Mandarin or Blue

I have a bit of a dilemma with regards to my bar tape.  Right now I have a nice San Marco Lorica (synthetic leather) blue finished off with some orange electrical tape I found at Home Depot.  The effect is quite nice if I do say so myself.

From the last picture, you can see the bar tape is showing signs of wear.

I'm partial to leather (don't ask) so I looked up Brooks bar tape.  Very interesting.  Brooks has a nice Royal Blue but they also have a color called Mandarin:

I just don't know if the Mandarin will be orange enough or if I should just stick with Royal Blue.  What do you think?  Please see my previous posts for color comparisons.

Repainted Frame In-Transit

My Orange Bike is on its way back to me after the repaint.  The good folks at Joes Bicycle Painting sent a handful of awesome pictures of the frame and fork.  Fantastic pint job!  Can't wait to get the frame in my grubby mitts!

Flames!

Nice detail!

HT, TT, DT Junction

Matching Fork!

Thanks to Ed Yoon, my friend and the guy who got me into cycling in a bigger way, for the recommending Joe's Bicycle Painting!

I've been cleaning parts, replacing worn items, and finishing up gluing some tubulars (I bought some Challenge tubular tires but the tread delaminated on me so no more; Vittoria's all the way).  Here's some of the parts going back on My Orange Bike:

Record Alloy Crankset
w/new Record BB

Record Titanium bits

New Cane Creek 110 Headset
and matching spacers

Tubies with new
Vittorio rubber

Ambrosio Nemesis rims

2006 Campy hubs

Thomson Seatpost & Brooks
(is there anything else?)

Let the drooling begin!