(Comparing numbers per capita that is, not per bike.)
The best solution in the Netherlands remains to have a lock that’s harder than those around you, and/or (especially in bigger cities) have a worse looking bike. If you take your brand new 1000 euro bike into the center of Amsterdam and leave it in an alley while you go tour the bars all night, you won’t have a good time when you want to go home, regardless of what type of lock you put on it.
Another strategy - two different types of locks used at once. Most bike thieves carry a tool for one kind of lock only, plus two locks take twice as long to defeat.
Yeah, the long handled bolt cutters he uses are the kind thieves carry for attacking U locks (and that we keep in the back room of the community bike workshop for dealing with U locks that are seized or whose keys are lost).
Most cable locks succumb easily to the one-handed cable snips that we keep at every work bench, for trimming brake and derailleur cables. I’d never seen such long handled cable snips, nor do I imagine many bike thieves have them on hand.
Once you remove the wheel from the bike, you could either cut the wheel in half, or, I think, bend it into a burrito shape to slip it through the frame.
I would never do that, a wheel can be cut pretty easily and pull the lock through the frame. The rest of the bike is still unharmed and in theory still valuable (can pair it with the unlocked rear wheels you stole earlier). You should have both the frame and the wheel within the bolt of the ulock. If the thief has to cut the frame to get the bike, he ruins the bike, so there is no point in the operation.
I guess that explains why so many of the bikes are all black, so they don’t stand out?
It’s kind of discouraging watching the Lockpicking Lawyer when you see that no bike lock can withstand a battery powered angle grinder for more than half a minute. So if you have a nice enough bike and someone wants it, there is always a way to get it if it is left un-attended.
It is also strange how having a crappy bike is not a guarantee against theft. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, bikes are a form of low end currency among criminals, along with drugs and sex. So bike thefts are not limited to expensive bikes. Any bike may be stolen. And prosecutions for bike theft are almost nonexistent, so it is a fairly “safe” crime for them to commit.
Probably not. Titanium’s important quality is its lightness; an equally thick bar of steel is a bit stronger than a bar of titanium, but also much heavier.
You say that, but I once had a project that required a piece of bicycle tire, it was surprisingly hard to get through the iron wire in the rim of the tire. The combination of rubber and metal made it hard to saw and hard to snip.
Sure I didn’t have great tools but the tools I had would have made light work of either element on their own, it’s together that it became harder. I can’t imagine adding a innertube and a rim will make this process easier.
But if you can include a piece of the frame you will make it safer.
However, if you have to choose between the rear tire and the frame for locking (because of the size of your lock or the size of the object you want to lock it to) the tire is the far superior choice. It locks both objects relatively well and prevents the thief from using your entire bike as lever to break your U-lock open. I mean, he could do that with the tire too, but that will most certainly break the tire making the bike unrideable. And then he may be better off stealing that other bike, that didn’t think of that and can be stolen in a single piece.
Point your key towards your face, as if your eye is the keyhole. If you see a circle, get a new lock, if you see a rectangle, your bike is safe.
An Ironman Triathlete? I guess they were trying to demonstrate not strength but persistence? Those guys could struggle with a lock for 8 hours easy without getting tired.
As you say they are all compromises. However if you put the lock around the frame you force the criminal to cut the lock not the frame. If he cuts the frame, which is pretty easy, bike is ruined, might as well not bother. Cutting a u-bolt while possible is not a particularly easy proposition, probably requires an angle grinder and will produce a flurry of sparks and noise while it is cut. Cutting a wheel on the other hand, that can be done with bolt cutters or even tin snips if you have a strong grip.
Locking the frame and not just the wheel though the frame makes it a much tougher proposition for thieves and promotes the best option which is, “not my bike, pick the other guys bike”.
Though I saw this bike outside a cafe, on a road which is used by weekend riders with very expensive bikes. It was locked with two very good U locks, one for each wheel, securing most of the value on the bike.
The reasoning behind the method is to use a smaller, stronger lock to lock the frame and the wheel by locking the wheel through the frame.
I think the real question is not can thieves defeat this method, because determined thieves can defeat all locking methods with an angle grinder, but do they. This method has always been a bit controversial, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. But that is what I don’t know. I don’t have any stats on the efficacy of different bike locking methods controlled for risk.
The hydraulic cutter is LPL’s other new toy. No sparks, no significant noise. Lock just goes ting. He uses it on a couple other types of locks, and none have yet defeated it. Also relatively fast. And it’s about 18" long. The better locks have you have to cut through both sides of the lock. But still less than a minute to go from putting the cutter on the lock to the lock being gone.
