A little brighter repair

We all fret and worry over new bikes.  We love them, admire them, show them off and then, inevitably they get scratched.  Most people are really neurotic about their bikes until the first scratch.  What to do, what to do.  You can spend time trying to mix an exact match or hound the maker for the paint numbers so you can get touch up paint, or use the Grant Petersen method and buy contrasting nail polish to touch them up and set the scratches apart as battle wounds.
                         It all works on some level or other but, I've never been happy with either.

You can rub them out, I sometimes wipe the excess off with a paper towel and mineral spirits and try to leave the paint just in the chip itself, to eliminate the blob effect.  I finally decided to take a more practical approach.  It's somewhere along the battle wound idea.   I just primed and painted without any attempt to be pretty, and treating the bike like the ornery child I imagine it to be, 

used a band-aid made from reflective tape.

Maybe it will prevent it from being chipped again.

I always have a problem with re-injuring my bikes in the same place a second time.

At least it puts the chips to good use and may save my life. I suppose I could get obsessive  and cut them out in hearts or stars or some other cutesy shape.  The front fork just got some big band-aids where the low riders had gouged the first scratches into the brand new frame. 

While I'm thinking about visibility, for those of use who stick our necks out commuter traffic,

 Raleigh has bought the rights to market this new jacket or bib.

It looks enough like a cop to slow somebody down.  If you spend much time out at night,

it might be just the thing.