Timoni West is a web designer in San Francisco.
This is her blog.

My amazing boyfriend, Rob Villaneuva, got me a giant Wookie for Christmas. But first, he took it on adventures around San Francisco.

via www.columbinecycle.com

Columbine Cycle Works is BLOWING MY MIND. It’s like bikes for elves.

When I got my bike, the SE Lager White, I thought it was cute but a leeeeetle cheesy. The checkered pad, the seat with the lightening bolt…eh, it was kind of over the top. So I got rid of the pad, I got a new plain seat, and I planned to melt off the silver decals. (The decals aren’t that bad, by the way, just kind of distracting.)

But it turns out the SE marketing team is very clever; there’s a slick layer of clear polish over the decals. No scraping, no blowdryer, not paint remover will get rid of those suckers without damaging the paint job. The decals are there For Real.

I didn’t really feel like repainting my bike myself (tried it once; it is hard) or paying a hundred to get it done professionally, so I researched taping up my frame. I found examples of couriers taping up the whole frame to save the paint job, but it doesn’t seem like a lot of folks have taped over decals or tried to do anything decorative with their bikes and posted it online.

So I’ll go first! This is what I did to my bike: I covered the decals with the fabulous Identi-Tape’s vinyl tape. I used a 2” white as a base and then added some 1” purple stripes. It looks a little ghetto up close, but from a foot away, it looks pretty great.

(Ian also taped up his old Giant frame. He covered the whole thing in 4” black matte gaffer and used the 1” purple vinyl to add racer stripes.)