prairie.dog

Just bought a used bike for my 6 year old daughter, and it's medium-dark blue. Now, I'm not a pink bikes are for girls, blue bikes are for boys guy. Her first bike was blue, but now she wants a purple or pink bike. Then comes along a really nice secondhand blue Spawn Banshee for a good price, and I figure it'll get handed down to her brother in a year or two anyways, so I snatched it up. I'm thinking of wrapping the top tube in some colorful tape for her. I don't want to ruin the clear coat on this nice of a bike though. Would some bar tape be ok? Other suggestions?

SquidPuppet

Impact brand athletic tape. Grips extremely well, not too thick, strong as heck, easy to wrap around bends without creating wrinkles, 50/50 poly cotton blend with natural rubber adhesive that STICKS. The adhesive residue is minimal and easy to remove. Lots of vibrant colors and not expensive. I use it under my bar tape to increase size and add some vibration damping. I also use it for slippery tool handles.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07193NTSB...ing=UTF8&psc=1

CliffordK

That looks like a nice bike, but truthfully I wouldn't be too worried about a kid's bike. There was a person on here that was repainting a girl's bike to boy's colors

Tape can leave a sticky residue that takes extra work to clean off. But, truthfully, on my old Colnago, the only place the paint is still good is under the bits of tape and straps.

So, on the kid's bike, I would think the tape would offer more protection than potential for damage. It just might be a royal pain to remove later.

Some of the cheaper Chinese direct import bar tapes are glueless. Just tape down the ends, and they hold in place reasonably well on handlebars, but may creep a bit.

Milton Keynes

Those are very strange ketchup & mustard dispensers.

SquidPuppet

Yep, and they don't hold enough either.

TrojanHorse

Go with pink accessories instead, and as a bonus, they'll look good with a blue bike.

CliffordK

Does anybody still use handlebar tassels/streamers?

caloso

Go nuts. All sorts of colors to choose from. You could get different colors and do an alternating harlequin or plaid effect.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-...4355725&rt=rud

Retro Grouch 

What is your objective?

If you are lucky your kids will get excited about bicycling and beat the hell out of it. Do you really want them to pansy around worried so much about damaging the bike or getting hurt themselves that they forget about having fun? Don't worry about the paint.