^ that is one of the ugliest stems I have ever laid eyes on, which is a shame, because the bike minus the stem is boiling.

Lol. To quote "The 'Burbs" (Tom Hanks, 1989), "It came with the frame." :p

Very hot. The red pinstriping is enough to give it some visual interest and some character.

It definitely is a hot bike, but I myself do not care for madfiber wheels.

Stem is ghastly, indeed - but the wheels are also horrible. deep wheels look so silly, and the logos/wording splashed all over them increase terribleness by 10x
Could also do without the logo on the fork.

Who makes those wheels?

Playskool

I agree, the wheels detract from the looks of an otherwise very pretty bici. :innocent:

insanely hot. But those mad fiber wheels scare me. they are amazing looking though

too TRON

"Amazing" is one word for it...

Guys, point taken. I've got my eye on Lightweight wheels as my next set, but the thing is, short of a collision with a brick wall, these Mad Fibers have been indestructible, with no issues ever. And I've got another set on my other bike with Shimano that just keeps on ticking. And my banker (wife) said no more wheels until I get rid of a few. :innocent:

I don't have such problems with the stem - it is a Look and they have always pushed the envelope toward unusual stuff. The wheels are also pretty cool, but again, on that bike the entire package is screaming LOOK AT ME!!!

Bit of a budget lunch break make over...

Removal of skanky decals, green bar plugs, back tape & saddle. Not quite there I know but do you think it looks better??

Before:

http://i.imgur.com/CVLFYf6.jpg

After:

http://i.imgur.com/jJ7XnXR.jpg

Looks better with the black saddle/tape. The wheels look much better sans decals. The ghosting on rims - it is a little leftover residue or did the exposed CF fade in the sun a bit?

Yes, much.

Regardless of the stem, I'd say it's "boiling OVER." Along with naked, the French know how to do "outré" as well.

Is this bike too big for you? That new stem is tiny!

I did try to swipe it off with a soapy white spirit type stripper but didny want to go ott incase it cracks my rubber.

I've got some 'sticker remover' at work and will give it a rinse later.

Cheers

If the ghosted decals stay, it's ok, maybe even cool in a black on black way.

But those bars, and the resulting downward angle and hood position is just... ugh.

Plus as noted above, what's up with the extra short stem?

the bars are over-rotated and the stem is insane and probably makes the bike very difficult to handle.

Otherwise, the changes look good.

I just swapped it. I hadn't been on many rides recently and the original stem gave me a bit of back ache, I switched to my MTB stem just so I could ride it until the medium length replacement came.

It just got delivered so that issue has been fixed.

For reference it's a 58cm and I'm six foot three

All correctly noted issues now accounted for, was just waiting for my replacement stem to be delivered and didn't fit it correctly.

So I managed to do this, which I myself categorized as "not hot:"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psdxcvuam4.jpg

A great deal of my components transferred over to the replacement, but most of the drivetrain is new-- trying my hand (feet?) at 1X.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psxe61repq.jpg

Hot. I love this bike. This is one of my favorite bikes in this thread and the reason I started to covet a Time years ago. I was so close to buying a closeout RXRS module from R&A.

In person, the lines on this bike are so sweet.