The first time I saw the altered Toyota pick-up truck tailgate, I had to laugh.

You know, the one where the TO and TA are removed, leaving the cheery greeting “YO” for all the world to see.

It still makes me smile whenever I see it.

Lately, I’ve become obsessed with mutilating the names painted or stickered onto bikes to make similarly smile-inducing how-do-you-do’s.

OK, obsessed is a little strong. That makes it sound like I should be committed.

Let’s just say it has become an all-consuming habit that crowds out all other rational thought.

There, that’s better.

Anyway, it started with my own fleet, when I realized I could scratch off the B-I-A-N-C from my Bianchi and say HI to the world.

I also realized I could get in good with the edgy hipster fakenger crowd by doing away with the L and the E-R from my fixed-gear Langster and display my ANGST. (As an added bonus, take off the I-Z-E-D from the Specialized label and it would be my own SPECIAL ANGST).

Now, whenever another bike goes by, my little pea brain tries working out the best possibilities for the two-wheelers leaving me in the dust.

A Schwinn should just WIN.

A Dawes would inspire AWE.

OO, I just saw a Moots.

But I’m not touching the names of some of the bikes made by Kona. How can you improve on the Hei Hei, Jake the Snake, Honky Tonk or Zing? Similarly, Gary Fisher’s Hoo Koo E Koo and Van Dessel’s Hellafaster, Gin and Trombones and Country Road Bob are untouchable.

But I wouldn’t be above making a NAG out of a Colnago.

Or giving my MA a Masi.

My two favorites, though, I thought up on the recent Octoginta.

It wouldn’t take much to make my Cannondale — a bike made of aluminum, the same material that goes into beer cans — into a CAN O ALE.

Drink enough of those, and I could justify taking a Litespeed and using it to tell the world, I PEED.