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How I can make my bicycle glow? As seen in this Blackberry commercial (with screen capture image below).

enter image description here

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4  
Do it old-school - paint with radium. Just don't get it on yourself – OMG Ponies Jan 2 '12 at 23:48
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Placing your sferos directly onto radioactive material...hmm - what could possibly go wrong with that? – lawndartcatcher Jan 3 '12 at 16:38
It might not be in time to help you with this project, but I'm working on a project to essentially build my own high-intensity bike light. Part of that project will involve putting together a Li-Ion battery pack and protecting it from the elements. You may find that useful for powering your apparatus. Let me know if you'd like me to post back here once that's done! – nhinkle Mar 20 '12 at 7:58

7 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Check this out, Im gonna paint my bike soon...

http://www.instructables.com/id/Night-Bike/

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Welcome to Bicycles! While this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – freiheit♦ Jan 12 '12 at 16:05
If you read the comments on this instructable link, you find that there are significant issues with the glow times the author claimed. Or at least that his process for doing the demonstration recording was flawed or simulated. – zenbike♦ Mar 20 '12 at 3:52
up vote 8 down vote

Paint it with fluorescent paint and then illuminate with ultraviolet lights (and white LEDs serve this purpose fairly well).

There are also glow strips/panels sold mostly to (oddly) computer hackers who like to light up the inside of their computers. And probably a few other specialty markets.

Of course, you'd have to rig up some sort of power supply. Batteries can be concealed under the seat or in the seat tube, or on the person of the cyclist.

[Odds are, to achieve this special effect for the commercial, the bike was painted with fluorescent paint and then illuminated for several minutes with separate UV lights. The paint will continue to glow brightly for several minutes after being so "charged", long enough to shoot the commercial, I'd guess.]

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While your answer is good, I'd like to nitpick: That paint is phosphorescent if it glows for minutes. Fluorescence lifetimes are usually nanoseconds to microseconds. – thiton Jan 14 '12 at 22:25
up vote 2 down vote

Buy a flax fiber bike that isn't painted, insert a florescent light into the tubing. Then paint your bike with phosphorescent paint.

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1  
Had not read about the Flax Fiber bike, very cool, thanks for the idea (bikerumor.com/2011/03/09/…) – Glenn Gervais Jan 7 '12 at 15:02
up vote 2 down vote

http://glowinc.com/

They make the brightest paint.

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up vote 1 down vote

While this wont be as consistent as the image above, wrapping your bike with electroluminescent wire will be 10x cheaper and faster, plus last longer.

Amazone sells it pretty cheap here

I have used it on bikes, Halloween costumes, kid toys, etc. Its super flexible, durable and safe. 9ft runs on 2 AA batteries. Tape or zip tie it on as needed.

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how waterproof is it? – Agos Jan 6 '12 at 17:29
The wire is sealed in a casing that is pretty durable. The biggest worry would be the battery pack. – Matt Adams Jan 9 '12 at 4:44
up vote 1 down vote

Bikeglow is a way of lighting your bike at night. It doesn’t make the frame itself glow but no doubt makes your bike much more visible. It runs on two AA batteries.

No idea if it is any good: I about it for the first time today.

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up vote 0 down vote

BikeGlow EL wire as well as Monkeylectric wheel lights would get you about as bright, but my guess is that bike was made to glow using video effects in post processing, not real life.

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