What is your security set-up?

[J.R.]

We spend good dollars on lighter bikes and then lock up with anchors. My LEO buddy thinks high dollar locks are an indicator of a sendup bike and a challenge for the pro thieves. I can’t think of the name of the YouTube locksmith but he seldom if ever fails the challenge. I look for cameras and good exposure and expect the worse if parked for hours. Best is relative.

The lock picking lawyer. Yeah, he holds a master class for the worlds thieves on YouTube.

 

[indianajo]

My neighbor was T-boned in a car by a lady who ran a red light, spent 2 days in the hospital, it was on camara at the dollar store, he received nothing. How expensive is your lawyer? Will you get anything but change when he finishes the trial?

 

[6zfshdb]

Interesting product but at $1000, it's worth more than many bikes. At 50 lbs, It also weighs as much as an average ebike.

 

[glenmorenee]

50lbs. ??????

 

[The duke]

I replaced the QR skewers on the front wheel and seatpost with hex key units, and keep the tools in the bottom of the basket which clips to the front of the bike. I also have an ABUS Bordo folding lock which is nice and compact. When I stop for errends, I just lock the bike frame and grab the basket.
I never leave it outside overnight though, and my routine is such that the places I predictably go every day have secure parking so I don't even use the lock most of the time.

My goal is to make it as easy to use the bike as it would be a car. If I find myself thinking "yeah, I could take the bike but I'm worried about it being stolen" or it's a big hassle to lock or remove everything at each stop then I need a better system.
Ultimately, I'd like to have a GPS tracker like Boomerang. I'd prefer to do something to catch a thief, rather than simply redirect them to someone more vulnerable.

Also, have good insurance and a deductible low enough that if the bike gets stolen you are more excited about the prospect of a new bike than depressed at the money you've lost.

I like your comment about insurance. I'm going to call my adj

I dunno. I also live in SoCal and don’t consider it to be particularly high crime- but I’m not in LA. I’m in the outlying burbs, and people are surprisingly casual about bike security. I see people with high end racing bikes who don’t lock them at all. (Assume they are watching)
I have the Abus Bordo Granit XPlus, and I mostly use it to lock the bike because I don’t want someone stealing the lock. A heavy duty cable lock probably would’ve been fine for 90% of my recreational riding.
Before I retired, I worked in a city with a large transient population, and lots of property crime. Would have found a way to store the bike in the building under those circumstances. It simply wouldn’t have been safe outside, locked or not.

Not safe, locked or not? I guess I'm kinda like you....SoCal burbs. I've met people who had their thin cable locks cut through when they left a bike somewhere dicey, overnight and have seen bikes with a tire or seat swiped when only the frame was locked. But I have never met a person who had a u-lock or something comparably tough broken in broad daylight. I always thought that was the stuff of urban legend, or at least urban environment, like NY or a college campus where there were tons of valuable bikes and a crook's trade could be ripping off bikes, due to the super-target-rich environment.

Can anyone give a personal experience that proves me wrong?

 

[elect]

The loud one?

I meant one like this one

 

[elliot friedman]

For that price, I don't see how it's going to fold my laundry, cut my lawn and cook my dinners.

 

[steve mercier]

The more locks the better but I also called my home insurance provider and got coverage up to 10k on our bikes.

 

[ChezCheese:)]

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Meanwhile, I've been looking into other versions of nutlocks, and there is Hexlox, out of UK or Germany. Anyone have any experience with them?

 

[tomjasz]

That has to be the silliest lock ever. The stoutest u-lock is quite effective. But NOTHING is foolproof. All a matter of how determined or professional the thief is. 45 years ago I left huge case hardened chains and locks at two parking spots. No one got my Paramount, but I couldn't keep a Brookes B17 for more than a couple of months. Decent u-lock, park in a camera view and don't leave for long stretches of time. Routines can be watched and taken advantage of.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Back in the day when I commuted in Seattle I worked out an outside-the-box solution.

The tradeoffs on any bike lock are that a more secure lock is in general heavier, and in many situations an adequately secure lock is impractically heavy to haul around. My thought was to build a cheaper bike lock that I could just leave on the bike rack at work.

So a quick visit to Home Depot and I got a short length of the heaviest stainless steel and case-hardened chain I could find and a big, beefy contractor lock. I stuffed the chain inside an old mountain bike inner tube and wrapped the tube with pink electrical tape. The whole assembly cost about $40, most of which was for the lock. The chain alone probably weighed sixty pounds. I just left the chain and lock locked to the bike rack overnight.

Over about a two-year period a couple of people cut through the electrical tape and inner tube but gave up when they got to the chain. I just taped more duct tape over that section and rocked on.

 

[glenmorenee]

When I say casual rider, I mean I'll be using the ebike for recreation, exercise and going in to town to the grocery store, library, bank, etc. Not commuting to the same destination every day. But I am not going to be in sight of the ebkke constantly - - that's unworkable.

First I would err on the side of caution and initially do the full lock up wherever you go. Over time you may see that just a modest lockup will suffice in most situations. it depends a whole lot on where you are locking up your bike:

@Bank. Cameras all over. And no crooks loitering around here.

@Market. Good traffic of law abiding citizens.

@Library. Here in SoCal, libraries are a magnet for homeless and unsavories. You need the full Monty and I wouldn't do it myself.

@Gym. These are a common target here in SoCal. Your length of stay gives them plenty of time to work on your lock.

@Commuter Bike Cage. You'll need the full Monty here as they can easily get into the cage and pick and choose which bike to work on and they come prepared.

In a small town, a loud alarm will work well but in a crowded urban environment no one wants to get involved.

 

[Toomanycats]

I like your comment about insurance. I'm going to call my adj

Not safe, locked or not? I guess I'm kinda like you....SoCal burbs. I've met people who had their thin cable locks cut through when they left a bike somewhere dicey, overnight and have seen bikes with a tire or seat swiped when only the frame was locked. But I have never met a person who had a u-lock or something comparably tough broken in broad daylight. I always thought that was the stuff of urban legend, or at least urban environment, like NY or a college campus where there were tons of valuable bikes and a crook's trade could be ripping off bikes, due to the super-target-rich environment.

Can anyone give a personal experience that proves me wrong?

When I’m saying “not safe”, I’m thinking more in terms of being vandalized. Nobody was likely to bring an angle grinder and cut through an Abus lock, however, leaving a bike out all day at my workplace would have been an invitation to get everything stripped off the bike that could possible be removed and taken away.

 

[glenmorenee]

The lock picking lawyer. Yeah, he holds a master class for the worlds thieves on YouTube.

He does a tremendous service for consumers. He cuts thru all the marketing crap and embarrasses the manufacturers, all with an eye to getting us better locks for less money.

 

[ChezCheese:)]

Unfortunately he also teaches thieves how to steal. You can learn anything on YouTube... ?

 

[Rodolfo]

I'm tempted to post a pic of the exceptional steel cable to which I entrust all my bikes, but I'm fearful that one or many of you will post 20 videos on how to cut through it in less time than typing this is taking.

 

[J.R.]

He does a tremendous service for consumers. He cuts thru all the marketing crap and embarrasses the manufacturers, all with an eye to getting us better locks for less money.

He does more harm than good. Many good, quality locks on the market. Nothing is foolproof, no lock will keep a determined thief from what they want. The lock picking lawyer teaches opportunists how to defeat even the best of locks. He shows people that could never in a million years figure out how to pick a lock, to do it in minutes.

 

[steve mercier]

He does more harm than good. Many good, quality locks on the market. Nothing is foolproof, no lock will keep a determined thief from what they want. The lock picking lawyer teaches opportunists how to defeat even the best of locks. He shows people that could never in a million years figure out how to pick a lock, to do it in minutes.

I would agree with both of you. Somehow it does not seem contradictory

 

[Jaxhusky]

Kryptonite Ulock, abus bordo and a master handcuff cablelock designed for motorcycles. I also have insurance from markel as I commute frequently in a high theft area. I do park it in this rack at work, which is located next to the garage attendant.

 

[glenmorenee]

That's a good question. Has anyone ever complained that their bike was stolen via a picked lock? I would say not ever.