I want to go biking in cities, but from what I’ve read most police departments simply do not give a fuck about stolen bikes. How do I make sure my bike doesn’t get stolen?
On top of the various lock suggestions, I added something on my ebike I quite like.
”Hidden” beneath my water bottle holder is a casing for an Apple AirTag. No one is likely to notice it because it’s mounted with the water bottle holder. It doesn’t blend perfectly, but enough to not be noticed unless you’re looking for it. The security screws that are used to mount it require a somewhat uncommon head (not that people don’t have them, just not a normal part of a bike kit), so it’s not easily removed.
So if the bike is stolen, I can hopefully find it again.
This coupled with an alarm lock that attaches to the brake rotor and a standard combination cable lock has served me well so far. Though this spring I might add a folding lock just in case. If I’m spending as much as I did on a bike I shouldn’t cheap out on protecting it.
D-lock through the drive wheel and frame, steel cable though the d-lock and front wheel, steel wire though a closed metal ring/railing. I’ve used this technique for yonks and never had so much as a wheel stolen.
You don’t need ultramax security unless you’re locking it up outside at night. Deterrence is plenty good enough to stop people from snipping and running.
Well, then you’re pretty much out of luck because if someone wants to steal your bike, they will, even if it means coming with a rotary saw. And yes, it does happen, depening on the value of the bike.
My tip coming from a big city with a shitton of bikes: just get a cheap second hand bike that no one will bother with stealing. If you use it for your commute, then it’s good enough.
If we’re talking about an expensive sports bike, then don’t leave it unattended.
This makes the most sense
Kinda off topic, but why do homeless people always seem to have a phethora of bike rims? Like just the rims
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the thought process goes something like: relatively easy to remove the tire quickly from even most locked bikes (not everyone will run their locks though the frame and also front tires too). rubber is useless, chuck it, metal could be aluminum and could be sold for scrap for pennies.
Probably much cheaper to steal a new wheel when you get a flat than buy a new tube.
Get a good kryptonite lock and lock the bike up in a high traffic visible area whenever possible. Bike thefts are an unfortunate eventuality most of the time so don’t bother getting a super expensive bike.
bringing inside with you. if you have to leave it outside, Don’t ever give it privacy.
There’s a new Ulock that’s apparently resistant to angle grinders. Someone tried on YouTube and they have to go through like 3 discs to do it.
Also get a “pinhead” bolt system. They replace the hex nuts on the wheels and seat with a round locking nut that you need your key to take off.
Use the technique
A combination of a good lock (I think those Kryptonite New York locks are well reviewed) and having a bike that doesn’t look desirable. If your bike is obviously high end, it’s a target. If it looks like an old beater, thieves probably won’t bother. As often, anyway.
I have an old “NEXT” bike that I pinned the front fake shocks because they’re really only springs. I did the same with the rear one by taking out the spring and replacing it with a piece of pipe. It rides good, it’s still a POS that I got for free.
I’d look into a nice beefy lock, I know they make some that are grinder resistant. I think the name of the game is making your bike take longer than a few seconds to steal.
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Litelok X1 or X3, hiplok d1000 are the specific models that are angle grinder resistant.
Not any I can recommend personally but I did a quick frrrrt search and found some articles that talk about the best options
frrrrt?
Yeah things that make you go frrrrrt
Be the least steal-able bike on the street!
How do I do that?
Make all the other bikes more stealable
Bring a second bike along with you, and lock it with a $10 combination lock chain.
Or just boltcutter the locks off all the other bikes in the rack. Thieves will think twice about stealing your bike when there are a half dozen better choices.
Any ways that dont involve being a complete asshole?
Understand the difference between a recreation bike and a utility bike.
Having a really awesome mountain bike with top of the line shocks or a super light road bike that costs more than a car is awesome. But don’t park that outside the mcdonald’s.
Instead, buy a used bike or get a REAL mid-tier bike from target or bikesdirect or whatever. And use that for commuting or going to the store or whatever.
And if this sounds prohibitively expensive because “enthusiasts” would need to won multiple bikes and need a place to store them? You are starting to understand why “just replace your car with a bike” is a very “upper middle class white person” mentality.
Fuck that. You don’t need to spend more that $300 to replace your car with a bike. But something used and ride it every day. You don’t need more than one.
“Replace your car with a bike” is also basically limited to only single or childless adults who live in an urban area with everything they need nearby. Because if you have a family or more than a few miles to places you need to be regularly, you’re going to have a much harder time without a car. So it basically is not applicable to millions of Americans, with our massively large square mileage of country that we occupy.
Which is why I take it to mean “replace applicable travel events with bike rides”. I can’t go carless in a suburb, but I can cover many daily needs with a bicycle. This is from someone that regularly commutes by 80mpg motorcycle and uses it for many grocery/light shopping needs, so it’s not a fear of cargo/passenger capacity.
Similarly, this is what shoots the rail dream down. Yes, it’s nice to dream about the freedom of a train ride taking you to a fun destination. But then what? You arrive at the city and then… Stay in the city? Hope it’s a city at all? If it’s a decent-sized city with an airport, a car rental will probably work out fine enough. But then how did you get to your train station? Well, probably by car too. The regrettable situation of the US is that it’s not just a cute little country jam-packed over millenia. It’s as vast as the entire European continent with the population heavily concentrated on the coasts. If visiting cities are your thing, it’s easier to work out. But no, we’re not going to completely revamp the rail system to be “like germany, Spain, France, or England” because we already have that. It’s just in a straight line from DC to Boston. The area triangle made by London/Paris/Berlin is very similar to Boston/DC/Detroit. In the same way Americans generalize “Europe” to mean Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, and the UK, ignoring all the east Europeans, we forget how empty it is between the Mississippi River and the west coast states - roughly half the continental 48 states house just 26% of the continental population. That’s including Texas in the middle with 9% in itself. The carless infrastructure drops quickly because population density drops quickly. The cities are largely isolated by seas of suburbs or emptiness.
Whatever, tangential rant. I love rail, I work in rail, I rode the acela for fun. But we can’t right suburbs without displacing half the population. There is a strong westward density drop-off after the Mississippi River, a small one after the Missouri, and a sheer cliff after the line dropped from Winnipeg to Dallas until you get within 50 miles of the Pacific. That’s a 1300x1300 mile square of emptiness.
So it basically is not applicable to millions of Americans, with our massively large square mileage of country that we occupy.
It’s funny to me when people use the US’s land size as a reason for needing a car…as if they live in Miami, need to commute to New York for work every day, and have to pick up the kids off from daycare in Anchorage after work.
It’s not the geography that necessitates cars. It’s poor city planning.
And now it’s weirdos protesting things like 15-minute cities, as if being able to walk to a grocery store, a department store, a doctor’s office, schools, and a park within 15 minutes from home is a bad thing.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that those millions of square miles are actually occupied, in many parts other than the cities. I don’t care what you do with your big cities, and I don’t know who you’ve seen protesting the alleged 15-minute cities, but the rest of our huge nation still has to operate as well. That’s why we have cars.
I live in a family of 6, and we were able to live car free for a year when we lived in germany. My dad used to live and work 300 kilometers away, and he would visit us every few weeks, coming by high speed train. My mother did all the buying groceries by bike. And we didnt live in any big city. It was a town of less than 10.000 people. It is possible for families to live car free. We did roadtrips by bike, visited nearby cities, went to beaches by train. We did have the car of a relative available, but we used it some 5 or 6 times in the whole year.
I dont care if you have a family, you can live car free, if in the right place. And we aren’t super rich or anything, we lived with our relatives, and my dad lived in a friend’s house, who gave him a very big discount.
And we also didn’t have any 3 bikes each, our bikes were mostly oldies borrowed from old family friends who didn’t need them.
And if you do the math, 100 dolars a month, is pretty cheap for a car, if you consider gas and wear, so it is cheaper to buy a pretty nice bike every 3 months than to own a car.
That’s a very America specific thing and not applicable to most pieces.
limited to only single or childless adults
I think this is too narrow of an assessment. More common in America than single adults living alone are two adults living together, with each having their own car. So while you’re right that the present American land-use reality isn’t exactly conducive to having a plurality going car-less, it’s entirely probably for a couple to save substantial money by switching one car for a bike and keep just one car for the household. That’s something that can apply in huge swaths of the country, although it’s exceptionally apt for cities.
Two most important things
- Don’t leave your bike anywhere overnight.
- Don’t make a pattern of leaving it locked up in the same place for long periods of time.
A nice lock will help a little bit but tbh if they’re determined then they will get it if you slip up and allow them the time.
I carry my bicycle into buildings wherever permitted, and make full use of the free staffed bicycle parking & free bus whenever possible. I also have 24/7 keyfob access to secure basement parking at my local train station (did require proof of address + one time fee to sign up). See if you can contact your local municipality as they may have something similar in operation.
Before that, I experienced one attempted theft. At the time my bicycle was locked with just an Axa wheel plug-in chain combo lock (very rare in this country) which is built in to the frame.
Came back to see it on the floor with the electronics gutted: no camera, lights, or bike computer. It was dark and luckily I had emergency lights in my backpack to ride home safely. Reported to police, I tracked down some of the stolen stuff online, and even the shop they were sold to (called to verify), provided serial numbers, police did nothing.
Since the attempted theft I use two D-locks in addition to the built-in one, and have quick release mounts on all my bicycle electronics. I miss when I was studying at university and could leave my bicycle outside the library all night with just a cable lock, with no worries
Ive been switching to foldable bikes. When I worked in a office, they fit nearly next to my desk.
You can’t prevent bike theft - you can only discourage it.
- Use multiple locks. Chains are harder to cut than U-locks. Stay away from cable/combination locks.
- If the lock is a pain to carry around it’s also a pain to break.
- If possible, place the lock so that it’s in awkward position to cut.
- Have a bike that’s difficult to sell. Either a cheap and crappy one or make it unique looking.
- Park it in public and leave it next to a bike that’s easier to steal.
- Remove the battery if it’s an ebike.
2 points:
Use multiple lock types to increase the required angles of attack.
Keep the locks up off the ground so thieves can’t use the ground for leverage with bolt cutters.
In short: Make it more difficult and time consuming to take than the bike next to it.
I use a Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit lock and chain through my rear wheel and rear triangle with a cable through my front wheel. I live in Medellin, Colombia which is about as theft prone for bikes as NYC is. I’ve never had my bike stolen. I also don’t leave it out at night, only when I’m going into a store or something.
Edit: Be aware this is a pretty heavy chain and lock but I love my bike and don’t want it stolen so I bought the best one I could find.
I just got back from a trip to Medellin and was surprised how big the bike scene was. Beautiful city.
I used to live there in 2013 and it felt super safe. How is it these days as I heard some bad bits about it.
I felt pretty safe when I was there. I had no issues. I’m a white guy from NYC for some context and I didn’t feel unsafe at all. I was in El Poblado for the most part.
I visited to meet a few of my World of Warcraft guild mates in person and eat a ton of Colombian food. So probably not your typical tourist experience in Medellin.
Only wish my Spanish was better… I don’t speak much and that was a challenge.
Yeah it forced me to buck up and learn a bit, which I maintain to this day. Poblado has always been pretty safe from what I remember; I was down in Envigado and really got along with that place, what will it being it’s open little town.
Lock Picking Lawyer says he wouldn’t hesitate to use the non-chain version. That seems like the best endorsement you can get for any lock.
