Current bike is a Chromag, so I got to choose the colour.

and you chose curry diarrhea!? 🙂

No no no

Yes yes yes

It’s an issue for me. I’ve tried to ignore it in the past but every time I went in the shed to get the bike, irrespective of how well it rode, my first thought was ‘that is an ugly bike’.

Paint job/”look” is up there next to geometry/construction for me. Right at the top.

If i’m spending £1k+ you better believe it’s gonna look good too.

oooh – that’s my bike Leku!
(doesn’t look quite as shiny as that now).

I don’t really know what goes on at on-one. All they have to do is make some simple designs that don’t turn anyone off imo.

I wouldn’t buy a bike just because I liked the colour, but I wouldn’t buy a bike unless I liked the colour either.

For example, I liked the geometry on the Smuggler from day one, but didn’t buy one until they produced the orange version last year as the blue didn’t really do it for me and I’ll never own a grey bike. I count black and white as shades of grey, by the way.

Similarly I have a Five in the shed which I’m not using and should probably pass it on to somebody who will enjoy it, but it’s neon orange and for that reason alone I’m reluctant to let it go.

Very high. Colour aesthetics most important.
Most of my bikes are black.
Fight the power…. 😉

I didn’t like the colour scheme on my new frame at all when I first got it (scott scale 740 2016) as it was a bit bright with luminous orange bits> In fact, I nearly bought a 2015 frame (plain black and white) but the 2016 frame was 200g lighter so i figured I’d get over it. Having ridden the frame and fallen in love with the handling, I now love the colour scheme too. Either that or my retinas ahve become immune to the blinding colours.

Rad GT paint ahoy, I think this was called ‘black rain’ or something equally as awesome-

Should never oughta have sold that bike. Stupid, stupid, stupid 😡

I had a red/orange spatter painted GT Outpost BITD. The 90s were awesome.

Leku – Member

Yes yes yes

Bird are a company that do it very well. A wide choice of simple primary colours, pick the one you like. I reckon that sells plenty of bikes for them.

One of these popped up on the local FB buy/sell the other week…

Just needs Crossmax XLs instead of those yellow Enduros, but what an achingly lovely colour.

I don’t mind, as long as it’s black

That Bird is tasty . Just ordered a respray for my Norco . Traffic safety orange :).

Strangely enough I rather like those board an paint jobs. They look a bit like Cube or Ghost designs, which I also like. That black & yellow commencal is fantastic!

Cube was the first thing that sprang to mind looking at the Pro FS. I think it actually looks pretty good and more distinctive than the old ones.

For me aesthetics do matter, especially on more expensive stuff so a paint job is important. I don’t want to spend a load of money on a bike or a frame and think that colour etc is nasty / rubbish.

It matters in as much as it has to have no paint at all….so it still looks as good as new after bouncing riderless down the side of a hill.

Raw is king

I like strong/bold colours – I don’t like fussy graphics at all.

I’d be much more put off by crap graphics than the overall colour.

The thread title instantly made me think of the new Boardmans!

Previous years the smart schemes have made them look like a higher-end item than they are, the new paint makes them look like a lower-end item than they actually are.

+1
I think they look really cheap now.

For me a new bike is fairly rare, and all other things being equal I might well be prepared to pay, say, £2000 for something it makes me happy to look at than £1800 for something I don’t like the look of. It’s not like there’s not a huge range to choose from.

I bought my road bike just cos I liked the colour. Sometimes I even ride it (so I can take pics of it)

[url=https://flic.kr/p/DvtzE7]2016-01-26_05-34-20[/url] by Allan, on Flickr

If I had a choice all my bikes would be white, as it’s much easier to clean.
My dark coloured bikes look fine when they’re wet but when they dry all the bits I’ve missed stand out like a sore thumb.

whenever mrs antigee tells me she doesn’t understand an advert I remind her she probably isn’t in the target audience
– same with bike colours I guess – if you hate it no big deal – pretty rare that there is no similar spec frame/complete bike around from another supplier, if you are in love with a specific brand then you’ve already entered some sort of trade off on rational choice so suck up what you’ve been sucked into

PS the word colourway does want me to put my fingers down my throat, can it be banned?

I subscribe to the Henry Ford school of bicycle colours.

Which makes it awkward often buying Specialized as it means you end up with an S-Works.

One thing certainly in the favour of Orange, that you can order from loads of different colours for the bikes, albeit for a small premium.

@ roverpig, just ordered my Smuggler (to replace my green bandit two9 🙁 )

Safety orange all the way!

a bike looking “right” will capture your enthusiasm and imagination – you can see yourself riding it – and colour will probably be a factor in that. That might be enough to make you do a little more research around that bike (probably influenced by verification bias) giving you a positive view of the bike. A gopping bike would have to have already grabbed your attention from positive press/reviews to make you look past your initial impression.

The all-neon yellow Commy Meta really grabbed me and I came close to buying it

I couldn’t live with any Mondraker for that godawful braced headtube junction they use which makes the bike look like a crash repair job.

I love white bikes, despite Trimix’s assertion white is a LACK of colour, and racing CX this year there are a lot of nice neon or pastel schemes out there which haven’t made their way onto similar road bikes.

@ roverpig, just ordered my Smuggler (to replace my green bandit two9 )

Safety orange all the way!

Good call, on both fronts 🙂 Looking forward to hearing how you get on with it.

I couldn’t live with any Mondraker for that godawful braced headtube junction they use which makes the bike look like a crash repair job.

You think that Commie looks better than this?

I think the Mondraker’s at the nicer end of the spectrum myself, while the old Meta looks like they were just trying to make the heaviest bike possible. And the seat tube arrangement looks ugly to my eyes. Do you like the look of the Evil Following as well?

@roverpig, will do, just trying to decide between the fox 34’s or the pikes. Any guidance?

I really like the look of that Mondraker, slack and long..

@roverpig, will do, just trying to decide between the fox 34’s or the pikes. Any guidance?

No much I’m afraid. I’m happy with the (130mm) Pikes on mine, but by all accounts the new Fox 34s are pretty impressive too. I’m sure that whatever fork you go for you’ll love it.

A good colour scheme will get me to consider a bike, so it aids them in getting onto the shortlist. I’ll approach test rides really hoping to be most impressed by the ones that are nice colours. It may also resolve a tie if I can’t decide between two options that I can’t otherwise choose between.

There are obvious (though perhaps contradictory) limits to how much colour will influence my purchasing. I like brightly coloured bikes, with orange being my favourite frame colour. However I ended up with a raw carbon/black Mojo as getting an orange one would have cost me an extra 200 quid or so. On the other hand when my wishy-washy yellow Chameleon’s paint started to look really ratty I ended up sending it to Argos for a shiny orange (with black contrast panel) respray.

I did go through a brief period many years ago of being taken with the idea of an all black bike. Then I saw a first gen orange Cotic Soul and realised that that was the perfect colour for a mountain bike! Plus the whole “stealth” thing is a bit of a joke considering we’re all just playing in the dirt on bikes and many of those bikes are fitted with Hope or Chris King hubs. 🙂

Nearly 70 posts in and no-one’s mentioned that if the new bike’s the same colour as the old one then it’s much less likely to be questioned. Or even spotted!

You think that Commie looks better than this?

yes, because that bent toptube/brace configuration is an abomination visually and from an engineering perspective. Introduce a completely pointless (other than to establish a visual identifier for your brand) bend in a tube, thereby weakening it, then flower it up and try to replace that lost strength with a brace. Without that it would be a far better looking bike than the Commy as it is more svelte and lean, and the seat stay line runs into the top tube.

You think that Commie looks better than this

I do. I hate to top tube on Mondraker. No mater how good they ride or how nice the colour scheme was, I wouldn’t buy one.

To be honest, I have a hard enough time finding a bike that fits me anyway (due to comedy height) that my criteria for colour schemes is pretty low.

I own a blacked out, 100% stealth road bike (possibly not ideal), a champagne gold hard tail and a Stumpy in red/white/black, so it’s all a bit random anyway.

For my current frame it was either anodised black or raw silver. Either I would have been happy with but I am glad I went for the black, just looks right for the frame.
My previous Intense was raw (ok) for a bit, then cherry apple red (lovely) then sulphur yellow with a gold flake (bright) and it’s amazing how much difference a colour can make to how a bike looks. In raw it looked small and skinny but once it had a coat of paint it looked like a different bike.
Same bike, 3 different colours:

Its definitely pivotal for me,I couldnt possibly ride anything that I didnt feel “fly” on or whatever the cool kidz call it now.
I often see versions of my 2 bikes in completely unappealing colours and they wouldnt inspire me to ride them at all.
I guess its the same with clothes,shoes,cars etc though isn`t it ?

I used to own a Shit Brown DeKerf single speed so I guess I can’t be bothered by colour (I bought it new too!) – on the other hand, I thought it looked good so beauty really is in the eye of the beholder! 😀

Its important to me, but looks start with the frame,ugly frames like Ellsworths or any single pivot, Orange being a point in case are a no,no. I want my bike to look like someone competent has designed and made it, rather than knocked together by my mates with some gash tubes/plate and a tig welding set.

After that colour scheme is important and the less stupid stickers the better,my pet hate being shouty, screamy wheelsets.

But the bottom line is if I really think its fugly then thats it, it has no chance of ending up in my garage.

ps no matter pretty to your eye a bike is a test ride is essential.I once was seduced by the whole Intense blingy looks and hip marketing, that 6.6 was by some distance the worst bike I have ever owned, a complete triumph of style over substance.

Not concerned about the bikes colour really.

Seem to be in the minority here, more concerned about geometry , fit, handling.

Never really liked the Orange 5 look, but after having recently bought a SC Bantam the single pivot bikes are very appealing.

I personally really like the new Boardman paint jobs..

It’s very subjective as this thread is proving.

I’ve just seen them in the flesh at the local halfords. They’re even more awful than I first thought. They really do look like cheap rubbish which is a shame because over the years boardman seemed to have made some pretty decent and excellent value bikes. Must learn to look past the paint job.

For me it depends on what bike I’m getting. If I went for a no holds barred dream build the colour would be very important, it would all have to be right.

On the other hand, if the bike was a bargain and I fancied a change it wouldn’t matter as much.