Sharon Surly Cross Check Bike Wrapped!
Bike Wrappers are a set of 3 velcro attached cloth sleeves for your bike’s frame. They have two sides: fashion [shown above] and reflective silver. The fashion side dresses up your bike and also protects the frame from leaning up against poles, bike racks or walls. The reflective side offers some extra visibility when you are out at night.
Hearts...
Switching between the fashion and the reflective sides takes a few seconds. You can also swap a set of Bike Wrappers between two different bikes very quickly.
Naked Cross Check at night...
Bike Wrappers are well made and pretty snazzy in fashion mode, but do they add a lot of visibility to your bike at night?
Bike Wrappers fashion mode at night...
I’ll be away a fair bit for the next couple weeks so I didn’t have time for any elaborate testing. I just setup the bike in my yard and shoot some flash photos from various angles to get an idea of what the bike would look like at night.
Reflective side of Bike Wrappers on frame...
So far the results are promising. You definitely get some addition pop from the Bike Wrappers when the reflective side is installed and you hit it with some light.
Fashion side installed from rear at an angle...
In general I don’t think having reflectors on the side of your bike is that useful because by the time they are in a car’s headlights you are either about to be hit or you are fine.
Reflective side out from an angle to the rear...
So I tried some shots from the rear at an angle and then from almost directly behind the bike.
Fashion side out from almost directly to the rear...
I didn’t bother from to shoot any photos from directly behind the bike as the Bike Wrappers wouldn’t be visible and the bike’s rear reflectors would cover that angle of approach well.
Almost directly from the rear with reflective side out...
In all these test the Bike Wrappers add significantly to your night time visibility when installed with the reflective side out, but of course there was no rider on the bike to obscure the Bike Wrappers. I suspect the rider’s body/legs will generate a strobe effect as the bike moves through a driver’s line of sight.
When I get back from my travels I’ll setup a more realistic experiment with my F150 and a video camera where I ride past the F150 and we’ll see how effective the Bike Wrappers are in that test.
Looking good...=-)
For now Sharon is pretty stoked about her jazzed up Cross Check and she’ll be using her Bike Wrappers on her daily commute to test how they stand up to regular use. I’ve got a set of more manly black/white/silver Bike Wrappers I’ll install on my 26″ Surly LHT build. We’ll provide some additional review comments later in the summer.
The Lazy Rando Blog... 
Will these fit on your bf one-way tikit? I have one on order.
No they only work on traditional diamond frame bikes….sorry!
[…] at the moment in Canada that Sharon hasn’t had a chance to use the reflective side of her Bike Wrappers yet. However, she’s digging the heart print on the “fashion” side and would be […]
[…] I put a set of Bike Wrappers on my black 58cm LHT. They fit on the bike without issues although they don’t cover as much real estate on this big frame as they do on Sharon’s Cross Check. Sharon has been complaining about her commuter MTB’s ugliness and since she is forced to ride it until her Cross Check is back in action I think I’ll move these Bike Wrappers to her current commuter to make it a bit easier on the eyes. I haven’t tested the visual safety aspects of this product yet [the dark times they are coming!…=-)], but they do provide an easy and very fast way to change the look of your ride if you want a different feel without committing to the $$$/effort of a repaint. Might as well get rid of some recycling… […]