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I use a Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit lock and chain through my rear wheel and rear triangle with a cable through my front wheel. I live in Medellin, Colombia which is about as theft prone for bikes as NYC is. I've never had my bike stolen. I also don't leave it out at night, only when I'm going into a store or something.
Edit: Be aware this is a pretty heavy chain and lock but I love my bike and don't want it stolen so I bought the best one I could find.
Lock Picking Lawyer says he wouldn't hesitate to use the non-chain version. That seems like the best endorsement you can get for any lock.
I just got back from a trip to Medellin and was surprised how big the bike scene was. Beautiful city.
I used to live there in 2013 and it felt super safe. How is it these days as I heard some bad bits about it.
You can't prevent bike theft - you can only discourage it.
- Use multiple locks. Chains are harder to cut than U-locks. Stay away from cable/combination locks.
- If the lock is a pain to carry around it's also a pain to break.
- If possible, place the lock so that it's in awkward position to cut.
- Have a bike that's difficult to sell. Either a cheap and crappy one or make it unique looking.
- Park it in public and leave it next to a bike that's easier to steal.
- Remove the battery if it's an ebike.
2 points:
Use multiple lock types to increase the required angles of attack.
Keep the locks up off the ground so thieves can’t use the ground for leverage with bolt cutters.
I’d look into a nice beefy lock, I know they make some that are grinder resistant. I think the name of the game is making your bike take longer than a few seconds to steal.
Be the least steal-able bike on the street!
How do I do that?
Make all the other bikes more stealable
Bring a second bike along with you, and lock it with a $10 combination lock chain.
Or just boltcutter the locks off all the other bikes in the rack. Thieves will think twice about stealing your bike when there are a half dozen better choices.
Understand the difference between a recreation bike and a utility bike.
Having a really awesome mountain bike with top of the line shocks or a super light road bike that costs more than a car is awesome. But don't park that outside the mcdonald's.
Instead, buy a used bike or get a REAL mid-tier bike from target or bikesdirect or whatever. And use that for commuting or going to the store or whatever.
And if this sounds prohibitively expensive because "enthusiasts" would need to won multiple bikes and need a place to store them? You are starting to understand why "just replace your car with a bike" is a very "upper middle class white person" mentality.
Fuck that. You don't need to spend more that $300 to replace your car with a bike. But something used and ride it every day. You don't need more than one.
As someone that biked in Chicago for over a decade... You make your bike harder to steal than other bikes. Very few bike thefts are targeted; they're largely opportunistic. If it's a targeted theft, they're going to get your bike.
Start by getting a good lock. If you're riding a bike around that's more than about $1500, spring for the Kryptonite New York series of locks. I'd say get a chain and a very small shackle, because that gives you the most places to lock your bike. When you lock up, remove your front wheel, and run the chain through your rear wheel and both the rear and front triangle, and through your front wheel. Make sure that what you're locking to is sturdy, and difficult to move or cut quickly; city bike racks (the steel ones that are set into the concrete) are pretty good. For buildings that have exterior gas and water pipes, those are pretty great too. Take your seat and seat post with you. Get the tiniest, most uncomfortable-looking clipless pedals you can (Crank Bros. Eggbeaters are a good start, I had Speedplay Frogs before they were discontinued), and wear cycling shoes everywhere; as dumb as it sounds, a bike that someone can't easily ride off on is less likely to get ripped off.
Don't leave your bike locked up outside overnight. Don't leave your bike in a garage, in a fenced-in back yard, or on a back porch. Set up a place inside your house to store your bike (yes, this means that you need a large shower mat to catch the melting snow in the winter). If you commute to work, see if they have a place inside where you can keep your bike during your shirt.
Declare your bike on your homeowners' or renters' insurance, and make sure that you specify replacement value, and exact duplicates rather than equivalents.
Yes, Kryptonite locks can be picked. The people that can consistently pick the new ones quickly are very unlikely to be ripping off bikes.
It's not fool-proof, but I commuted to and from school in the loop, and to and from work in Skokie, and had a grand total of zero thefts across two high-end Cannondales, one mid-level Fuji, and a Specialized StumpJumper Pro in the years that I lived in Chicago.
Check out the Lockpicking Lawyer on YouTube. See what kind of lock he does not condemn.
Remove a wheel, seat and/or handlebars when you lock up. A lot, and I mean a lot, of bikes are stolen out of convenience, and not having a wheel means that someone can’t easily ride it away.
This won’t deter a motivated Igor Kenk-style thief that steals tens of bikes a day, but it’ll make you less of an opportunity to casual addicts looking to for a ride for the night or something they can flip for cash or drugs.
Dont leave a bike that is worth stealing, if you mind it being stolen, for daily commutes just get a second hand bike for around 200$ and fix it up, pick up a 50$ kryptonite NY lock and ride stress free.
Two most important things
- Don't leave your bike anywhere overnight.
- Don't make a pattern of leaving it locked up in the same place for long periods of time.
A nice lock will help a little bit but tbh if they're determined then they will get it if you slip up and allow them the time.
I use a hardened steel chain and a hardened steel lock, and I thread the chain through the frame and the front tire. That's enough to defeat bolt cutters (and my lock has notches on it to prove it), though I'm not sure how it would do against an angle grinder. Though if they have an angle grinder, they might just go through whatever it's locked to instead of the chain/lock itself. There's only so much you can do against a very determined thief.
On top of the various lock suggestions, I added something on my ebike I quite like.
”Hidden” beneath my water bottle holder is a casing for an Apple AirTag. No one is likely to notice it because it’s mounted with the water bottle holder. It doesn’t blend perfectly, but enough to not be noticed unless you’re looking for it. The security screws that are used to mount it require a somewhat uncommon head (not that people don’t have them, just not a normal part of a bike kit), so it’s not easily removed.
So if the bike is stolen, I can hopefully find it again.
This coupled with an alarm lock that attaches to the brake rotor and a standard combination cable lock has served me well so far. Though this spring I might add a folding lock just in case. If I’m spending as much as I did on a bike I shouldn’t cheap out on protecting it.
Make sure to loop a lock through the frame and both wheels. I use an ABUS frame lock on my rear wheel (never has to be removed) and a kryptonite chain lock for the front wheels and frame.
If you want to get really secure, replace fasteners with tamper resistant versions.
Nothing is ever theft proof, but there's lots of ways to make your bike very theft resistant.
All depends on where you are. If you have a bike registration sticker program in your area, do that (e.g. 529 bikes, some cities, some police departments have their own service). Get locks with insurance that would cover the full cost of replacing a stolen bike that was properly locked, if available.
Don't leave it outside over night. Lock it in at least two places if it will be out of your sight in public for more than 20 minutes. Lock it at a bike rack or against a fixed post, one wheel, and frame locked to the rack if possible.
A combination of a good lock (I think those Kryptonite New York locks are well reviewed) and having a bike that doesn't look desirable. If your bike is obviously high end, it's a target. If it looks like an old beater, thieves probably won't bother. As often, anyway.
I have an old "NEXT" bike that I pinned the front fake shocks because they're really only springs. I did the same with the rear one by taking out the spring and replacing it with a piece of pipe. It rides good, it's still a POS that I got for free.
Apologies for the lazy answer, but Lock Picking Lawyer on YouTube has a number of videos on bike locks. In addition to the lock itself, you want to secure both wheels with a chain or cable if possible, and take the bike seat with you if you can (or secure it in some manner). Thieves will remove any bike part they can quickly remove from the bike. Obviously take any bags or water bottles with you, too.
LPL is not a great resource on this since people aren't going to be discretely picking locks to not show signs of tampering. They are going to pull out a bigass pair of bolt cutters (and if you cut the pocket out of a pair of jeans you can fit some REALLY chonky bolt cutters in your "pocket") and cut through the cable.
In terms of protecting your bike from an actual attack? That is going to very much depend on where you live. Growing up, basically every thug had some good bolt cutters so chains and even cables were worthless and you needed the big fucking bar locks. I was visiting my sister on a business trip a few months back and saw someone literally pull out a battery powered angle grinder (ryobi) and slice through a bar like it was butter while I gassed up at a Wawa's.
Which is why all you can really do is lock your bike on crowded well traveled bike racks and hope that someone brought the road bike out.
Well, then you're pretty much out of luck because if someone wants to steal your bike, they will, even if it means coming with a rotary saw. And yes, it does happen, depening on the value of the bike.
My tip coming from a big city with a shitton of bikes: just get a cheap second hand bike that no one will bother with stealing. If you use it for your commute, then it's good enough.
If we're talking about an expensive sports bike, then don't leave it unattended.
Get a good lock. These "Steel U-type" are pretty hard to break, even a good 'steel-chain' type lock will be more than the average bike on the street.
There isn't a standard technique yet, but may-be your municipality or police department has a bike marking system which would basically makes the "stolen bike harder to sell"
These 2 things together would limit the risk as your bike is now hard to steal, hard to sell so they'll go for another one.
Also, can you park your bike in a locked place ? Like a bike room in your appartment building or your house entry-hall ? Not having it outside most of the time also limits the risk
EDIT : Realize that I made the steel/steal typo
There's a new Ulock that's apparently resistant to angle grinders. Someone tried on YouTube and they have to go through like 3 discs to do it.
Also get a "pinhead" bolt system. They replace the hex nuts on the wheels and seat with a round locking nut that you need your key to take off.
This is the lock I use on my e-bike, and it's even recommended by LockPickingLawyer. Hasn't been stolen yet.
Damn. For $200, I'd hope it'd protect the bike.
Cheaper than buying a new bike, though!
Am I blind or does the site say that lock is actually $3,000?
It's $100 on Amazon. No idea where you're getting $3000 from.
if you mean their anti-theft protection offer, that means they'll cover a bike of up to $3000 value if it gets stolen while locked with it.
I've been cycling all over the place since I was a kid and I've never had a bike stolen. Either I've got lucky or my approach is a good one!
The standard advice in the UK is to have two locks, at least one of which should be a good D-lock. Two locks are twice as good as one, because breaking two locks takes twice as long as breaking one, and thieves generally want to be able to steal bikes very quickly.
By a 'good lock', I mean in short, an expensive and usually very heavy lock. I have a couple of D-locks for taking out with me and a couple of very heavy chain locks that I keep for locking my bike up at home. I only take the chain locks out if I'm unsure about where to lock my bike, because they're so heavy as to be barely worth the hassle!
Ideally, a lock should be secured around a frame and a wheel, and then to an immoveable object. So, extending that idea slightly, the ideal place to secure two locks is one around each wheel and the frame. I personally find that this is often difficult to achieve in real life. But, again, that's where having two locks comes in: a bike that's secured to a bikerack with one lock and has the rear wheel imobilised with another lock is difficult to steal.
Regardless of lock type and placement, the best places to secure a bike are those that either have their own security or have lots of foot traffic. Thieves are less likely to operate where there are lots of potential witnesses.
Good luck! Bike theft is sadly common but it shouldn't put you off cycling if you're going to be smart about security, which it sounds like you are.
D-lock through the drive wheel and frame, steel cable though the d-lock and front wheel, steel wire though a closed metal ring/railing. I've used this technique for yonks and never had so much as a wheel stolen.
You don't need ultramax security unless you're locking it up outside at night. Deterrence is plenty good enough to stop people from snipping and running.
I carry my bicycle into buildings wherever permitted, and make full use of the free staffed bicycle parking & free bus whenever possible. I also have 24/7 keyfob access to secure basement parking at my local train station (did require proof of address + one time fee to sign up). See if you can contact your local municipality as they may have something similar in operation.
Before that, I experienced one attempted theft. At the time my bicycle was locked with just an Axa wheel plug-in chain combo lock (very rare in this country) which is built in to the frame.
Came back to see it on the floor with the electronics gutted: no camera, lights, or bike computer. It was dark and luckily I had emergency lights in my backpack to ride home safely. Reported to police, I tracked down some of the stolen stuff online, and even the shop they were sold to (called to verify), provided serial numbers, police did nothing.
Since the attempted theft I use two D-locks in addition to the built-in one, and have quick release mounts on all my bicycle electronics. I miss when I was studying at university and could leave my bicycle outside the library all night with just a cable lock, with no worries
Ive been switching to foldable bikes. When I worked in a office, they fit nearly next to my desk.
Kinda off topic, but why do homeless people always seem to have a phethora of bike rims? Like just the rims
the thought process goes something like: relatively easy to remove the tire quickly from even most locked bikes (not everyone will run their locks though the frame and also front tires too). rubber is useless, chuck it, metal could be aluminum and could be sold for scrap for pennies.
Unfortunately safest bike locks are the heaviest.
Best option is to find some place inside.
I fortunately can bringy my bike to my work.