Originally Posted by
Steel Charlie
For me, black anything on a bike just becomes a black blob. Bikes have totally cool components and lines and are simply a visual delight mechanically. Why anyone deliberately fades any of that by making it black is a mystery to me. JMO of course - invisibility is certainly anyone's choice to make.
I partly agree to this, especially thinkning about 70's-80's parts, which were really the jewels of the bikes, where apart from lug shapes and pantos they mostly looked the same for the untrained eye (within a category).
BUT depending on one's taste, there are exceptions to the rule, e.g. the Modolo Kronos delta brake - which is by design isn't the most beautiful object on the planet - looks awesome in black. Actually so good, that it would look plain ugly in any other finish.... in my opinion.... It's a different topic, that there was no matching chainring, FD and RD in real black yet (on the Italian top shelf) and it causes a bit of a "disturbance in the force"
Lattz