or silver components in general. thumb through any magazine or bike website and look at all the components, everything is black, carbon, or *shudder* glossy white......did silver just die out in the 1980's?

Easier/cheaper to slap paint or powdercoat over something than to take the effort to actually polish it.
Especially if marketing can convince the consumers it is what they want.

I am considering a neo-retro build, using a Nashbar frame and chrome parts. Silver wheels/spokes/nipples, seatpost, stem, bars, crank.

Silver doesn't bother me unless it is a quill stem. You can't neo-up that retro quite enough.

They can be found, but its not easy and choices are limited. I found the same frustration doing a neo-vintage style build a while back.

velo orange does a nice job with some of their stuff. on a side note, does a silver seat post have to match the stem? i think it may get a free pass if the seat and bar tape are the same color but i may be mistaken.

I used Ritchey Classic seatpost/stem/bars on a recent build because I was tired of black black black. They look pretty nice. If you don't like the bend of the bars you're SOL though because they only offer the Logic bend.

yes, velo orange is great. I got my stem from Civia - they also have a silver seat post. Thompson seatposts come in silver as well.

Soma also has silver stems, bars, and seatposts, with some very attractive prices: https://store.somafab.com/components2.html

yeah, i like the finish on those. i just scored a silver thomson post for 40 bucks on CL so im rearranging some parts around a seatpost??? anyway, it looks that nice....

I just received my Ritchey Classic bars, stem and thinking about a seat post. I love the silver look. Especially on my Black/silver bike.

I also have D/A 7800 with plenty of silver on it, I which I had the Crank...

I like my silver parts (Ritchey Classic stem / seatpost and Dura Ace 7800 crankset):

That right there is how it is done. Nice, nice bike. Silver rims and fork and that thing is a 10.

The same thing happened to audio components in the 80s, ushering in the dark ages of BPC.

Can't wait to change my crank. Hate silver. Hate it.

This made me think of the PC cases of the 90's and early 00's. Couldn't imagine buying a beige PC now. Hell, couldn't imagine buying any kind of PC.

this is how mine turned out...

thats got a nice utilitarian look to it and is still modern. i guess it really depends on the build. black does not go with everything but silver is great, you can use it on retro builds or it can easily complete the look of a new carbon frameset.

I think it has as much to do with the proliferation of carbon as a do-it-all material as anything. hard to polish or chrome plate carbon.

I'm not fan of the matte black look either, I prefer glossy and as for glossy white I have the same reaction.

Original Sram Rival, Nitto bars, stem and seat post, Chris King headset, Shimano PD-R600 pedals. All new at time of build.

Someone mentioned the Soma stem & bars upthread, that's what I used for my Schwinn Peloton. Most of the components were already silver but the previous owner had put the world's ugliest red stem on there, and I also wanted a compact drop. Very happy with the result, silver was definitely the right look for this bike. Have seen quite a few others updated with all black parts and it just looks wrong.

This bike reminds me of my ex-wife: Not bad looking, but way too much baggage attached.

I love the silver finish on the 2011 Athena Group, with a mix of vintage Athena. This bike would look just wrong with Black Components.

yeah, well, I need to take things back and forth to work and I'm not carrying a backpack.

I love all the shiny silver in this thread. Has anyone tried all silver on a modern carbon bike?

Thomson?