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Whilst looking at my Pitch last night I found a chip* in the downtube/BB weld. Must have been caused by a pretty hefty bit of rock flying up to it!
So, what do people use to protect the downtubes on aluminium** bikes? There's a guy selling carbon guards on ebay, but they look a bit thin to be any more than cosmetic, a section of old tyre would probably work, but looks a bit crude, any other sugestions?
*Ok, not so much a chip, more a chunk of metal missing!
**456 never had this problem, dam progress!
have used an old tyre before. if you profile it a bit it doesn't look awful.
the carbon thing should do it though, even if it's sacrificial.
Just got thick copter tape over mine, seems to save the worst of it
An old tyre secured with zip ties works perfectly well, even if the aesthetics are questionable. The downtube of bike 1 is peppered with chips, so I put some sticky backed plastic on the downtube of bike 2 which is doign well so far. I'll need something more substantial for the rockier bits.
Maybe obtain a patch of carbon fibre mat and glue it in place?
Copter tape on my frames, doubled up towards the BB.
My brother got one of those eBay carbon guards for his Trek EX...works well and doesn't look to bad either.
Carbon protectors are used in trials a fair bit to save the down tube from wall bashes and appear to do something! [url= http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/other_frame_spares/procarbon_racing_carbon_fibre_downtube_protector/c127p11313.html ]This[/url] video (Found under 'Addtional information') kind of proves it does something 😛
the chief difficulty is that it's very difficult to get anything to hang onto the most vulnerable bit, under the bottom bracket. Does anyone have any tips for how to get it to stick here? Just use layers of cloth-backed duct tape?
The Enduro protector looks good for downtube/BB coverage.
http://www.cadaix.fr/
Car trim tape is good for sticking things to your frame, really sticky and spongy, and easily takes up any difficult contours. Easily removed with some boiling water if need be.
This was the state of my enduro sl downtube after 3 years
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I did try one of those carbon one off ebay and your right they are thin shit, put a hole in it on first outing.
My M8 had a carbon enduro sl and he modified a carbon rear mudguard by cutting/drilling and attaching to the lower cable holder.I've also seen a guy with a stumpjumper with a moded crudcatcher fixed in the same fashion so I expect you could do similar to your pitch