"Black is the color of my true love's hair," or, as the Smothers Brothers sang it, "Black is the color of my love's true hair."


Black is the new silver.

Black is the new black

Mid-70s black Dura Ace components were very hot.

My nephew's new, utra modern, top of the line Canyon, is all full carbon fiber black. Everything on it is dull black!.....just Blaaahhhhk!
I think he might agree with me unconsciously, as I haven't seen him ride it for many months now. It's turning into an expensive garage queen. Unlike the Giant he had that was painted white and red that he rode almost every day, after he got home from work......

Black wheelset, drivetrain, and cockpit all mated to a frame with a great paint scheme(most any AllCity in the last few years) is an absolutely awesome look.

Cant say there is anything lacking.

Also every scratch shows silver so it takes far less time to look shabby and have you out shopping for new. We used to call this planned obsolescence.

Ben

Especially parked in full sunlight in July.

Bright Shiny Chrome is so 1950's....

The black may have been coming for a while, but it certainly became popular with the carbon fiber bikes and carbon fiber components.

Campagnolo, of course, has carbon fiber brake levers, carbon fiber cranks, and carbon fiber derailleurs in their top of the line components. Black just goes well with those.

And, for lower quality components. Plastic instead of carbon fiber... still black, and largely mimicking the carbon (and plastic generally doesn't mimic aluminum/chrome well). Then for aluminum cranks & etc... still black like the Record/Super Record.

Please, continue the lyrics.

Bicycles were goth in the early 1940s, 40 years before it became a persona statement. World War II pushed the industry into dark, dull finishes both to reduce reflectivity and to preserve nickel and chromium supplies for the war effort.

Going back even further, to the early days of cycling, most of the velocipedes and hi-wheelers had components with painted black finish. Bright plated finishes didn't become common until after the commercialization of an economical nickel plating process, which roughly coincided with the introduction of safety bicycles. However, rims, when steel, continued to be painted black or colour matched to the frame. Plated steel rims didn't start becoming popular until the industry started moving to the new chrome plating in the 1930s. Even then, painted rims were a common cost concession on many coaster brake bicycles well into the 1950s and children's bicycles continue to use primarily painted rims to this day.

Edit: While there was a small movement towards black anodization of road components in the mid-1970s, there was a more significant move to black on ATB components in the early 1990s. The rationale was that black components looked better than silver, when dirty.

My recollection is the very late 1980s move to painted components started upscale and trickled down. Shimano Santé broke the ice with its mini-group in 1987. Nestled in between 600 and Dura-Ace, pearl white with grey was chosen for the finish. It was designed for the yuppie market and aesthetics was the high priority. The colour combination was considered the most favourable match for the intended market and the Miami Vice influenced, pastel, frame colours that were popular at the time. Cost was a secondary benefit. The painted finish was trickled down to 600 Ultegra and other lower groups for the 1988 model year, in various shades of silver, grey and black.

"I see a line of bikes and they're all painted black,
No matter anyway, the frames are doomed to crack.
I see people buy them up, gob-smacked at how much they pay.
I must hold back a laugh and quickly look away....

I like black, but only on my tires, saddles, and sometimes bar tape.
Tim

Regarding Santé, I was slightly confused as to what the point of it was when it originally came out. I didn't care for the look then, and am still not really a fan, but have started to appreciate it in a kitschy sort of way. Miami Vice indeed. I hadn't thought of that association but it makes perfect sense. I recall it was hard to sell. We had a group sitting in a shop where I worked for a long time. I suppose popularity must have varied by region. I think we had to eventually build up a bike with it to sell it.

After a bit of puzzling, I concluded that it was likely that the point of the Santé group was to be a test case for painting instead of polishing. Shimano really needed to introduce it at the high end to avoid the cheap stigma that would have existed if they had introduced it at the low end. Note that painted finish was migrated down the line very quickly. Also, for the MTB component groups, they stuck to silver clear anodized for the higher end Deore, while introducing paint for the mid to low end.

thank you.

Robert Smith disapproves of your message.

I wish Mark E. Smith was still around to disapprove.

Chrome and mirrored polished surfaces started diminishing within the realm of consumer products back in the late 70's and 80's. Chrome finishes became harder to produce, because of the new environmental concerns surround it. Polished finishes were directly linked to the labor required to obtain them. So, silver and black finishes started to ebb there way into the arenas where chrome/polish had once been... automobiles, furniture, electronic consumer goods, etc. Black, always associated with formality and culture... think tuxedos, cocktail dresses, and Sunday shoes, seemed like a likely substitution choice.

I also think that our society is more market research driven now, and trends created within a market research environment tend to be self fulfilling. When Ken Consumer buys a black component bicycle, market research trends that to "Ken Consumers LIKE black component bicycles", and given that somewhat misread conclusion, the manufacturers gear up to make even more black components for bicycles. It takes someone who understands the consumer better than it understands itself, to break away from an entrenched trend. Case in point... I remember reading an article from around 2007, in Bicycling magazine, comparing 5 bicycles in the $1K cost range... each of the competitor's bikes in the comparison had dull flat finishes with white/grey/red logo schemes.

Black is a very hard color to match, sheen wise, and thus, I think the "it's scratched... and looks used" design obsolescence argument has some validity.

Well Shimano was in Japan making anodized aluminum parts and still mostly chroming their low end stuff except for the rare black skylark, and making Black DA in 1975 or so, as an alternative option to plain polished. Shimano still offers stuff in (bad) chrome on the low end, polished and anodized alumium, and painted. With the introduction of SIS across the Shimano lineup, you start to see painted accent pieces, not just in Sante. Whatever alternative theories there are, I'm thinking some people just liked black.

Steel parts are cheap to paint instead of plate, but quality steel parts are plated because paint wears down and exposes steel to rust at pivots much more easily. Paint also doesn't stick to chromed steel that well. It's not really surprising that after companies moved away from chromed steel on their high end products and aluminum was commonly adopted as a material that they started playing with adding color to parts to stand out, since it didn't need plating, anodizing can be colored, and paint adheres to aluminum well.

I woulda gone with Andrew Eldritch or possibly (early) Peter Murphy. The Cure had way too many happy songs. Check out Smith's HOF acceptance speech, too. He sorta talks about it.

With the automotive reference, I think my love of silver components and dislike of black might go back to the automotive customization days when machined and polished aluminum accessories ("billet") were all the rage.....and really looked great. A current auto based example would, in my opinion, be black aftermarket wheels vs silver/machined. They disappear.....you cannot easily see the design. Same to me for black bike components. You cannot easily see the shapes and designs that are part of the visual appeal.

Well, you hit on one of my peeves here. As others have said, it’s cheaper to paint or anodize black than to polish. And it’s a lowest common denominator thing. BORING!

I’ve made compromises in other spheres (getting previous generation hi-fi speakers to get blonde wood, previous generation flat screen TV to get white), but I mostly refuse to stoop to black components on my favorite bikes...

Black is not a designer color. It’s just lazy.

I think black bikes are ugly...and everybody has them now.

It's a proven and obvious fact that black components are faster than silver components.

Red components are even faster than black components.