Adding things to your bike

If you're going to put bags, bells, racks, baskets, or lights on your bike, you might as well choose carefully, because the wrong choices can make a good-looking bike look horrible. I'm not saying go by looks alone, but every bell you can buy goes ding, so you might as well get one that goes ding and looks good. Brass looks good, lime-green plastic doesn't. It's pretty simple, that one.

We sell brass bells, by the way.

Bags work the same way, but there's so much surface area to a bag that colors become even more important. Most bags are black, which is better than lime-green. Even Carradice bags, which we used to sell and don't anymore but still like, are black (usually). Black bagswell, they look generic, and they're hard to see inside of. You need a flashlight, almost; and they really do get hotter. How hot a bag gets isn't usually a prime consideration, but if you ride in hot weather and keep food in your bags, maybe it should be. Black bags are also harder to find something in, just like black rooms are, or dark drawers. Black isn't dumb for bags, but it's not at the top of our list. It can be at the top of yours, of course.

Fenders, hooboy. Everybody drools over metal ones, and more so if they're dimpled. The few metal fenders sold in this country Honjo and Berthoud are really well-designed, meaning they're longer and have nice shapes and strong hardware, and they look really good. Compared to plastic fenders, they aren't as easily bent, cajoled, drilled and reamed, and otherwise adaptable to a bike that itself isn't super fender-friendly. And they're noisier once you get them on, too. Those are just facts. But they are longer and less needful of mudflaps than are any of the plastic fenders we've seen, and if you're up to the task of mounting them, and aren't put off by their $80 to $120 price, then far be it from us to spoil your fun.

The idea of people putting so much work into something that's supposed to block road grime and slime and mudwell, that's a nice thought. In my heart I prefer metal fenders, but on my bike, I like plastic (that looks like metal and is a lot quieter). I hope that is the extent of my hypocrisy.

Our favorite fenders are the SKS ones. They should be another 5-inches longer, though. Then they'd be perfect. Until then, use mudflaps on them.

One area we're lagging behind is lights. We're big believers in lights, and users of them, but there are so many fungible ones out there that it's hard for us to pick one and say "This is the bee's knees!" Peter White (peterwhitecycles.com) is Mister Bicycle Lighting. He sells wonderful, yet costly, European whiz-bang lights, usually but not always powered by internal hub generators.

We find it interesting and troubling that LED technology is peaking at the same time that generator-light technology is. They're both so good. It's hard to know which way to go. Maybe try both and see what makes the most sense for you.