how to make your bike visible at night!

Reflective bike

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introReflective bike

My brother Kevin Dean works at a place that makes and installs fencing and guardrails. A few weeks ago he noticed some unused but beat up stickers that are used on the ends of guardrails. I happen to have an abundance of bikes...

This has been done before and there even are a few entries already for the Light Up Your Ride Cordarounds contest that work on this idea so definitely check out Wrap Your Bike in Reflective Cloth by stupidplus and walkermount's Reflective Super Commuter.

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step 1Tools and materials

Some of the things you'll need: Bicycle Various tools to remove bike components (optional) Straight edge Scissors Utility knife or similar bladed instrument Marker Flexib…

step 2Prep the frame

Remove components like wheels, brakes, chain and anything else that might be in the way of your work. I had to make two trips to the bike shop to remove the crank set. …

step 3Measure tube diameter

Use the tape measure, ribbon or as you can see in the photo I used a piece of ribbon wire from a printer or scanner to determine how wide you need to cut your piece.

step 4Cut a piece of material

I used the back side of the sheets to lay out the size of the sheet needed. I then cut it out with scissors. Depending on how detailed you get there are many ways to appr…

step 5Appy the sticker

Carefully apply the sticker and put the seams in the least visible places (toward the ground or the wheels). You can see that i have more material than necessary (in lengt…

step 6Get fancy

With scrap pieces of the backing (on top of the scissors) I was able to make templates for cutting out specialty pieces. This one ended up on the front fork.

step 7Add stickers until you're happy

I used some grey stickers that I had around on the stem and handlebars (between the stem and the brake levers) and I put some on the bar ends. On the front forks I removed…