Bicycle Aesthetics and Photography - How to take photos of your bike

But there are a couple of issues I've not had explained satisfactorily; the stem and seat post are contrasting colours, as are the seat/bar tape. Are those ok?

I'll forgive a black stem if it compliments the colours on the bike such as a PDM paint job for example. I'm not keen on contrasting colours i.e white tape with black saddle but on the example above the white tape goes with the graphics and the black saddle goes with the stem so it balances up quite nicely. Also a black saddle is ok if the bike has black hoods.

Jonny Rau's near perfect Chas Roberts was crying out for a white saddle.

My gripe with it is the red rims, I would have fitted silver or black but then I'm not very adveturious and as I said in the OP colour is very much a personal thing. The red insert on the XA stem does match the red rims though...