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If you’ve ever had to lock your bike up out of your sight in a publicly accessible place, you are probably familiar with the gnawing feeling in your gut that makes you wonder if your ride will still be there when you return. There are ways to help alleviate the gnawing, not the least of which is good bike locking technique. A well-locked bike is a great start, but a truly ugly well locked bike is possibly the most unappealing prospect to a bike thief.

There is a relationship between ugly and permanence: the more permanent your ugly appears, the less attractive it becomes to a thief. As someone recently pointed out on BikeForums.net, anytime you see a bike wrapped in inner tubes, you figure it’s probably a pretty nice bike.

And just in case I’m not totally clear here: we’re aiming at the Universal Ugly, not “So Ugly It’s Hip.” Universal Ugly can be a lot of things, but it does have a singular defining characteristic: random asymmetry. Rust is randomly asymmetric, paint splatter is randomly asymmetric, stickers can be randomly asymmetric. The exceptions that prove this rule are the awesome symmetric frame tape job pictured here (mesmerizingly symmetric and ugly) and any of those funky Jackson Pollack paintings (asymmetric and beautiful).

Okay, enough philosophizing. Here are 8 ways you can ugly your bike, ranked by commitment level…

• Tube it. As mentioned earlier, you can wrap your frame in old bike tubes. Definitely ugly, but also clearly temporary. Probably best for really nice carbon fiber frames that you don’t want to sully with stickers. On the flip side, everyone probably knows there’s a nice bike under there. [committment level: low]
• Bolt it. Acquire some rusty old racks and/or baskets and mount them. Easy to put on, easy to take off, and they definitely lend a decrepit vibe. [commitment level: moderately low]
• Stick it. Stickers are a cheap, fast and easy way to ugly your bike. There are two schools of thought with stickers: either plaster your bike with goofy stickers, or try to pass your bike off as a Huffy (you can buy Huffy stickers in various places around the web…start with eBay). Not dissin’ the Huffy lovers out there, just sayin’ nobody wants to steal your whip. For a hybrid sticker/rust look, try out these faux rust stickers. [committment level: low to moderate]
• Tape it. Duct tape and electricians tape are great because they both come in a bunch of colors. Alternately, consider some reflective tape if you do much night riding around cars. Tape your seatpost, handlebars, and various places on your frame. [committment level: moderate]
• Tear it. If you’ve got a spare saddle hanging around, do like the MakeMag article says and tear some holes in it, then sloppily tape it back up. If you’ve got a spare seatpost, even better since you can just swap out the ugly one for a nicer one whenever you want. [committment level: moderate]
• Rust it. Your local hardware store probably carries “antiquing” paint sets. These are intended for arts and crafts, but you can use them to ugly your bike to with great effect. Faux rust the base of the headset, around cranks, etc [committment level: moderately HIGH]
• Spray it. Get freaky with the spray paint, and don’t fear the overspray. There are parts where paint shouldn’t go, so just grease those bits up real good before spraying. Also, Make Magazine had a great article on uglifying your bike and they said to use car wax on your frame before painting it–the wax will make the paint peel and blister and get really ugly. [committment level: HIGH]
• Art it. You know about art cars? Art bike. Get some super glue and some plastic army men and go to town. Or get a can of spray glue, then go to your local barber and acquire a bag of hair. Spray the bike and sprinkle the hair. [committment level: SUPA HIGH]

Bonus uglies: Sweetskins, handlebar streamers, spoke cards, unconventional saddle, gnarly homemade wooden rack.

awesome bike tape job and photo credit: wuertele

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• DIY Bolt On Front Rack (3)
• The Cage Rocket (3)
• Security: Padlocking your Quick Release (1)

Filed Under: modification, security