I am always a bit perplexed as to the best spot to post my bike pics. Commuter vs. Clyde vs. Road forums. I think I'll go with the commuter forum today, since my most recent changes are geared more toward day-to-day comfort/"adventure bike" aesthetics. Here is a pic of my bike, (KHS flite 747) for which I am quite fond:
For those not already in the know, the 747 is for tall folk, I am 6'7". It is the only production bike tall folk can buy with proportional cranks. It happens to come from the factory with extremely ugly decals. I figured I would just live with that, perhaps get it powder coated in few years to a nice solid color. Then it occurred to me I could simply "black out" the decals with some gorilla tape. I am really surprised at how well this worked. The gorilla tape matches the black color very well, and also provides a nice protective layer to the paint. I am sure it will degrade with some weathering, but I can easily just replace the tape as it starts to look bad. Since that worked out so well, I then put on some brown Charge U-Bend (synthetic leather) bar tape to match the seat (wrapped right over the stock bar tape to accommodate the wider grip of my clyde hands). It used to be a perfect match, but I have since put too many treatments of proofhide on the leather saddle and it is a bit dark. Maybe I'll try proofhide on the bar tape, but I suspect that wont work out well.
I have also changed the stock chainring to a forged version to avoid the bending chainring problem, and gone with a 90mm stem instead of the stock 120mm, but those are older changes.
running a Specialized Roubaix 25/28c tire in the rear which so far is very nice. (older vittoria rubino pro III 28c in the front, also good)
there is also a brass bell on the right bar end. This is critical for my commute, which involves a lot of MUPs. The brass bell works much better than any other bell I have tried, it has the traditional "bra-riiinnnggg, bra-riiinnnggg" associate with a bicycle so pedestrians know exactly what is coming up behind them. The mirrabell or other single tones bells seem to confuse people. Its nice that the brass bell happens to fit in aesthetically with my overall theme (brown leather and copper/brass)