London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

Seeing that we have a topic called How not to lock your bike, I figure it would be much more helpful to have a topic showing the best method of locking your bike, you can included photos of your own if you deemed your locking method to be decent.

First example, a beater that's excellently locked up;



It got the forum's favourite lock, the Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit locking both frame and wheel to the stand not leaving enough leverage rooms.

The rear wheel is securely locked with a pitlock-style nuts, and the saddle have a chain looped round it to the frame;

Excellent Ed. I've been saying this all along, and even suggested people posting photos of such well locked up bikes.
This thread will become an extremely useful resource.


Here are some examples I had admired previously.

Balki has a photo of my Fuji pre-Penguination, rocking a tri-spoke locked up.

It was, frankly, over-protected as I recall.

Pix, or it didn't happen. :D




And Lukeyb, it would be good to turn this into a serious thread on examples of good->excellent bike security.
It would be a real shame to just throw joke pictures into the thread.

Some good eg's there, but I think you should delete that first specialized.

I know they are using good locks (and 2-types), but the D-Lock should be going through the seattube and providing less room for tools.

(good idea for a thread btw.)

You are right hugo7, and Ed. Its deleted.

Sure.

But as this is meant to teach ppl the idea way, it might be worth putting a note in the post with the pictures?

Anyway, like I said good thread - this one is def a good eg of minimising space between the d-lock:
http://static.lfgss.com/attachments/...0903-1541d.jpg

I also may as well add, that I never knew how to properly lock my bike until I read a post on the forum. Mos def something that the major bike stores should be doing.

There's a huge gap in the rear D-lock on that Specialized, it's much easier to put a bolt cutter (which would be used for the front lock), and use that as a leverage to removed the rear.

edit - Hugo said it all.

the problem with those cdales is that they shouldn't even be locked. wheeling that out for a commute is a fail to being with. so far eds is the only one which is sensible. and the cdales could both lose an entire lock by simply installing some locking skewers. efficiency fail.

I commute on a Capo 5. Its good for me.

Great idea for a thread...

It got the forum's favourite lock, the Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit locking both frame and wheel to the stand not leaving enough leverage rooms.

The rear wheel is securely locked with a pitlock-style nuts, and the saddle have a chain looped round it to the frame;

[/QUOTE]

Isn't having an undesirable saddle enough to put off the crooks? Who would steal that?! Having it manacled to the frame is only going to encourage thievery as no one would nick that unless the chain was there in the first place to tell them it was worth nicking! Haha.

edit: very thorough though - nothing wrong with that.

Genuine question. Why wouldn't you lock through the frame and the rear wheel? Rear is usually the more expensive of the two and a Fagh can fit round the stand and the bike. If i have to I always secure the rear wheel and frame to the stand and then use another locking option on the front.

He has pitlocks on the rear but many people don't.

I see that as a mini fail. The lock should be around the rear rim too. A bold theif would just cut through the rear triangle leaving them with a most of a full bike minus front wheel, frame and a few rear spokes.

I also wonder if the bike has any security bolts to stop the fork being pinched. Hydraulic brakes in the city are immediate fail, because they are so valuable yet easy to steal.

Its hard to show a perfectly locked valuable bike with good components, because there is so much stuff to pinch on them. You could have the bars, forks & brakes off that easy. is that a fizik saddle too?

not quite if they had locking skewers they would keep the wheels bu only one lock would be need to be removed to ride them, two locks = twice as long so less of a target no?

At the local art school (bournville) they have a pretty awesome locking concept.

The bike stands have hinged part that wraps around your frame, all you need to take in is a pad lock. A similar design for street locking in capital cities would be a great idea, really hefty fucking hinged arms that go through your frame, so all you need to take in is a high quality padlock or motorcycle disc lock.

Sorry DFP, but thats an awful lot of cutting just to get one wheel/rim. Cutting the lock, or both seatstays would take a lot of effort, and more time than would normally be spent of getting one wheel, and leaving the whole bike behind??

I accept that disc-brakes have a dollar value associated with them, but wouldn't that be weighed against the effort to extract the things?

As usual, Sheldon speaks a lot of sense http://www.sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html

Personally I only carry a mini kryptonite, and secure rear wheel and frame. Pitlock on front wheel. Ultimately front wheels are much less hassle to replace than rear (tenuous point but I seem to have a lot of front wheels).

I live in Hackney and to date nothing has been nicked off any of my bikes.

But the Sheldon Method has been discredited on here. It's not suitable for city security, for reasons of vandalism at least. The rear wheel is secured, using his method, but the bike isn't. If you secure wheel to frame then you're not using the Sheldon Method. Yours is the better.

Takes about 10 secs to cut through the stays with decent hacksaw, and about 20 to get the calipers off the brakes.

Exactly. Frames are designed to be lightweight. The tubing is very thin especially if its butted. If I take on the mindset of a thief, I know id totally chop through that frame.

This is easily established. Get a bit of Al tubing and decent HS blade, and have at it. Knife thru butter.

This is a weird logic that is being followed. Do you really mean that thives are actually stupid people, and would prefer to ruin a bike that is worth more to sell, than just a wheel...instead of moving to a nearby bike that is badly locked? The income from the theft is normally meant for drugs, but of course, pro thieves are different.

Surely even thieves do a quick risk assessment of what they're about to do. If there are police nearby, they walk on. If there are cyclists sitting close by, they walk on. If its a busy street, and no-one is paying attention to the bikes, they would contemplate having a go. And if faced with choosing between cutting and ruining a bike, or cutting a noddy lock and taking thge whole bike....I know which one I'd bet on.

Unless the scenario is that a bike is locked in such a way, and on its own, that the only thing worth taking is the wheel....even if cutting the bike to bits.

Its not just a wheel. If you cut through the two rear seatstays you get:

Seat & post £20 (looks like a good saddle)
Chainset & eggbeaters £50
Gears £15
Fancy fork & headset £50
Bars/stem/grips £20
2 brakes & levers with undamaged hoses. £60
Rear wheel & tyre minus a couple spokes. £20


I had a bike stolen once, which the thief sold to a market stall holder. And the stall holder then sold it to a customer for £15!
Meaning the thief went to all that effort for £5-10. Bike thieves do not knock a profit, no matter how small. And in london they all know they can get good money. Lots of flash bikes around and customers willing to pay prices equivalent to ebay.

They take what's there and then available; it's like having a cup of tea to them. Half the time it's just a laugh. Sell a wheel down the pub for £20 is no risk. Sell a frame and you have an identifiable item with serial nos, people who recognise it and trek down to Brick Lane and hunt them out, etc etc. Chances of Police being around are virtually nil, and even if they are, the chances of your average fat rozzer with all the stupid bat-belt and vest nonsense actually catching a scrote in trakkies and nikes is effectively nil, even if they can be bothered to chase them in the first place.

It's not a case of "ooh, let's not damage the frame coz it's worth more", it's "hack it to bits in no time and take the rest" as opposed to nothing. Unless of course it's yet more sophisticated "to order/knows the market" thief, but that's a tiny minority.

Its disheartening and dismaying. Still, this thread will help keep people's bikes safer.

Hmmm...I wrote a post earlier and it somehow got deleted, I couldn't be bothered to rewrite it but I think I will now.

First, I think this thread is a great idea. The main point of it is surely meant to be a constructive counter to the other thread. So far only a couple of people have actually posted helpful pics.

Re the bike abvove, my old hybrid had a big gap between the rear wheel and seat tube and you couldn't always lock it using the accepted method. To me that cdale looks like it had the same problem. In which case it's a good solution.

Yes, we all know you can steal anything. But the point is limiting your risk. 2 different locks, where te dlock has little space for sticking some sort of jack/wedge (which we all know is the most common way) is clearly a good way to lock that bike up.

And to try and keep this on the constructive track here's my contribution.


Like this;

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...g?t=1283000003
http://static.lfgss.com/attachments/...ll_locked.jpeg

Have to remember, the lock picking type of bastard (thief) usually carry one type of lockpick. so if your using two locks, use two locks of different makes..

What on earth makes you say that?

good advice on the guardian's bike blog about bike theft by a reformed bike thief.. he was talking about Lock picking.. something like this, picked with a fucking PEN!!

The tools needed to open those modern u-locks are pretty specific. But if you have them you can have a pop at all of them.

Obsolete info. They stopped making that type of lock a long time ago.

kevinsays

as per DFP

that is woefully out of date

making your post a little retarded

How common is lock picking? Doesn't really get mentioned on this topic, it's all about leverage attacks, cutting times and how useless cables are.

there is a wiki article on this

Vulnerability

Until 2004, Kryptonite locks used the mechanism. In 2004, videos circulating on the demonstrated that some tubular pin tumbler locks of the diameter used on Kryptonite locks could be easily opened with the shaft of an inexpensive Bic ballpoint pen of matching diameter. Trade website BikeBiz.com revealed that the weaknesses of the tubular pin tumbler mechanism had first been described in 1992 by UK journalist John Stuart Clark.[3] For an article in New Cyclist magazine, he teamed up with a bike thief to show how easy it was to break in to the majority of bicycle locks then on the market. One of the methods he revealed was the ballpoint pen method. His article led to follow-ups in bigger circulation bicycle magazines and a BBC TV consumer rights programme also carried a feature on the pen method. Some UK trade distributors of bicycle locks using the tumbler mechanism withdrew the products from the marketplace and introduced locks which were more pick-proof. Following BikeBiz.com's report about this 1992 knowledge of the pen method, the lock-picking video received widespread attention by the mainstream media, and after a few days of negative publicity, the company responded with a lock exchange offer. However, lawyers in the US and Canada had already launched class actions against the Kryptonite Corporation, citing the 1992 revelations on BikeBiz.com. Kryptonite Corporation later settled the claims out of court despite the fact that the 1992 magazine article had not featured a Kryptonite lock and Kryptonite employees said they were unaware of the 1992 article.
Two other methods involving brute force are commonly used to break open Kryptonite locks. One is the use of a small hydraulic bottle jack to spring open the lock. The other method is the use of a long pipe (its length dependent on the quality of the lock) to twist open the lock.[

citation needed

Wikipedia:Citation_needed

]

Edit: waaaay to slow..

Mate did you watch the beginning of the video? Maybe watch it again.


Also, a bit random but, the first interviewee with the curly hair says: "what do you think of when you hear the word kriptonite? Strength, right?"

No, not really I think of weakness, but hey ho thats just me...

Also, as this has been a bit of a Kripto-wank-fest so far, ABus make fucking good stuff, so if anyone is in any doubt or can't print off the parkers price before they go to Evans/Cyclesurgery just buy ABus.

i had a expensive MTB stolen by a lock picking thief. The lock i used was a Abus Granit Chain from 2007. I would say lock picking is very common with the experienced professional bike thief's but they do target expensive bikes. These people know what their doing, are very skilled and can pop a lock of within seconds.

Thats why having two locks by two different brands is the safest possible way of locking a bike.

Just my option..

Lke I said, why do you say that?

What padlock did you have on your chain kevin?

Modern locks have pick proof mechanisms which are very tricky to open with expensive tools and lots of time.

This thread could sadly be turning into a clown's night out. It would be so good if this was kept on topic, with photos if possible.
I must say, lockpicking rumour and decade old evidence of locks picked, doesn't help a lot.

Hard to see what could be more on-topic than the ability of scotes to dispense with locks to relieve us of our bikes?

Another thing to think about is figuring out the location of where you're going to lock your bike in, what kind of stand you're going to lock it, and how long you're going to leave it there for.

don't lock a good bike outside. this really is the proper solution.

If you really have to lock your bike outside, for work or whatever reason on a regular basis, use a beater bike. really. £50 -£70, about the same as a good D-lock.

Nothing is safe, 1 lock, 2 locks whatever. Doesn't matter.

Quite recently a bike with 3 locks was nicked within 20 minutes in the stolen thread. A nice bike, which is no surprise to me since thieves only put the effort in once they have established it's worth their effort in the first place.

Proper locking or poor locking, the best locks or not, if it's a good bike, and a pro thief wants it, he'll get it.

I need a beer after writing all that. Hope you get the picture as i see it.
thank you and good night.

I was under the impression that a lot of the tools used by thieves were levered against the floor. So is there something to be said for having locks as high as possible?

Unless thieves can't tell if it's a good bike.

http://brushlesspowertools.com/images/WebBaner.gif

i have no worries about leverage. :o