Right, admittedly I'm a weekend rider and the bike has probably somewhere between 1200-1500 miles on it (never had a computer until now so not really sure of the mileage). Nonetheless, 1000+ miles is plenty of ride time and sweat time for the tape to get nasty, and it sort of is after a ride, especially right near the hoods, both above and below. I just make sure to clean it good after each ride, I gently rotate a wet white terry cloth around it, dry it off with another, and then hit another terry cloth with the Bleche White, rotate that around it gently, and then hit it again with the wet/dry combo to remove the Bleche White. Works pretty well. Would I prefer black tape? Not sure, probably not on this bike; this bike looks great in red with white decals/saddle/bar tape, but I would not have complained if it came with black tape either. White tape looks great on so many bikes, but I could take it or leave it due to the regimen of keeping it nice; I've ordered a couple rolls of what I thought was identical Colnago tape, but it's just different enough to not be quite the same and keep me looking for the exact same stuff - not sure why I have been utterly unable to find the exact same tape, so in the meantime, I'll just keep cleaning it. Also if I rode 200 miles a week, I wouldn't bother...but being a weekend rider, I can keep it looking great for a pretty long time without too much effort, so may as well.