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6 Tips For Securing Your Bike in the City
By Jason Gilman
Bike security in the city is all about tradeoffs. If you're going to ride your bike in a city environment and leave it unattended for any significant length of time it's going to be at risk. Here are a few tips that can help you make sure that you don't lose your bike when you have to leave it unattended. Keep It Indoors - Your best possible scenario from a security standpoint is to keep it locked up indoors somewhere where passing bike thieves can't scope it out. If you're commuting to work, find out if your place of employment offers a secure room inside that you can lock up or alternatively a bike locker box. Keeping it secured and out of sight is by far your best possible scenario. Choose Your Bike Wisely - If you're not able to keep your bike safely inside and it's going to be unattended for any length of time, you're really better off using an older bike that's not going to break your wallet in the event that it does get taken. There are tons of great candidates on Craigslist in most cities. $100-$200 can go a long ways if you're selective and keep your eyes open for deals. Make You Bike Unappealing - Another way to put this is security by obscurity. If you have a nicer frame, but don't care about appearances you can make it much less attractive to a thief by doctoring it up with reflective tape, black electricians tape, and a few well placed bumper stickers to obscure your bike's model and brand. Coroplast fenders (made from recycled campaign signs) are a great utilitarian addition that will make a bike look especially crummy. Pick A Good Place To Lock It - A well trafficked bike rack with lots of bikes is probably your best bet, especially if you use the previous tip and have the worst looking bike on the rack. If a rack isn't available look for something other than a street sign like a well secured railing or fence. Just make sure you're not locking to something that can be easily defeated or taken along with the bike by a motivated thief. Get a U Lock - U lock style locks are hands down the toughest locks to crack, but they are not invulnerable. A well placed car jack can defeat them relatively easily if you have one that's too big. When locking up your bike with one make sure that you fill up as much of the U part with the bike frame, front wheel, and bike rack as possible so there's no room for a jack. Getting a sturdy, medium to small sized model is definitely the way to go from both a weight and effectiveness perspective since its lighter and easier to fill up. Get a Chain - For ultimate security you can add a heavy chain or cable to redundantly secure your frame and rear wheel in addition to a U Lock. The beauty of using two distinct types of locks is that most bike thieves aren't going to be carrying both bolt cutters and a car jack. If your bike looks like it's going to be a lot of work to pilfer all the better for you. Ultimately given enough time and effort, no bicycle parked outside will remain safe from a determined thief. But if you make your bike unappealing and take the necessary steps to secure it, you should buy yourself more than enough time to keep it safe in the short term.
Please visit the author's web site for further information and deals on new, used and vintage steel bikes .
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An example of a mini U Lock.
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
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Good advise. Strangely enough, the only time I had my bike stolen was when I was living in a small northern community, population about 5,000. It was stolen from the storage area of my apartment building. Here in the big city of Vancouver, I have had no problems.
Thanks for sharing these tips, Jason. We're lucky here in a retirement community and have very little robbery. Any young people walking or riding around are always out of place and attract attention.
Keep up the good work.
Best wishes.
Frederick
Hi Jason G, security for bikes is a nightmare I do not lock my bikes up anywhere out of sight for long periods, if I do and it's sad but I have real trouble not worrying about it so I am not able to fully focus on what I am doing. I have 4 bikes in total but one of them is about 40 - 50 years old it is a really nice bike to ride, old fashioned metal mudguards, chain guard the lot, even a ringing bell on the handle bars. I never lock this bike up anywhere, it is my favourite and very convenient. It has never been stolen and luckily I have never had a bike stolen in 25 years. Good advice about the two different types of locks because it works, I have returned to my bike once and found one of my locks removed and half the spokes in my back wheel trashed. I think somebody got the one lock off with bolt cutters and because they couldn't get the other U lock off they decided to kick my spokes in to ruin it for me because they couldn't steel it, how bad is that? I learned to rebuild wheels at that point so it wasn't that bad in the long run.
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This intel was contributed by Jason G
Jason G
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May, 2012
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