Simple Bicycle Defence Born of Rage and Vengence

 For what it's worth, this is my first Instructable.  This project neither accurately represents my DIY abilities, nor is close to my favorite project I've finished, and was completely inspired by my own angry keyboard-slappings that produced this gem. I assumed I would find something that I could use by asking Instructables for a bike lock holder, and this website totally produced. To preface, I want to share why this was created, as well as justify why I accepted such a shoddy configuration. I live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and attend the University of Alabama. Unlike the majority of the students here, I have been relying on bicycle transportation since I moved here last year. I live about a mile and a half off of campus and have to ride through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods on the way to and from class, and what's more, I ride through at night Monday through Thursday. last night, while coming through the final leg of my trip and through the sketchiest of streets, one of the people who live there leaned over and unchained a pit bull kept lovingly under their porch. It started chasing me and they started laughing. It got within 6 inches of my ankle before I turned into it and drove it into a curb. I'm not cool with mean dogs, but especially not if they belong to mean people. I have a lot of bike parts from past builds laying around and when I got home, I took a longer-than-necessary seat post I exchanged from my BMX bike and put it in my backpack. Today, I rode around all day with it hanging haphazardly out by my shoulder, falling onto the ground every time I leaned over. Here's what, hopefully, will become the solution to my problem.

P.S. Don't hit pitbulls in the face with steel seat posts, no matter how vicious they are and how awesome it would feel. Make one of these and whack your frame or something to scare it away, yeah? This is a noise making tool. No more. No less. Here goes.

 So, this is, like stated previously, a ridiculously easy system, but one that I couldn't be more of an advocate for. Cyclists, as a culture (especially in the south), need to start taking steps to level the playing field with cars, rabid animals, and other subtle life threatening obstacles we face daily. I don't, of course, think violence is a necessary first solution to any situation, but I do think that we severely misrepresent our ability to, and our need to defend ourselves. Bear mace is sold at many northern outdoor supply stores and shoots a stream of foamy, peppery hell at whatever may be attacking you. The cans are also usually pretty fay and can fit snugly in a water bottle cage. Careful though, cause if you drop your bike, you may puncture it and make your wreck a thousand times worse. You can also get this really cool horn, or any foghorn that will seriously keep a car from performing any dangerously illegal passes, and probably scare away any angry, spiteful wildlife in a quarter mile area. This is the materials section, though, so let me hop off this soapbox.

Your best bet is to go to home depot with your "noise stick" and test different diameters of PVC. Mine happened to fit snugly in a 1 inch piece. I definitely haven't perfected this system, but this bike is notably the junkiest ride on the road. I don't care about scratching the frame, nor do I care about the whole thing coming apart. I build free bikes out of scrap parts. So, i attached the pipe onto the top tube and the down tube with pipe clamps. The better way to do this would be to use three pipe clamps; one on each of the bike's tubes and two on the PVC. Once again, though, what I have is stout, and bloodlust makes aesthetics irrelevant.  for those of us who like scanning for bulleted lists,

1- correctly sized PVC pipe
2 (4)- Pipe clamps (size dependent on top/bottom tube and PVC diameters)
1- roll of electrical tape because it's one of my favorite materials for DIY projects.

Ok, so the way i did this was originally to lay the PVC on the top tube to one side and clamp it on. This proved really cumbersome, however, because to pull the stick out, you'd either hit the handle bars/stem, or have to put your hand dangerously close to the back tire if you put the stick in reverse-ways. This could possibly have been remedied by clamping the PVC onto the seat stay, but i don't like the idea of anything hovering that close to my spokes. my solution was, as evident in the pictures, to clamp it on spanning the space between the down tube and the top tube, allowing the clamps to twist unnaturally and scrape the frame to no end. I finished it by tightly wrapping the clamp with electrical tape to hold the tail that comes through the screw mechanism down and clean up any snaggable spots. Also, this step makes sure you stay as aero as possible. 

Be safe, and check out the walkthrough about the hookah i built this weekend.