Off the beaten path at Interbike - Part 4
Sep 30, 2008 · 06:06 PM · permalink
Bonk! offers some clever aftermarket stickers more in-line with cyclists needs. I’ve seen reflective 3M stuff sold previously, but it’s generally in awkward shapes and sizes. The nice part, is that the color options offered actually allow your reflective coating to blend in to the bike. This picture doesn’t do a good job of capturing the effect, but the fork has a line of black reflective tape on the trailing edge. I want my pretty new rain bike to still look good after adding some reflective material. I’m not big on the yellow and orange triangles.
UPDATE: Here’s a good example from the Bonk! site showing the Day and Night behavior of the reflective strips:
You can make the ugly yellow stickers more fun with electrical tape. If you have enough enough colors, they work their way into making a WCS rainbow.
I’ll cop to not getting my head around the “black reflective” tape, but conceptually, I like it. I already have the lights, but adding more obnoxious reflectors never gets old.
@Champs - I think that was my poor description and photo selection that made “black reflective” confusing. When there’s no light on it - it appears black. When you apply a light - it glows white. The strips in the photo here show off the effect a little better. I just like that I can apply reflective material that you don’t see…until you need it. No goofy yellow and orange triangles.
When I get my bike I’ll post a picture with and without a flash to really show the effect.
We reviewed the ELVS earlier in this post.
The different sizes are nice, and it’s great that someone’s made it more conventionally accessible, but it’s nothing new. I posted a similar concept with pictures about a year and a half ago over on Bikeforums where I just used standard 1”x60” 3M reflective product to achieve the same effect on two of our bikes. (Keeping the tape in the rear red to satisfy FL law) “Stealth” Reflectors
Please keep in mind that reflectors and/ or reflective tape are no substitute for lights and are to be viewed and used as supplements to a lighting system, not in place of one.PLEASE CHECK YOUR LOCAL LAWS BEFORE USING THIS SYSTEM
Quick link to bike laws including some international regs. http://www.massbike.org/bikelaw/bikelaw.htm
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