No, nothing to do with marmite speedway-related incidents. I’m curious to know if anyone else habitually de-badges their bikes and components?

I can’t stand too much writing on my bike, particularly as much of it is meaningless marketing fluff and numbers. I’m a selective redactor: I’m enough of a tart that I keep logos and badges of ‘nice’ components, and I don’t remove laser-etched stuff because it looks crap if you ruin the finish. When I re-spray bikes, i’d never get replacement stickers/transfers for the brand, just the tubing make, forks and wheels are always de-stickered.

What are you? Shameless brand whore, selective redactor, or stealth-blackout?

Also, who are the worst offenders for terrible stickers/branding?

To start us off:

– The on-one inbred ‘character’, truly awful and hidden as a first priority

– Any wheel rim splattered with marketing puke like a useless gaudy life-ring (lots of contenders there…)

I couldn’t tell you if my bike or any of its components have writing on them.

Maybe you have a hormonal imbalance?

I use a natural selection based approach – mud sticks to some bits, not others. It’s a bike, not an art work or a personal statement.

My road bikes wheels are de-stickered (stans alpha rims).

Look much better IMO. Black rims, silver spokes, black novatech hubs. They look cheep, but in my head I know they’re ace. The frame’s an entry level CAAD4 from 2004, so the whole thing’s a a bit of a sleeper with nothing left to upgrade 🙂

Good stickers/logos stay where they are. Also, sometimes, hard to remove ones. Warning labels tend to go, they annoy me. “Do not fill petrol tank while riding” was a good one on my old Suzuki.

Might do the ones on my Fulcrums, they’re kind of horrible.

Don’t mind them, within reason. Four decals per Stan’s rim is a bit much, for one.

I’ve got some wheels the previous owner took all the decals off, it annoys me, so I ordered replacements. Those replacements have sat in my toolbox for 6 months, so it doesn’t annoy me that much.

I’d never take them off frankly, just not that bothered, but not a big fan of plain things.

Life’s too short to worry about bloody stickers. Too busy riding…

I seem to buy cheap frames off on-one where they don’t include decals to keep the price down (or haven’t fitted them). I’ve not got round to putting them on.

All Stans rims should be de-stickered.

As an aside, TINAS, I’m considering getting basically that exact wheelset. Where did you get yours and how much, if you don’t mind?

All Stans rims should be de-stickered.

+1.

On my Canfield I rubbed off the top tube and downtube decalling, I much prefer it and it was easy. The headtube badge stays.

In general I think too much bling disturbs the eye, I prefer less.

I did de-sticker my commuter as the stickers looked crap and came off easily, now it’s all stealthy black with zero logos. While I liked it to start with, I’m now starting to feel the need to add something again, I might just opt for some Hi-viz type stickers / Tape as it’s a commuter and I like not being run over so much…

I don’t really go out of my way to de-sticker any of my other bikes but I’ve not added any extra stickers to a bike since the mid 90s… I’m sure stickers used to be much cooler in the late 80s – early 90s…

Actually having thought about it, I’m going to get my eldest to sticker the crap out of all my bikes now, she’ll absolutely love it and I reckon the inevitable collection of sparkly Fairies, Stars, Rainbows, Ballet dancing mice, and various random children’s TV characters should deter any would be thief…

Some things do look better de-stickered. My frame was powdercoated black ten years ago and remains plain black. The stickers were removed from my Mavics because I didn’t like yellow much at the time. Kinda hard to remove labels from tyres, bars seatposts cranks etc though.

@blackmount
Life’s too short to worry about bloody stickers. Too busy riding…

@thepurist
I use a natural selection based approach – mud sticks to some bits, not others. It’s a bike, not an art work or a personal statement.

Pithy, both. But surely bikes can be all those things? And when not riding, then thinking about and tinkering with bikes doesn’t make life too short, but more enriching if you like bikes? There are times, surely, when one isn’t riding (and posting on the internet about bikes instead)?

Have destickered in the past – a night shift, nothing else to do, went for it.
Have had a few frames I didn’t bother stickering up. (1 respray, 2 came naked with stickers separate)
If I got one of the logotastic road bikes on a cheap deal I’d have to remove them, look horrible

I have no time to pontificate which stickers to leave on my bicycles.
I do however ,have time to mooch about here. 😀

Marzocchi safety disclaimer stickers, even with a hairdrier these are right buggers to get off. I regularly take off stickers I dont like. Need to have a session with Mr. Razor Blade and the wifes Babyliss as both my current bikes need destickering or rehelitaping. I even have mismatched wheels (with prominent logos) on the DH bike, oh the shame…

I wouldn’t de-sticker stuff, but I wouldn’t replace them for new ones either, I don’t Helitape the bike neither. I know someone who colours in their tyre names with a black felt tip pen. Unless they pay him to ride for them. I recently got my daughter to draw a little something on my top tube, to motivate me when the going gets tough, I have thought about letting her loose on the rest of my bike too.

A few years ago, Mrs Yak pointed out that due to the shear number of decals, gaudy writing and silly coloured cables, that my bike looked like a ‘small boys trainer’. 😳

Since then I’ve made a small effort to get rid of any easily removed stickers, but that’s about it.

I guess it’s different with a road bike but my MTBs are dirty most of the time and I’ve never really noticed the decals. Removing them might be an interesting exercise if I had the time or the inclination but I don’t

@bigbadbob

I have a friend who uses permanent marker to remove the reflective strip in his Schwalbe marathons, but that’s purely for aesthetics! Nice to hear about the personalisations, I put a Charlie the Bikemonger sticker on my girlfriend’s toptube which reads ‘toughen up princess’…i enjoy reminding her of that…

I really wish you could take off the tyre logos, especially on Schwalbe tyres with their stupid names.

kiwijohn – Member

All Stans rims should be de-stickered.

They didn’t used to be so bad but the new ones are a) ugly, b) numerous and c) mahoosive. And also d) hard to remove. House!

Tyre logos is where it becomes obvious I have a problem. Kenda do their logos in 2 different sizes, I hate it when one tyre has a massive KENDA and the other has a little KENDA. But that’s not as bad as the accursed Continental with their logos the same on both sides, but not quite opposite, so you can’t centre them on the valves. DAMN YOU CONTINENTAL!

I recently got my daughter to draw a little something on my top tube

stripped a frame and have scribbled daft stuff on it occasionally. Might let the kids have a go 🙂

Continental with their logos the same on both sides, but not quite opposite, so you can’t centre them on the valves

campaign to drive OCDers out of cycling innit!

I’m a bit of a corporate marketing whore, but I never put any additional stickers on the bike (I might have put a couple of subtle ones under the down-tube on my MTB for a bit of stone protection)

Stickers tend to go on tool boxes, or on the back of the man-shed door.

I would like to say I debadged my Surly Troll, but to be honest I was merely finishing off something that the stickers and badge had all to easily done themselves…

Struggle to find time to ride let alone de-brand, also would probably end up stripping paint anodising etc too knowing my cackhandedness. I do remove dealership stickers from my cars however.

Possible good way to deter thieves, unless they’re pros.

My AC all mountain wheelset is the most gaudy looking thing you’ve ever seen…but surprisingly fits in with colour scheme.

I actually asked Cotic if they could provide me with a Soul frame without the headtube badge because I didn’t like it!

Taken a couple off my 456 but this was because they were scratched/messy (plus the bike looks nicer without them). This is a Ti frame though so it took less than 5 mins with no paint to knacker.

Took the stickers off the Curtis because they were looking tatty, will get some replacements when I get it resprayed.

£60 ‘best offer’ on Sokin hubs off ebay

The alphas i waited for CRC/wiggle to hve £10 off £75 weekends and ordered them seperately which made them about £65/£70 each.

Spokes/nipples from rose bikes in germany

Built them myself, but the LBS quoted £25/wheel but the spokes had to be from them (£1.20/spoke Vs 65p from germany)

So arround £240.

Building was a PITA, I’ve only done MTB wheels before and getting soft roadie wheels upto an even tension was a whole lot more difficult. Doable, but took 3 attempts, and even then one spoke loosened up and fell out after 150 miles!

I prefer re-badging.

Santa cruz stickers on a five just confuses people.

I really wish you could take off the tyre logos

Isopropyl alcohol and some elbow grease.

De-stickered my Crest rims as soon as I got them; far too gaudy. Resprayed my (07 model year, so ‘grey’) fox forks satin black when I serviced them, and didn’t redo the stickers, much neater IMO but the Soul frame was resprayed (before I had it) and the decals are under the laquer so they’re staying. I must admit, I think I prefer the old-style Cotic decal to the later ‘wrap’ style one.

[/url] 2013-02-15 13.34.48 by Uncle Monk, on Flickr[/img]

one frame decal is alright sometimes but other than that I hate Logos on bikes. not much of a fan of colours either

Oh dear, it seems as though I might come across a little sad now.

Taken the stickers off the Prince Albert frame, the Stans rims, the Open Pro rims, left other resprayed HT sans decals, and put a couple of wraps of black leccy tape over the Answer bars. Once you’ve started…

Now I’m going to see how long I can resist getting the IPA out on the tyres… cheers njee! 🙄

Everything black and 90% of stickers removed.

I’m generally pretty relaxed about this.

I didn’t add the supplied decals to my C456 frame because they were gopping. I did design some of my own but in the end decided I liked it unbadged.

The only decals I’d really like to remove are the several hundred bizarre and unnecessary logos and marketing tagnuts on my Focus roadbike. I mean ‘Discover freedom’ WTF?

If it will come off, it’s coming off. Stickers under lacquer vex me.