Track or Treat: Dressing Your Bike for Halloween

Halloween is coming, and leaving your bike out of the festivites is like going trick-or-treating but leaving your child at home. So why not dress up your favorite ride and take it out for a night on the town? I've already got my bike costumes worked out--I'm dressing them all up as Mike Wallace and we're going to stay home reading aloud from transcripts of "60 Minutes"--but if you need help coming up with your own here are a few possibilities to lube your chain of creativity. Of course, these are all fixed-gears, but you should be able to come up with something for your own bike no matter what you're riding. And be sure to wear something yourself to complement your bike's costume:

Rolling Pumpkin

This one's easy. Gluing some leaves and a pumpkin stem to the top tube should complete the illusion:

And of course for the full Cucurbita effect you should be sure to don this delightful chapeau:

Scaffold

Ah yes, the tall bike--like a tandem, only way more stupid. The possibilities for dressing up your own are endless: a garment rack; the Wright Brothers plane; a Rube Goldberg device... But these can also be labor intensive. If you're pressed for time, just try a simple scaffold. You don't really have to do anything:

To drive home the point you can carry a bucket of paint around, offer to change people's light bulbs, or maybe even dress like this:

Or, if you're a surrealist, consider going in this direction:

Steven Tyler's Mic Stand

This costume is only a few more schmatas away from completion:

No prizes for figuring out who you should dress like when you take the stage with this bike. Let's just say he's ample of mouth, he's flirting with avian flu, and he talks, dresses, and acts like a slightly younger Joan Rivers:

Herb Garden

Just glue a few sprigs of parsley, basil, and thyme to this bike and hop aboard the garnish express:


Be sure to carry a garden trowel and dress accordingly:

Geared Road Bike

Dressing this bike up is easy too--just bolt on a derailleur and tape on some STI cable housing:

Don't forget to shave your legs and dress yourself up to match:

You can even include the dog!