Hacker News Reader

Comment by rollingpebbles | Hacker News Reader

There should be vinyl wrap for bikes that provides a paintable, duct-tapeable substrain for camo tape and radioactive fuchsia and orange also camo ejaculation. Flat (no shine) paint makes a bike even less attractive.

PS: I had a old/ugly bike that I had for 16 years in Davis, CA that I still locked and it was stolen from an apt complex the one and only time I forgot to lock it. There are thieves whom ride around in cargo trucks stealing bikes wholesale, in addition to people whom just "borrow" bikes and dump them whereever.

View on HN

The idea for Amsterdam is to make the bike look unique, not always unnatractive, the more homogenous looking and mechanically sound, the more attractive to thieves.

Amsterdam is a smalll place so having a fluro green bike with a number plate of your name welded to the frame is a good deterrent.

Take care with welding - not every material likes welding, and especially not home-made welding without proper stress relief.

Drilling for rivets is also dangerous when done incorrectly. You do not want to be riding at full steam when the frame cracks, it's nasty.

Really though it's probably mild steel which is not heat-treatable. Mild steel fairly weak (for steel) but it doesn't get much stronger or weaker from heat exposure and isn't brittle.

High carbon, stainless, and fancy stuff is where you can run into problems. In general you won't see this on car or bike frames, too expensive in bulk.

If it's a newer bike it's probably aluminum which you can usually still weld with impunity. If it was high grade alloy the heat could matter, but as far as I know nobody cares that much about bike frames. Heat treatment, or "seasoning" in the case of some aluminum is expensive.

Source: used to cut up old bikes and weld the frames into crazy chariot contraptions we would tow around

> frame cracks

Steel is real, man. It'll bend, not break.

But in seriousness, yeah, I was following very closely behind a fellow who snapped his fork jumping over a bump in the road. I almost went over him. Despite the helmet, he lost memory of the accident. I called an ambulance for him and left my number. He called me the next day asking what had happened.

It was a nice aluminum frame, looked in good condition. Always check carefully for hairline fractures when buying a used aluminum bike.

There's a specific brand of bikes that does just that (welding plates with an ID to it) from production, like https://www.fietsenwinkel.nl/bsp-bold-2016-heren-sale and https://www.fietsenwinkel.nl/batavus-quip-heren

Maybe that's why my filibus cargo bike keeps not getting stolen. I'm often fairly sloppy about locking it to something. It's heavier than a regular bike, though, you a thief can't easily pick it up.

Protip: "Plasti Dip" spray paint is like vinyl wrap on a spraycan, it comes in all sorts of matte (or even sparkly!) gaudy colors. I think they even sell a desert camo tri-pack. I've seen it sold in car part/accessory shops in Europe.

There is also hydro-dipping"[1] It's usually used to add complex graphics to irregular surfaces, but I imagine they could make "ugly' irregular patterns for something like to this to make it unique and unwanted.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrographics_(printing)

Kind of surprised that bike manufacturers don't offer new bikes painted to look old and crappy, as an option, or as an after market service

Like jeans!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com