The facts:
-Looking sponsored can make you look sponsorable
- looking unsponsored can make you look sponsorable
- carefully styled stickers with @athletename or http://www.athletename.com can be a good exposure substitute for black tape
- what would Frodo do?

I got my Flo's used from a reputable member here on ST. It may have been for looks, but he had removed the Flo decals. I'm perfectly fine with it either way. Also fine if people prefer the vanity of a decal or without. Or some people feel a product maintains used value more if totally original.

Just remembered that as I thought he is a pro?

I had an inverse experience. I bought a carbon front wheel on ST Classifieds from a former pro and it came bedecked with stickers of his nutrition sponsor.

Seems like a good option is to replace the logos with those of actual sponsors......of a different type of product.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

From my perspective I agree with the reasons for covering the logos. She's in a team sponsored by a manufacturer who can't get her on a bike that fits quite right atm. She instead rides a bike with no branding visible thats a competitor to the sponsor.

I really don't see how this is a problem for people especially after the explanation from someone in the know!

My only real gripe with it is the attention that gets drawn to the issue by having large black chunks of tape over the logos on a white frame. Surely White tape could have been sourced and made the frame just look like a blank?

Lucy Charles did this when she was still on the boardman TT bike. Covered the standard logo with "lucycharles.co.uk"

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Practise doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect!

I covered up a pair of wheels I had with black vinyl and Profile Design logos because they were supporting our team. They didn't ask me to but I wanted to do that for them.

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Ryne "TheMohawk" Hoover
Founder and CEO of The Mohawk Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity
Raising funds for breast cancer and ALS research through endurance sports
Sponsored by: Rudy Project, INFINIT Nutrition, Brooks Running, MyBikeShop.com, TriTats, TriDot, T-Blocks, Wicked Audio, Zealios and Zone3. WE NOW SELL AIR RELAX! MESSAGE ME FOR YOUR BEST PRICE!
RyneHoover@TheMohawkFoundation.org

I would tend to agree BUT, one possible reason is that it may give you a foot in the door.
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...and from the perspective of a marketer and former sports apparel brand owner and athlete/race sponsor why bother buying the chicken when people keep giving you eggs for free?

Sponsorship is a business proposition with ROI (even if that's based on goodwill versus hard revenue) attached to it. As a marketer, you're going to already have a shortlist of ambassadors to invest in based on their ability to drive brand goodwill and ROI. Those athletes are businesspeople as well and will happily switch their loyalty based on support. And then the rest of the market gives you free brand exposure organically. Whether a potential ambassador already uses the brand/product or not isn't a deciding factor.

Sorry if this sounds like a long-winded lecturing answer to your brief point. I'm posting it here for the benefit of athletes trying to figure out their way through the sponsorship game.

What crap.

She raced on this bike with logos showing before being picked up by a team. If she’s a “money shill” surely she’d have covered them up prior to being sponsored as well.

Now she covers them up to respect the fact her team is sponsored by another brand. Surely that’s the professional thing to do?

Just because you ran a team or whatever doesn’t make you right - and definitely not here.

Really?

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

My reaction was a bit more than that. I wonder if there’s a bit more going on there.

Her team pays her. Her team is sponsored by another bike brand which she’s not currently on. What sort of look would it be for her to be seen to be promoting another brand?

The actual money shills are the athletes who accept money and gear from brands with bikes that are known not to be the quickest.