Frivolous question - Bike Colour

[Thorn]

Ah, a topic near and dear to my heart...and one that strikes fear into DH (who has been hearing about purrrr-ty bike colors now for several weekends )

Contrary to DH's opinion, color choice for the bike is not a trivial decision nor one to be taken lightly. If we're spending this much money on a bike, we want that color to be right, right? We want that color to be awesome, right? Not to mention unique, telling something about us, and, of course, something we'll love 10 years down the road, no?

Shades of red just don't seem super popular right (...sigh...) now so it is hard to find good examples to get ideas from. I've surfed the web looking at the galleries of custom frame builders; two of Serrotta's forums is devoted to nothing but pictures of bicycles. I've found photos where people have had their bike painted to match their favorite clothing.

Gunnar posts frame colors of the month (http://www.waterfordbikes.com/gunnar...up.php?id=127). Check out their frame of the year and then picture it with a deep wine or cranberry color instead of the blue....wait, please don't like it--that's my latest color choice

[luv'nAustin]

What kind of bike did you order?

If you ride fast enough the colors will blur and no one will notice that you don't have an exact match between bike and jacket.

[Aggie_Ama]

Why not just pick a color and then get a new jacket to match?

Color is not frivalous. I bought my bike because of the color, changed bar tape to spice it up, have blue shoes and a blue helmet! Mine is not one color like Jiffer's, instead I used the fade of blue on the frame to inspire many shades of blue. Oh yeah, and since this photo I found blue tires.

Blurry shot of my bike....

Bottle cages in blue, too!

Shoes, although I wanted these before the bike. They don't match but this year's Sidis are dark red.

Helmet, also had long before the bike. I have the dark blue one, it was the only color they had!

[mimitabby]

For some color is unimportant, but for others of us, it is VERY important.
I think your bike is even more of a personal statement than a car!
and if you're the type of person who thinks a beige car is something you would complain about if they handed you the keys to it as a rental, then you definitely want the RIGHT color for your bike.
I think the red jacket would look awesome on a metallic red bike.
I can't tell you how many hours I have agonized over my custom bike's colors..
And i will until i finally see it!

[Zen]

I'm just happy to have a bike.

[nicole309]

I think if you have a choice, you should get the color that you will love for a very long time.
I agree, the bike will last much longer than the jacket.
Also, my bike is copper and cream. You really don't find bike clothes to match that. However I did find one beautiful wool jersey for the fall!!

[Torrilin]

There are a lot of good ways to build a color scheme. If you love red but don't want a red bike, you can have the main color on the bike be a neutral (navy blue, grey, black, chocolate brown...) accented with red and perhaps a second color.

If you want something a bit wilder, you can go with a complementary color scheme based around red and green. Don't do this if you'd feel like a Christmas tree.

If you want to go *really* wild and have a good frame painter, you could do something like yellow blending into red blending into purple, with black or chocolate brown for the dark color.

I'd go for the red bike, but I think everything should be red. Red sheets, red curtains, red sofa, red water bottle cages... I love all shades of red .