Modern Vespa

I bought 20' of 2" wide sew-on vinyl 3M Scotchlite 6160R material from identi-tape.com. http://www.identi-tape.com/sew-on-vinyl.html . I then had the local tailor sew it on to the legs of my riding pants and the arms and back of all of my wife's and my jackets.

Here's the finished product. The "no ambient light" shot was with no lights on in the apartment at all except for the backlight on my wife's Macbook 15' away. The stuff is quite astonishingly bright when hit with direct light. I'm psyched.



Embiggened pic if you wish: http://i.imgur.com/Nk6pK.jpg

Nice! That stuff does a great job.

Toshi...haven't seen you post in awhile...thanks for this information...filed away for future needs...Thanks!

If you are not looking to sew, SOLAS tape will stick to most anything based on my readings! You can get small piece at West Marine stores for life preservers, boats and m/c gear.

I can vouch for SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) tape. We put a small piece on the mast of our sailboat, "China Doll", a 36' Bob Perry designed Tashiba. When heading back to the boat in the dink at night, the light from a small flashlight/torch caused the tape to flash dramatically. Made it easy to find our vessel in a crowded anchorage. Sometimes, such as Georgetown, Bahamas, there could be several hundred boats to choose from. All of them white, with a blue sail cover! All of them invisible in the dark. The tape works.

Another example of the effectiveness of the tape. From left to right: a Stella, my Versys with my jacket hanging off the handlebars along with my nearby reflective leg, and a Burgman with its reflective-vest-wearing rider standing next to it.

One thing I have noticed in my efforts to find the correct safety items for my scoot, there is a huge difference between "reflective" and "retro-reflective"

The stripes on the Stella are likely to be "reflective" tape on the front fairing and side cowl. The "retro-reflective" tape shown on the Versys, Burgman and garments are much more reflective. On the Burgman, there is one section of tape next to the amber side marker and the white is reflecting much more light than the DOT reflector.

The Retro-Reflectors reflect light towards a light source while reflective tape reflects light, not necessarily towards the light source.

Bingo. Retroreflective is the way to go. Furthermore, the Burgman rider and I have empirically noticed that the nominally retroreflective tape on the Burgman itself bought off the shelf as a generic, no doubt Chinese-made item from the local auto parts store is much less reflective to off-axis illumination than the stuff on my clothing or on the Burgman rider's vest.

3M all the way for me in the future--no eBay or even local parts-shop tape after the example above.

http://www.identi-tape.com/3m-conspicuity.htm

I'm thinking of adding a couple of strips to my Versys itself. The amber reflector on the fork in the photo above (directly below my jacket) is barely visible at all...

I added a section of FRA-224 spec tape to my front forks. FRA-224 is a specification for retro-reflective tape for the railcars (trains) in America. The specification is one of the toughest to meet. While you are riding near a rail yard, look for the bright yellow stripes on all of the cars and along the belt line of the locomotives. They reflect up to 95% of the light that strikes them, even at low angles. This low angle reflectivity is the major difference.

I used silver tape on both forks so is not overly visible, Here is the first shot I found that is can been. It covers the majority of the left fork shown and can be seen as a white square. This was taken during the day without a flash (I checked the photo properties to see it was taken without a flash) and you can see the tape is reflecting light. You can also see the white band on the top box reflecting.

Where did you find your FRA-spec tape? Identi-tape has it but only in (expensive and huge) full rolls:

http://www.identi-tape.com/fra-conspicuity.html

I bought this off eBay for $2.99 for 4x18 inch section. They are almost all cut at 4x18 as this is the size needed to meet the FRA standards for the railcars. I bought 2 sections for less than 9 dollars. I cut one up and placed it on my helmet. I cut the other in half and put one on each fork. I will take some photos if you are interested.

Link

Please do take some photos. Ah, eBay. I just don't trust the eBay vendors selling no-name stuff to not cut corners, and this is one place that I really don't want to cut corners.

I will take some shots.

They advertised that is was Reflexite brand tape and it was. Reflexiite is as good or better than 3M when it comes to RR tapes. If you see photos with small diamonds in the silver, that is Reflexite brand. The paper on the backing did not have a brand. The diamonds are not the big white structural ones you see below. They are like "fingerprints" in the silver backing layer.

As far as I have seen, FRA only comes in amber/yellow, white and red.

Relevant to this thread:



http://www.mahonkin.com/~milktree/hawk/reflector-pics/

Looks like I'll be going with Reflexite: http://www.identi-tape.com/hi-intensity4.htm . The only question is white/fluoro yellow/red? and tape width. I might go full-hog and get a 6" x 15' mini-roll of the fluoro yellow and add "highlights" to the body panels of my bike, in a very primitive version along the lines of EU police bikes:

I took these shots last night. I parked the scoot in my sideyard (it's dark there).


Shot of tape on fork with flash.


Close Up with flash, headlamp off


30 feet, no headlamp


90 feet, no headlamp


30 feet, headlamp on


90 feet, headlamp on


Daytime shot of reflective tape. Green arrow points to taped section.

That's a really excellent reference. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for taking those pics, TechGuy. I like the concept and aim to take the idea several steps further towards insanity, or alternatively towards the "ideal" of the garish Euro police bikes:



I just placed an order for the following items, again via Identi-tape (no affiliation). Reflexite product info and spec sheets can be viewed here for the technically curious.

- 15' of 2" red Reflexite V92 Daybright retroreflective conspicuity tape
- 15' of 2" fluoroescent yellow Reflexite V97 Fl Daybright retroreflective conspicuity tape
- 15' of 2" fluoroescent orange Reflexite V97 Fl Daybright retroreflective conspicuity tape

The plan is for a yellow and red chevron on the back and sides of my top case, red on the license plate holder, orange on the black trim under the pillion seat, candycane orange and yellow on the fork legs, striped orange and yellow on the sides of the tank cowling. Assuming I have extra material left over my bicycle is getting some color, too (seatpost and fork stanchions for sure, possibly the downtube as well), and the rims of both machines might get a patch of color similar to this idea:



The tricky part will be to do all this without the finished product looking like ass, as I will be selling my motorcycle in a few years (probably 2014, realistically). I'll have to spend some quality time with a fine scissor or hobby knife to make edges line up, but I'm psyched about the possibilities.

Post some shots so we can see your work.

If you get some "transfer paper" or tape, you can piece the cut pieces together before peeling off the backing and apply several smaller pieces at the same time. You can get it online or you could use the "Cricut" stuff from Wal-Mart (near the Cake Making accessories in our store). The Cricut stuff has a VERY heavy backing. The stuff at the vinyl sign supply stores is a little easier to work with but harder to get. Your local Vinyl Sign shop may sell you couple feet. It can be used a few times if you are careful with it.

You could build your stripes on the transfer paper and then apply them in one larger piece. Start with the easier and flatter sections first and work up to the compound curved sections.

Reflexite V92 and V97 Daybright conspicuity tape:



100% pixel size detail of the righthand portion of the above shot showing a bit of its fine structure:



... add an hour or three of cutting pieces and sticking 'em on and you get this.





I went for a vaguely Strongbad look with the helmet, as you can see.

I haven't started in on the bike and won't be able to get to it until this weekend at the earliest, but I think I'll scale back my plans to "just" candycane yellow/orange on the fork legs, orange on a few small pieces of grey plastic bodywork near the radiator, and orange or red on both the swingarm and the side of the pillion seat. After dealing with the topcase I don't really want to do this to the painted bodywork on the bike like the tank cowling.

Project Uglify/Be Seen is now complete.

Complete, schomplete: I revised the top case. Even I fear that I have gone too far this time . I extended the chevron motif all the way down the top case. It's much less subtle than before, if that's even possible



I have to say that cutting little pieces to fit the handle, around the key, etc. was a real pain in the ass.

Although I realize that it may have crossed in many a viewer's mind into the realm of target fixation, keep in mind that this kind of getup was the template that I was emulating... totally unsubtle.