Your choice of decals contributes nearly as much to the overall styling of your bike as your choice of color. Styling remains a very personal matter. However, we've learned some useful lessons from our experience with thousands of Waterfords.

Here's how these decals might match with a sample of different colors. Please note how parts of the decal can "disappear" over a matching color:

Since styling ties so closely to what you want to communicate through your bike, we've identified four categories of combinations:

• Bright, Agressive: This generally high contrast colors make the your bikes easier to identify. Competitors like it since their friends can more easily pick out their bike in the peloton, at the starting gate or in large groups.

  One way to achieve high contrast is to place a light decal on a dark bike or vice-versa. This simple color wheel illustrates another way to create or minimize contrast. Colors at the opposite side of the wheel tend show a higher contrast than combinations near each other. Yellow vs. Purple as opposed to blue vs. green.

• Elegant: These combinations offer less contrast for those who want to communicate their bike's understated beauty. Use the outline only decals for a really subtle or correct look.
• Kinky, Quirky: These off-beat combinations often stand out as unusual, not unlike their owners.
• Not Recommended: Certain combinations just don't work - mostly because the one of the decal colors doesn't contrast with the color of the bike. Examples:
  • Avoid having decals covering a like color such as black on black or white on white. The part or all of the decal "disappears" over the bike, making the bike look "wrong". If you like the "stealth look" (black on black, for example), choose an "off-black" like a black metallic, that minimizes contrast but has a least some.
  • Red decals on a green bike look too much like Christmas. For some reason it never seems to work on bicycles. This is probably a northern hemisphere issue since it's either cold or dark up here.
  • Watch for styling that conflicts with the decal placement.
  • Some buyer consider leaving the decals off the frame altogether. We recommend against this for a number of reasons:
    • With no decals, the bike looks like it was stolen.
    • If it doesn't look stolen, it looks wrong.
    • The Waterford name has nothing to do with how attractive a your bike would be to thieves. Thieves care about where and how well you lock your bike. In fact, the unique character of the Waterford makes it harder, not easier to steal.

    A surprising number of riders who've asked to leave off their decals have come back to have them added later.