90sCro-MoFan
Dirt Disciple
Has anyone out there ever wrapped their whole bike in old inner tubes?
I bought an old Claud Bulter (I'm pretty sure it's a Zagato, but the stickers were missing, so can't be 100%) for peanuts a while back. It's my one and only ally frame bike and I bought it to use as a daily hack/commuter. It had the odd scratch here and there, not enough to make it look too scabby, but enough to make me want to do something about it. I've always used old inner tubes as chainstay protectors on all the bikes I (re)build, so I thought, why not try covering a whole bike with them? It took me a while to decide the best way to go about it and I used about 5 or 6 old tubes and a few black cable ties here and there to keep everything tidy, but I was quite happy with the end result (I can almost hear all your shrieks of horror
). It gives the bike a sort of "Mad-Max" look, but I kind of like it. Only the outer edges of the bottom bracket, the rear cantilever hanger (now redundant as I've fitted V's) and the dropouts are left uncovered (oh and the stem and handlebars of course). So there's only the transmission, brakes and wheels to keep free of winter crud etc. OK, nearly a year on some of the rubber has started to perish a bit, but they were very old tubes I found in older bikes and just lying around the garage, so that's expected. I can easily unwrap them and stick "new" tubes on again. It's given the bike a kinda of "zombie" appearance though..............Hmmm. At least it deters potential thieves because they're probably afraid to touch it in case they catch something!
I bought an old Claud Bulter (I'm pretty sure it's a Zagato, but the stickers were missing, so can't be 100%) for peanuts a while back. It's my one and only ally frame bike and I bought it to use as a daily hack/commuter. It had the odd scratch here and there, not enough to make it look too scabby, but enough to make me want to do something about it. I've always used old inner tubes as chainstay protectors on all the bikes I (re)build, so I thought, why not try covering a whole bike with them? It took me a while to decide the best way to go about it and I used about 5 or 6 old tubes and a few black cable ties here and there to keep everything tidy, but I was quite happy with the end result (I can almost hear all your shrieks of horror
). It gives the bike a sort of "Mad-Max" look, but I kind of like it. Only the outer edges of the bottom bracket, the rear cantilever hanger (now redundant as I've fitted V's) and the dropouts are left uncovered (oh and the stem and handlebars of course). So there's only the transmission, brakes and wheels to keep free of winter crud etc. OK, nearly a year on some of the rubber has started to perish a bit, but they were very old tubes I found in older bikes and just lying around the garage, so that's expected. I can easily unwrap them and stick "new" tubes on again. It's given the bike a kinda of "zombie" appearance though..............Hmmm. At least it deters potential thieves because they're probably afraid to touch it in case they catch something!
