Well, I finally got around to finishing the pinstriping on the scooter. I had placed the side and rear stripe earlier, but had had such a stressful time of it I needed to walk away for a bit. Also, I was having a bit of a time coming up with a decent plan for the rest of the striping. It’s one thing to make it super-visible, and quite another to make it aesthetically pleasing in the daylight and at night. In the end, Tammy and I pounded out a good idea and we put the front striping on. I’ve posted pictures of it here.
The piece de resistance is the “S”: I used pencil and paper to make a rubbing of the Suzuki symbol on the front, and then used it as a stencil for cutting out some leftover material from when we did my helmet. It looks really, really good in daylight and is nice and reflective at night.
Good idea! Motorcycles are harder to see at this time of year when they’re pulling out in front of you so the stripes will catch the eye. If it were me I’d go for more down the front fender and such… if it were me.
Sorry. Not the front fender but the front part of the body above the fender along the arrow shape of it.
Hi Brian! Yes, that was part of my original thinking: I was thinking about running a stripe all the way around the leading edge of the fairing from under the headlight down the sides to behind the front wheel. The idea was that it would be very visible and low in line with oncoming traffic’s headlights for maximum reflectivity. But the reality is that almost that entire loop is sharply angled away from the front such that the pinstriping would not be perpendicular to the incoming light. This pinstriping works best when it’s facing the light source. The "S" in particular is large and facing oncoming traffic, so it should be pretty effective. I still might add some more around the front fender, but what I’ve got will make a pretty distinctive pattern at night. (The goal is to distinguish the tight double headlight of the scooter as NOT being either the single headlight of a car with one burnt out or the very distant lights of a car).
looks very nice Simon, you did a super job on the "S". Dad