- Meant to be together -

There are some parts of a bicycle that are just meant to be together, or mean to be on a particular bike. The bike in my sig photo is my current "go-to" bike. I ride it most of the time when I am not on the fixie. The only problem, if you can call it a problem, is that it really doesn't look right with anything other than Lightweight carbon wheels. I have tried about half a dozen others. They all looked fair (Zipp 303, Campy Eurus, Edge 38), some even pretty good (Edge 68, Zipp 404, Ligero handbuilts). But with the Jacaranda Amarillo wood veneer, the carbon-aramid spoke of the Lightweight Gen II looks perfect and really makes the bike look as sexy as it possibly could.

The other thing that I have suspected, and just "proven" is that the San Marco Magma (which is a very comfortable saddle btw) looks best with Dura Ace shifters. I had the bike set up previously with Record to have the "very serious black and carbon thing" going on while being nicely offset by the wood accents. It never looked quite right, and I suspect that the bike would be better served by a San Marco Rever if it ever went back to Campy (doubtful). The little 'spoiler' on the front of the Magma saddle just goes better with the protuberance at the front of a DA shifter.

Often times there are people who have dire opinions - like a bicycle only looks "pro" with Campy and white bar tape, or carbon cranksets always make a bike look better. But, more often than not, those theories really aren't quite proven to be quintessential in the real world where the only difference is a slight personal preference, but 99.4% of people that are "really into bikes" think that you're just being difficult. There are occasions like this bicycle, however, where it seems like there really is only one right choice for something.

Of course, that may be only true if you are slightly off-balance and obsessive like me when it comes to your bikes. Or maybe I'm just being difficult...