(no subject)

[roadrunnertwice]

Link-wander resulted in rediscovering JWZ's epically bitchy bike advice post from '08, so I'm sharing. Fun game: send it to a friend and try to guess how much of it they'll violently disagree with!

(I actually quite like the post, except for the part about riding on sidewalks. An oft-overlooked virtue of the abrasive geek textual aesthetic is its implicit assertion that the problem at hand is a: knowable and b: not too many levels harder than whatever else you have to deal with on a regular basis. It's reassuring, if that's what you're wired for.)

Comments

[sara]

Yeah, amazingly enough I've spent the last three years in one of the nation's bike-theft capitals, riding around on nice bikes. I've lost a couple of headlights (which is why I switched over to hose-clamping LED flashlights onto my handlebars) but amazingly enough, those heavy-duty U-locks really do work as advertised.

One of these years I will probably walk out of the library and find out I'm short a wheel, but at this point I need to put new wheels on both bikes anyhow.

[juliet]

My advice to people in London (high-bike-theft area) is to use 2 different locks (a D-lock/U-lock, ideally 'gold' Sold Secure standard[0], and a cable lock), and lock frame-and-both-wheels to something solid. The theory being that yer opportunist bike thief is likely to have tools for *either* cable locks *or* a D-lock, but not both. So they will move onto easier pickings than your bike. Also then you won't lose just a wheel. I actually now use a thinnish cable to lock my saddle to the D-lock as well, after losing my very nice saddle :(

If a proper professional thief is determined to steal *your* bike in particular then there's not much you can do about it (there's no locks that you can't get through with the right kit; it'll just might take a while), but that's moderately rare, at least here.

[0] UK scheme that rates locks bronze/silver/gold depending on how long it takes to get through it with a standard range of tools. Gold is 5+ min with a decent suite of kit; bronze is a minute with a small number of tools.

[roadrunnertwice]

This advice lines up with what I've heard, the main difference being that I was told a pair of U locks with different lock mechanisms also works as a complicating factor.

Of course, I don't really follow that advice... But my city seems to have a startlingly low theft rate, so I've gotten away with it so far. (Not so much in MPLS, where I lost a wheel, a seat, and a few sets of lamps.)

[sara]

Well, that and I had the bike rack at my workplace installed right outside my office window. *GRIN*

Yeah, I once had someone cut apart a rack to steal a bike of mine (it was about a $200 bike, too, so not exactly fancy-schmantzy). It's just like your house: if someone wants in, they can get in; you do better to adjust your mode of thought than your physical surroundings, sometimes.

When I take the tandem out, I usually try to remember the cable as well as the U-lock, because it'd be a real pita to lose a wheel while out on the bike with the kid.