bicycle frame protection

an old innertube or two can be artfully used to protect your bicycle frame from damage.

Step 1 Cut the valve out of your innertube

Comments

[BtheBike]

They make Clear electrical tape . If you want the paint and decals to show but want protection ,its the way to go . They also make clear duct tape but that leaves tons of adhesive and you can see the strings .

[knektek]

Swear down my bike f***** got locked in an area which has a bike parking zone inside of it. The fkin ppl got to get a life down there. I had to lift my bike over the fence to get my bike out of that area of doom. should of got some epoxy and epoxied that gate together.... would of served them a lesson

[2 stroke]

nah man i ll use a bernzomatic mini ory mapp torch to braze it together or even put oil allover the place so they slip and fall lol

[frogmeetcog]

siiiiggh.... or you could just deliver packages in an under-$3000 bike. Kinda makes my eye twitch hearing that people are dodging between traffic on... Carbon fiber? Titanium? Something platinum plated with 24k gold trim and a tigerskin seat? It's already appalling when I think of how many Tours and Giros and whatnots are filmed and then the flashes of impoverished villages are edited out... now there is a larger gap between errand boys/girls and the homeless people they ride past daily. Oy vey. As for something constructive, I used something still removeable, more much harder to pull off with one tug after breaking the lock: I wrapped my bike in plastic shopping bags and ducttaped the shredded edges down where there was a chance of drivetrain/brake cloggage. Looked much sloppier and trashier (and less cared about), and was MUCH slower to remove, and thus would have been less worth it to a thief. As long as you are already wrapping it in something, might as well wrap it in something hideously thief-deterring.

[camp6ell]

by "thinner tubes are good because they're lighter and narrower," do you mean that e.g., a 700c/23 tube is better than a 700c/45 tube? i'd argue the opposite: a "wider" tube will have less overlaps since it covers more area per revolution of wrap, so ultimately you end up using less tube by weight.

[battlecat]

Yeah, they used woven fibreglass tape. You can stil get it for your car or bike. It cuts down the surface temperature and reduces the exhaust heat fatigue.

[cacarpen]

I did this a few years back, trying to keep my bike from being stolen in Miami. Later I covered the tube in camo-ductape, which looked really horrible after about a week. It worked I guess, since I still have the bike. Just keep ductape off your actual paint.

[jaime9999]

An alternative for innertube material is handlebar wrap. If it's the spongy kind, you'll get a similar scuff-resistance effect, protecting your paint and camouflaging it from lusty thieve's eyes. Alternative to wire-ties is electrical tape.

[Tommi Potx]

Bloody brilliant idea! I started doing this a few years back, when commercial lizard skins - neoprene and velcro- proved stupidly expensive. Awesome!!

[pedalinjoy]

Hi! I own a Bike Friday, and this could be very helpful for when I pack it in its travel suitcase to give even more frame protection. Idea: I'm thinking it might be sufficient, and easier, perhaps, if I slit the tube down the center, lengthwise, so I could just place a single-layered tubing over each part of the frame I want to protect. (Instead of wrapping double-layer of tubing in spiral fashion). I haven't tried this yet. Do you think the tube would be large enough in circumference to encase the frame? I could place zip-ties strategically, once this was accomplished, I'm thinking... Thanks for the great idea! pedalinjoy (Paula Joy)

[olivieri83]

Great idea! But you wont need the zip ties, just use tire patching glue and sand both sides of the rubber that you want to adhere together, at the end of every wrapping use this method instead. This innertube thing looks slick without zipties.

[boocat]

As someone who's suffered having her bike stolen, I like this idea and will do it to my "new" bike.

[agarhi]

Also another good use for heavy innertubes (like the performancebike thorn tubes which are too heavy to wrap and item in) is a jump rope. It's weighted so you get a decent workout, I cut small holes in the tube and put some fabric through them, I then tried to put the fabric inside a pair of grips I had but had some trouble securing it. at any rate this isn't really a project, and doesn't require any instructions. If you've got a heavy tube start jumping.

[agarhi]

Also this is a great way to make a chainguard if your bike is in good shape or bad shape and you just want to avoid the rust and muck of the chain slapping the bar. I have done this myself, I would upload a picture but I think Saul did a goob job, you get the idea. Inexpensive and easy to make.

[tad]

this is also an old bicycle-messenger anti-theft technique... an easy way to make your $3000 ride look like a $50 hoopty without doing any permanent damage!

[ruzter]

cool, reminds me of how they used to wrap the exhaust pipes of old motorcyles with some type of canvas like material