3speed

I wasn't quite sure what forum this fit into, so as usual, I default to my favorite and most knowledgeable.

I'm looking to turn a Trek touring bike into something that looks like a POS beater. The paint is already pretty beat up, so no harm painting over it. What is the most environmentally friendly way to coat it? I was thinking maybe that roll-on truck liner stuff. It's supposed to be tough, too, so hopefully it won't get beat up too easily on tour. A spray can is the obvious choice for making it look like a beater bike, but I think that stuff tends to be worse for the environment than a hand applied option.

Oh, and if it matters at all, the preferred color is flat black, brown, or dark green.

artclone

Hmmm. Just because it rolls on doesn't mean it doesn't have tons of nasty stuff evaporating out of it. And bedliner is really thick, so there's more stuff to evaporate. Most paint these days has been formulated with much lower VOCs than previously (varies state to state). A lot of auto paint is water-based. The best thing you could do is not recolor it. Barring that I'd go with spray paint. The propellants aren't as bad either in most states. And remember how much less fossil fuels you'll be using if you ride more and drive less!

catonec 

you purposely want it to look like crap?? skip the paint and wrap it in electrical or duct tape.

WNG

Truck bed liner is too thick plus lot's of volatile solvents.
Get a can of paint and and a brush. Flat black or olive drab.

oddjob2

Contact paper or cable wrap.

twinTI

The most environmental way to get an ugly looking bike brown or reddish brown (Steel bike frame), would be to scrape or sand the paint off and let nature takes it's course. There would be no bad fumes. You would end up with paint scrapings and powder which would not be great in a land fill or blowing around the neighborhood.

I think the most environmental thing would be to leave the frame as is and ride it.

3speed

I don't want to just leave it as is because I don't want it to get stolen in some of the more known bike theft cities. Even with making it look like crap, I'm still a little worried about going to Amsterdam and Paris.

clasher

If you're flying with a bike across the ocean how you coat the bike doesn't really matter; it'd be such an immeasurably small portion of your portion of pollution and environmental damage from flying across an ocean. That being said I think powdercoating is pretty benign compared to some painting methods. Brush painting regular paint would put a lot less particulate into the atmosphere than spray-can would and there's been some fine examples posted here. I suppose the most environmentally friendly coating would be to make something based on linseed oil and natural pigments. . Why not just peel off all the trek labels? Or get a whole bunch of fake rust stickers and cover up all the logos?

Michael Angelo 

Get some old comic books, and a can of varnish. Low VOC of course, wrap the frame with pages as you brush on varnish. Instant beater paper mache' frame.

Fred Smedley

Stickers. ......but then I guess they used glue in the making of those.... your screwed.

wrk101

+10 On the contact paper. I had a friend cover his red motorcycle with a variety of contact paper for a road rally we both entered, in the hopes it would reduce his number of tickets. After the 11 day rally, he had a tough time getting it all off.

unworthy1

chalk. organic chalk, of course.

But seriously I like the above idea, or the stickers. I'd suggest "little girl" theme so think Barbie comics or Hello Kitty, this may limit your suspects to a much smaller group of little girl thieves who will be much easier to track down and pick out from a police line up. But I really have no idea if anything like camouflage would prevent a determined thief (with his heart set on a little bag of dope).

and use shellac, it's more Eco.

3speed

Thanks, Clasher. You're right to some extent about the flight. At the same time, I don't think a 100% all-or-nothing attitude is terribly realistic regarding pollution and general treatment of the world around us, and I still think people should try on a daily basis where they can still live a perfectly comfortable life and actually consider what sort of pollution is within reason. I've never gotten to travel before, and Really want to see some other parts of the world and possibly move to one someday, so the flight is one thing I decided is a reasonable sacrifice since it's not like I'm going to be doing it many times. I did look into boat travel, but it actually pollutes more than a plane with exception to sail boats, which I don't realistically have time for. In any case, thank you for the ideas on coating the frame. It didn't occur to me that I could probably research some fairly environmentally friendly way of making my own "paint." I would go with powder coat, but I don't plan on using this frame for very long and don't want to invest too much into it that I could spend on the trip. I'm hoping to save up and have a titanium frame built next year to keep forever, which I'll probably have powder coated.

I'll also have to look into the contact paper idea, or the paper coated in varnish or something similar. Thanks all.

Whatever way I go, I think this is gonna turn out to be a fun project. I'm sure it'll be more fun than just having the frame painted.

And thank those of you who made snarky comments. I mean that honestly for the cleaver ones, and sarcastically of course for the ones that are just disregarding of an attempt to do better than we have been with our earth.