rpenmanparker 

I really did try to find the thread I started on this some months ago, but no luck. To recap, I wanted to try a scheme for decorating an unpainted titanium bike without resorting to getting colored decals or painting the frame. The idea was to accessorize the bike with a color on the rims, saddle, tape, and cables. Since the frame is bare Ti with white and black decals, I decided to make all those items yellow. I had the rims powder coated, the saddle recovered by Jason at Recovered Saddles (great to work with and great job), and bought yellow tape and cables.

I am the first to agree with our good friend and colleague, BDop, when he says to watch out you don't make things too matchey-matchey. I think I stopped short of jumping the shark or going over the top. Here it is, you tell me:



OH, by the way, I just came back from my first ride on it with the color. Guess what? Yellow is just as fast as red!

clausen

Flip it.

rpenmanparker 

Gotta deal with what I got. All three of my road bikes have "identical" fit. The up-stem is what it takes for this one to match, so there it is.

Raedyn

I like it a lot. Well done.

JoeB14

Very nice-I like it. I have a Litespeed Classic-you are giving me ideas :-)

Just curious...how much did it cost to have the rims powder coated?

rpenmanparker 

Thanks. Powder coating in Houston is outrageous for small items. They charge the job minimum of $150 to $200 everywhere I checked. I went with Ed Steidle in Orlando, FL at woodland847@yahoo.com . Very reasonable. He charged me $30 each plus return shipping. The whole thing came to about $85 including both shipping charges. That included masking the brake tracks.

Of course you have to have bare rims. I took the wheels and apart, had the rims done, and put them back together. Luckily that is something I do a lot of.

BillyD

I have the same color scheme on my Ti, and for me I prefer a black saddle or at least a mostly-black saddle. Looks good otherwise.

seymour1910

Like

reef58

I like it.

cbresciani

Not a huge fan of the yellow rims, but that's just me. I do like the looks of everything else. I think yellow looks great with titanium.

aubiecat

Hot

krobinson103

I like it. Saddle is a bit larger than what I prefer on a roadie but it looks very nice. Well balanced. Beats the ugly white forks on the local titanium bikes.

gc3

very nice but done in all mango even better

rpenmanparker 

When you're right, you're right.

rpenmanparker 

It is definitely a road racing saddle, but about 75 g and two generations behind the fashion. Besides the color issue, that's the other reason it needed to be recovered.

chaadster

Very nice.

eja_ bottecchia

Ti bikes have a certain beauty all of their own. Your bike looks great. I would have not used yellow rims, maybe black rims for contrast. But overall it looks very nice. Good job.

jbenkert111

Beautiful, but I do agree with BillyD, a Black and Yellow seat would look better. Notice how the seat kind of jumps out at you and is a little distracting. All the other yellow highlights have black coloring blended in with it, but the seat is just sitting there completely yellow. Beautiful job over all though.

rpenmanparker 

Thanks for the comments, but I don't see that "jump" or the distraction. I feel like the rails and post provide enough black for contrast. Different strokes for different folks I guess. And I was lucky to get the yellow leather. Anything more complex would have really been a problem to source. (There aren't any high end road racing saddles in yellow anymore that I could find, hence the need for to have my old one recovered. But your input is much appreciated.

jbenkert111

I do see your point on the rails adding contrast. Hey listen, I have four bikes and NONE of them come even close to being as good looking as yours.

rpenmanparker 

Nice of you to say that. It's a hobby thing!

chaadster

The saddle is my least favorite part of the bike, actually. It's not that I don't like the color, but the shape and finish quality leave something to be desired; I don't like the heavy tucks and gathers.

I'd probably prefer this, although yours seems to have hit the hue dead-on:

rpenmanparker 

Either you have really young eyes, or you used a magnifying glass. Really, I might have bought the saddle you showed except I didn't see it and really like the flat shape. But other than that...

Your observations are right on, but no matter, I'm really cool with it just as it is. Thanks for the input.

krobinson103

Don't like those selle smps much. They are all the rage with the titanium mtb crowd here but, I have something similar on my mtb tourer and its nice, but the extra padding really decreases the comfort for me.

rpenmanparker 

Funny thing is if you Google "yellow bicycle saddle, seat" the SMP is the only high end one that shows up. Nobody else is offering one according to Google.