Creative Deterrents
Yesterday, I had to bike to a less familiar area of town. I was unsure how safe the area was, and, once I locked up my lovely bike, I found it hard to walk away. Would it be there when I returned?
While I could ride a beater bike instead I get so much more enjoyment from riding a bike I love. So instead of getting a rusty tank of a bike I’ve been thinking of ways to make my pretty bike less attractive to thieves:
I think this will work great. At least until someone invents a bicycle cloaking device. And I don’t think that’s far off seeing as both me any my bicycle become immediately invisible to everyone the second I get on it. It’s just a matter of finding a way of making that happen when I’m done riding it too.
I’m a big fan of the “sleeper” bike: a bike that looks (and may in fact be) old and beat up, but rides way nicer than its appearance would suggest. I also have the advantage of being tall and riding bikes that are hard for normal-sized folks to pedal away on 😉
Weird bike, heavy bike, decent lock, tethered saddle, pitlocked stem and rear hub. Goal is to make it too hard for the amateurs, and obvious to the semi-pros that the bike would be a PITA to fence or part out.
We did have a distinctive bike stolen — univega MTB tandem, customized with upright Albatross bars with bar-ends, and then some, and the police found it pretty quickly. In this case the thief was a local kid, because what idiot steals a low-value distinctively customized tandem?
The local Fred Meyers in Portland Oregon have these smaller light poles.
These smaller light poles fit the Master Lock Street Cuffs but fit very tightly up about 5’~6′ in the air.
Lock cuff to bike, loosely place lock around pole, hoist bike as high as you can allowing for getting the key back in, cinch down the entire lock.
Walk away smug realizing that while it isn’t technically more secure it is SOCIALLY more secure as the act of attempting to defeat the lock is in plain view of everyone and logistically a pain in the ass.
Here’s the rare idea we should steal from the Chinese: in big Chinese cities, there are often bicycle parking lots which have an attendant 24/7. You pay $0.25 US or so to park your bike. Of course they are not always 100% reliable. And there’s tons of bike theft in China. And these lots are often full of old bikes which people have abandoned (simple commuter bikes are available in China new for $50 or less; I bought a perfectly good Giant commuter bike with fenders, shocks, a rear rack and front basket for under $200 US; a comparable bike in Los Angeles cost me $500). But it’s an idea.
For those of you with some knowledge of German or French, you might want to read the Wikipedia-articles about “Fahrradcodierung” (German) or “Bicycode” (French).
(rare occurence to find articles in two major languages but none in English!)