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Silver Stem w/ Black Bars

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Old 03-31-24 | 03:03 PM
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Silver Stem w/ Black Bars

It's common to see a black quill stem with silver bars but is it verboten to use a silver stem with black bars? I don't recall seeing this combo on a nice racing build.

I'm building up my Davidson Impulse and have decided to use a silver stem. The bars I prefer are black but I have silver Nitto Noodle bars I could use too. Looking solely from aesthetics, what say you?
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Old 03-31-24 | 03:14 PM
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I had that setup on my Colnago (which I recently sold), I thought it looked fine and so did my friend who purchased the bike. Bar tape hid most of it anyway.
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Old 03-31-24 | 03:47 PM
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Originally Posted by plonz
It's common to see a black quill stem with silver bars but is it verboten to use a silver stem with black bars? I don't recall seeing this combo on a nice racing build.

I'm building up my Davidson Impulse and have decided to use a silver stem. The bars I prefer are black but I have silver Nitto Noodle bars I could use too. Looking solely from aesthetics, what say you?
I say that most bikes can have a quirk and be the better for them...!

1” of bars shows. And I have been known to wrap to the stem when not collared and the bars are meh.
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Old 03-31-24 | 09:40 PM
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I think keeping seatpost and stem same is more attractive to me.

For example, silver seatpost looks better with silver stem (even with black bars). I have two bikes setup like this (picture below).



Black seatpost, black stem, silver bars also looks cool to me.

I have one with silver seatpost, black stem, silver bars (factory stock), which is OK but slightly awkward in my opinion.
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Old 04-01-24 | 05:34 AM
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The only thing verboten is what you determine to be.
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Old 04-01-24 | 06:04 AM
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I did the opposite, black stem, silver bar. I think it works on my bike because there is a lot of mixture in silver and black, i.e. black brakes, silver/black drive train.

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Old 04-01-24 | 06:07 AM
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Grant Petersen is a fan of mixing black and silver components, so it must be ok.
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Old 04-01-24 | 01:52 PM
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On my Look bike:

Like the others said- the exposed portion is too small to become a visual problem. In any event, a black 26.0mm drop bar is far less of an eyesore than, say, a threadless adapter, or a 31.8mm bar on one of those oversized quill stems.
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Old 04-01-24 | 02:21 PM
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If this makes any sense: mismatched stem and bars look (to me) like bodged together,; used whatever I had. That's fine functionally, but if you're asking about esthetics, matched, to me looks more " original" and elegant. Silver v black? Silver, for me wins.
Like dressing yourself.... match your metals when possible! 😀
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Old 04-02-24 | 05:32 AM
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I've been running Silver/Silver on most of my bikes so far but my long-distance tourer has a silver adaper, black ahead stem and blue handlebars... so I might not be the most critical person when it comes to matching. XD
I am not entirely sure if I want to replace the black headset with a silver one or if I should just paint it black when it gets warm enough in here to do some painting outside.



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Old 04-02-24 | 07:12 AM
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It’s your bike and whatever you do is up to you . We don’t have to like it!
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