What’s the Worst Motorcycle Color? – Question of the Day
Orange you glad we asked?
What’s the worst motorcycle color?
We’re not just asking because KTM just sent out a press release with the image above to celebrate 30 years of Duke models, in all their orange glory. Personally, I don’t mind the Austrian brand's signature hue, but we’ve certainly heard more than a few gripes about it in the comments for reviews of tangerine-colored KTM over the years.
We’ve also seen more than a few complaints about Harley-Davidson’s new base color for 2024, “Billiard Gray”. Whether you just call it primer, or merely wonder if there even are any gray billiard balls, it is weird seeing it replacing Vivid Black as the standard Harley color.
That being said, is gray that egregious a color for a bike? As a shade, it's pretty innocuous. We see a lot of reds, whites and blues out on the roads, but not that many greens, except from Kawasaki. There aren’t a lot of yellow bikes out there, but it doesn’t look too bad on the Ducati Scrambler.
In the end, beauty is subjective, and that's especially true when it comes to motorcycle colors. Which is why it makes for a good Question of the Day. So, we ask again, what do you think is the worst motorcycle paint color?
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Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.
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There is orange, then there is orange. I am not a fan of KTM orange; it is enough to cause me not to consider buying a KTM, no matter how good they are. Kawasaki green is not appealing to me either. However, I have '14 BMW F800GT in Valencia Orange metallic that is my favorite of all the colors in which the F800GT offered.
Since a major cause of motorcycle accidents is not being seen by automobile drivers, it is beyond ridiculous to paint motorcycles the color of asphalt pavement.
I think it really depends on the motorcycle itself yellow Harleys I can’t stand, but I think yellow looks great on dirt bikes, root beer colored Harleys look fantastic but I can’t see it on dirtbike. All my bikes are black so I don’t really care about colors.