cable sheathing on each side. I can't remember what he did with the mudguards.

[horizon]

Horizon
There has never been a more colourful diverse time,some of it quite daft IMO,but hey ho,it's my age.

That's what I thought too but it isn't true. We have the technology to produce a colourful anything but try buying the colour you want in a whole range of goods from cars to computers - and you will be offered silver grey, black, white, grey, metallic silver, silver and metallic grey, oh and metallic black. It's the metallic silver that I hate with a vengeance.

[reohn2]

Horizon
There has never been a more colourful diverse time,some of it quite daft IMO,but hey ho,it's my age.

That's what I thought too but it isn't true. We have the technology to produce a colourful anything but try buying the colour you want in a whole range of goods from cars to computers - and you will be offered silver grey, black, white, grey, metallic silver, silver and metallic grey, oh and metallic black. It's the metallic silver that I hate with a vengeance.

Stop complaining,you can have you nails and hair whatever colour you like

Computer colours,Apple,though personally I don't want to be distracted by a brightly coloured monitor,TV,Hi Fi,etc and anyway they'd have to coordinate with the rest of the room's colour scheme,so new colour scheme new telly? ,we'vw only bought three TV's in thirty odd years,all of them black
I prefer black,
Cars,take your pick from more than half a dozen colours and shades between,there are even some in two tone.
Most off the peg bike frames tend to be a bit limited unless bought from small builders, cycle parts tend to be black,or white painted,or polished/anodised alu.

Brucey brought up a good point about H/bars tape being a light colour so the rider can see when it needs a clean,I tend to wipe mine over every five or sixth ride with a couple of wet wipes to clean it,I find wet wipes good for all kinds of cleaning .
His other point of having polished or anodised cycle parts for safety's sake doesn't concern me too much,as I always build my bikes with durability in mind rather than light weight ie;I don't think I'd feel safe on a 7kg bike as I'd definitely be frightened of breaking it,as for having less spokes than gears,no thanks .

[Brucey]

....I always build my bikes with durability in mind rather than light weight...

I'm not a big fan of running super-lightweight gear myself on the whole, either. And I'd have said something similar about the way I put bikes together, too. However I have nonetheless broken a fair amount of stuff myself over the years and I've seen plenty of other failures too. In nearly every case there had been a crack that had gone unnoticed.

My most recent failure caught me out; of the bikes I own, it was the heaviest built, and amongst the newest (which is relative I grant you... ), with the least miles on it. I've owned other ones of half the weight that have done ten times the work. None of that stopped it from breaking though.

The conclusion I've come to is that you need to give yourself every chance to spot these things before they spot you. However I've also concluded that there are vital, but effectively uninspectable parts, that you can't view at all or won't view on a weekly basis. I'm thinking of pedal spindles, BB spindles, hub axles, saddle rails, steerer tubes, the hidden parts of handlebars, and certain bolts. In many cases I am sure that my preference for certain components in large part stems from their usual levels of reliability; e.g. I quite like shimano SPD pedals, and pedal spindle failures in these are very rare; in fact I've never personally witnessed one. However I'm still wondering if there is anything that can be done with this category of parts to simply be more certain that they are not about to break; newness and heaviness are not in themselves any guarantee, it seems.

cheers

[reohn2]

Brucey
The bike you mentioned was of extremely poor design I think you'll agree and is a rarity these days,as is the Alu Giant someone posted on here some weeks back that had broken in half .
I suspect the vast majority of people don't inspect their bikes for cracks etc,only anoraks like us ,in the same way they don't get under their cars to check stub axles and suspension parts,and whilst I agree,polished and anodised alu parts make inspection/detection easier it's not something I'll lose sleep over worrying about.

The first tandem we owned was a late 80's s/hand Super Galaxy Twin,,it was probably five years old when we bought it.
I had it resprayed and we rode it and toured on it for thousands of miles,no worries,I didn't even consider cracks etc,it was quite noodly and had a 1" threaded steerer.it's most likely still being used.
I've had one frame failure and no cycle parts fail me,perhaps if like a friend of mine I'd broken a few frames and cranksets(in fact he's broken just about everything you can think of)I may be more cautious/wary.
We should also think that some people are a lot stronger than others and a lot rougher/careless with anything they own,which is most likely a contributory factor to failure than anything else.
In the same way some people puncture a lot more than others doing the same sort of mileage,which IMHO is down to the way and where they ride on the same roads,if a rider keeps riding over gravel patches at junctions etc they're bound to pick up something in their tyres sooner or later,similarly so riding 23mm tyres at 120psi on our less than perfect roads puts a lot more stress on a frame,wheels and cycle parts.

[Brucey]

I don't disagree with what you say.

But I would say that people usually find out if they have a badly made part (or indeed if they are likely to break even good parts) the hard way....

It is a kind of tricky judgement this; people (myself included probably) are not very good at assessing true levels of risk; the actual probability of an event may be under or overestimated depending on the perceived nature of the consequences.

The percentage of life on this planet that has been killed by meteorite strikes is larger than you might think; big strikes don't happen often, but when they do they can pretty much wipe everything out.

Or, for example when visiting Australia, most folk give a thought to the possibility of getting bitten by one of the local spiders or snakes. Australia is blessed with the majority of the most venomous species of both IIRC. However, in Australia, the figures indicate you are statistically much more likely to be killed by.....

....a horse....

On the basis that certain types of prang are actually quite hazardous, I think many people could do with more often spending five minutes taking a careful look at their bikes, and if some colours help that process, it surely can't hurt to choose those.

cheers

[Vorpal]

I think that the numbers of cyclists who are likely to put themselves in harms way with a frame failure are few and far between. That's not to say that it isn't appropriate to check one's frame. I do so myself regularly. However, risk is a combination of things, and the probability that a frame will fail under circumstances that are likely to result in harm are very small indeed. One would have to
a) have the frame fail in a way that causes an immediate problem
b) not have noticed the failure beginning, or any symptoms
c) be either going quite fast, or in the midst of a critical maneuver

Once a) and b) are true, I think that the frame is more likely to fail under c) circumstances, but not all cyclists ride fast enough or aggressively enough to impact the time of failure significantly.

So, the risk of using black or charcoal frames is small indeed. But for anyone who is really worried, it is possible to detect cracks with dye penetrant inspection or magnetic particle inspection (for a steel frame).

[Squeezebox]

I would really like to buy a Spa cycles Audax...but was told it was only in black, or silver for the titanium....I offered to pay more for a different colour, but no go. They quoted me the old "you can have it in any colour, as long as its black" thing as mentioned above.

I have a number of bikes and several of them dark colours and thats fine. This time I wanted something just a bit brighter, nothing garish, just a different plain colour to make me feel a bit happier and brighter when riding it and to give it a contrast to the other bikes I own. Maybe thats mad, sad or silly on my behalf. However I get pleasure from looking at, and appreciating the differences between my bikes and just another black one wont do anything for me.

So I havn't bought one for this reason, the only reason to be honest. Shame really.