Of course color matters. It practically becomes an article of clothing, a part of your total body image, especially if you ride a lot. Not that I took it into account when I bought a bike for my sabbatical year. This is just a 1-year bike that I don't want to worry about leaving behind (and I won't, will I Trek420!). But that doesn't mean I don't care about how things look. I actually got serious about training and shipped my clunker bike all the way to California to ride the Cinderella Classic just so I could feel I deserved to buy that gorgeous 30th anniversary jersey. And remember, I'd never owned a bike jersey at all before.