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How To Build A Beautiful Touring Bike

Follow these tips and you can have your very own gorgeous tourer. Remember, it doesn’t have to be custom-made to look incredible!

Oh, and if you’d like to see my list of the nicest touring bikes in the world, click HERE.

This Geekhouse, owned by John at the Radavist, does an excellent job at keeping colours to a minimum.

1. Keep your colours to a minimum. Two colours are enough (not including your black and silver components), three starts to look messy but can be pulled off.

This A-Train is dressed with a perfect balance of silver and black components.

2. Balance your silvers and blacks. Bikes typically look better with a mix of black and silver components. It’s hard to completely avoid black as it’s often found at the lever hood or on the tyres at a minimum. I really like it when silver hubs, silver mudguards and a silver crankset are used with all black components.

This Vanilla looks super classy with it’s matching saddle and bartape!

3. Match the colour of your seat and bartape/grips. This is the easiest way to make any bike look extra nice.

Metal fenders were the only option for this gorgeous Bilenky tandem.

4. Use metal fenders. Polished or hammered metal fenders are all class. Who cares if they weigh more?

Colour-matched fenders ooze class – just look at them!

5. Paint your fenders the same colour as your frame. Colour-matched fenders are all class.

Painted stems and racks are a great way to make your ride look like a complete custom.

6. Paint your stem and racks the same colour as your frame. You’ll notice a number of the bikes featured in this article feature colour matched parts.

There’s not much worse than a modern crankset on a classic tourer – Tony Pereira knows that!

7. Use classic-styled cranks on classic-styled builds. There is nothing worse than a modern road crankset on a classic build (see the Horse above). White Industries, Middleburn and Campagnolo make some nice classic cranks.

Have I Missed Any Important Tips For Building A Beautiful Bike?