Digital Gee

Here's a BikeForums first...

I've been starting to plan what accessories I want on my new beach coasters, Click and Clack. It's been a while, and I can't remember. How do you attach baseball cards to the spokes so the bike sounds cool?

Stevie47

Clothespins, silly Fold the card around the frame and attach. But it takes a LOT of adjusting to get just the right sound

Raketmensch

Clothes pins... like the kind you use to hang laundry. Not the one-piece ones, but the spring-loaded ones. And they've gotta be wood, not plastic!

https://images.orgill.com/200x200/9810516.JPG

Digital Gee

Geeze...did a google search on this silly topic and found this:

https://www.bikeforums.net/fifty-plus-50/116947-newbie-question-about-baseball-cards.html#post1329027

They say memory is the second thing to go...

Digital Gee

Well, lookie here! Even Sheldon Brown had something to say about this, back in 1998:

From: Sheldon Brown - view profile
Date: Tues, Jun 23 1998 12:00 am
Email: Sheldon Brown <CaptB...@sheldonbrown.com>
Groups: rec.bicycles.tech
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Richard Strayer wrote:
> You know, after I wrote the suggestion that somebody revise the playing
> card-in-the-spokes idea it ocurred to me that entire generations of
> kids will probably never experience this cheap thrill. Not to date
> myself, but when I was growing up clothespins, playing cards and spoked
> wheels were common, and the setup seemed natural. But these days, them
> thar' new-fangled dryers have supplanted the good ole' clothsline, kids
> play card games on the computer (if at all), and a wheel with only 3 or 4
> composite beams probably wouldn't make nearly as satisfying a sound.

> Kids today! They just don't know what they're missing!

The CatEye cyclecomputers come in a cardboard box with a sheet of thick
transparent plastic covering the top so you can see the unit inside. My
preferred technique is to use these plastic sheets in lieu of baseball cards.
I use transparent packing tape to secure the sheet to the outside back edge of
the front fork, angled so that it just misses the spokes in normal riding.

When I need a little extra boost, I just push the "card" inward a bit so that
it catches the spokes, and the desired sound effect is created as long as I
keep moving forward.

This system has tbe added virtue of being virtually invisible.

The plastic is more durable than baseball cards, and not likely to appreciate
in value all that much. It produces a good tone, though not as mighty as the
old balloon technique.

Sheldon "I'm Not Letting Carapace Take The Credit For This One" Brown
Newtonville, Massachusetts

Louis

I'll bet the lot of us shredded up a few pretty rare cards in those days.

Who knew?

turtleguy54

I also used balloons. Sounded more like a Harley.

Stevie47

YES!! I remember the balloons! Dang, they did sound good. But they didnt last very long. You'd get going just right and they would pop. They you'd have to go find some more coke bottles so you could buy more balloons.

HopedaleHills

Yow! I forgot all about collecting coke bottles to fund my youth. In NY it was .02 for small bottle and .05 for the quart size. We used to scrounge the streets all day for them. Half a dozen quarts and you were good to go. That got you a package of Twinkies and a Dr. Pepper.

jppe

For the full effect try both balloons and baseball cards...........got to have streamers, bell, handlebar basket, fenders..........it never stops.

NOS88

In my neighborhood baseball cards were the currency of youth. You would never put them on your bike! Instead we stole the jokers from the decks of our parents' playing cards.

Hal Hardy

Nowadays, we can have a Turbospoke.

stapfam

Spoilt my thunder- as I have been looking for this all day and Haven't found it yet. Didn't have baseball cards over here but had Cigarette cards instead- They were currency so never went on a bike, but it was just at the time my father started his collection of Bamboo plants- He never did find out why one particular one never grew. (That was the one that made the most noise.)

p8rider

What a great memory, Baseball cards and balloons on the bike. Wonderful sounds!
As I recall, we didn't attach them to the forks, but rather to the fender stays, running from the aft end of the fenders to the forks. It most certainly had to be spring loaded clothes pins. For the balloon you would select one of the long ones and not fill it completely leaving un-enlarged sections at each end. Then you would tie each end off onto the fender stay. Truly a much better sound than the cards.