London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

Right...... being far up north from you folk and coming on lfgss i see a lot of threads with "stolen bike"..... just out of curiosity why are so many bikes being stolen, is it because people are using the wrong locks with a mentality of "it will never happen to me"

like cable locks or something?

Do bikes managed to get stolen that are locked up with mini D's.....i know its possible to eventually get through a mini D but it takes a lot aren't i right in saying? do they go to the effort to cut through mini D's?

ALSO....what are the mini D's that halfords sell like?

mini D's are good for a while if you have a lota frame, wheel, railing in there.
DO NOT buy halfords anything.

is it true the kryptonites mini D's are good or is it some sort of fashion myth?
are mini D's in general good rather than just kryps?

Even the best D locks (the ones with the highest security rating) are rated by how many minutes they will withstand an attack.

Even these claims are put to shame by numerous internet videos/tests showing people get through these locks in under a minute.



Yes.

i will keep my "Glasgow" spoke cards in and then nobody will steal it.

"Glasgow's homicide rate is twice that of London and even greater than New York"
not my words, the words of a reported on some t.v program.

I don't think bike crime is too big in Glasgow. Bikes seem to sit for days without problems. My mate left his Bianchi Pista in St Enoch Sq on a Friday night jaunt to the Subby. Didn't come back to get it until after Optimo on the Sunday.

As a Glaswegian, if thats true, that is depressing. Three strikes and your out policy required in the city imo. 25 years lockdown!

Go overbored with the locks. Impractical to carry but thief will steal the easy one.

you got it in one. ALL cable locks suck hard IMO. Kryptonite NY, all the way.

I own a cable lock, but only to attach to my D lock so I can swing it harder / faster around my head when nazi car drivers drive their cars at me on purpose (twice in the last 6 months...)

yeah, i must confess......ive never had any problems with my bike being tampered with in Glasgow, my friend got his bike stolen because he left it over night, but i haven't heard of any day thefts if its locked up.

my friend who is living in London now was saying "People in London think Glaswegians are nuts" haha i just found it funny.
Glasgow is a safe place if you have common sence.


yeah, i will probably keep any locks whenever i get a new one, even if its just a cable lock, it will give me a little extra time.

those halfords ones feel really good. Very heavy and good locking mechanism.

I wouldnt pay any attention to the included insurance though as you have to provide the broken lock as evidence and all manner of awkward stuff.

In every incidence of bike theft I have encountered, the thief has taken the lock with them. Plus with a strong lock like a mini-d its far more likely that the railing etc will be cut.

In terms of cables, there are a very few decent ones. Not ANY of these armoured ones from ANY brand , at an COST. All the armoured ones have a piss weak 7mm cord inside which a determined person and a pair of sharp scissors could get through!

The only cables worth considered are the ones with the steel cord actually visible and a diameter of 30mm. Also the expensive ABUS ones. It will be just as heavy as a good D, and still not as strong. The only benefit of having one being you can wrap it around yourself.

yeah, they felt good and solid with a good locking system so thats why ive been considering it and its a lot cheaper than the kyrp.

d-locks are easy enough to smash with a car jack (as any serious thief knows).

at least the big fat abus granit locks (and high-rated reinforced chains) can't be removed in this manner, they need an angle grinder or some other powered cutting tool.

however, a serious bike thief will bring his own tools and have your bike in no time, if they really want to. locks are really only a delay mechanism for professional thieves and a deterrent to casual ones.

its ridiculous that you can't have a bike without someone wanting to take it from you.

maybe i will smear mine in shite.....so they don't want to touch it.

Bike theft is just not violent enough for Glasgow thiefs ya ken. If a bike is stolen its more by the opportunistic yob looking to make quick money. Not really a place to go and sell bikes as well besides the Barras but I don't think I've ever seen any bikes sold there besides that wee bike shop.

But aye, Glasweigens are nuts. Especially the ones on Queen Street that step out in front of you, grab your handle bars and throw you off your bike resulting in a broken finger.

Oh aye, and make sure it one of those radial key locks.

haha....i hate confrontations, its best to live a quiet happy life.

True Euan, those Scottish nut jobs would steal your bike just to create an excuse to argue with you so they can kick ye fking head in. On the up side they bring their own tools for that also and the average scotts head is a little tougher than us southerners and can withstand a good few minutes kicking.

I have a heavy duty chain for scooters and padlock a family could picnic off. D locks are a pain to carry, limited in size and not all that tough. things like spds, fixed wheel, brakeless... and not a pretty bike (to some!) put them off.
Also stick it near bikes that look expensive with weaker locks. so far no worries...

Touch wood .. touch wood...

Nah this wasn't a confrontation. Just some big guy walked onto the street when he wasn't looking and I was going up the street. His reaction wasn't to get out of the way but brace himself against my bars and the bike. I went flying superman style and landed on my hand. Sprained my wrist and broke my pinky.

Royal Infirmary A+E totally missed the obvious break in my pinky because they were too worried about my wrist. Despite the fact I said my wrist felt fine and I could move it but my fingers were sore as hell. Eventually a doctor called me today to tell me he spotted a break on my xrays. Quick service though.

i once had a guy who got my in a catch 22 situation he said:

Dickhead - "here, can i beat you up?"

Me - "ehhh, no"

Dickhead - "you trying to say i couldn't beat you up like?"

Me - "ehh i duno, probably" (just said it to make them feel big in the hope they would fuck off)

Dickhead - "so im allowed to knock you out....."

I've been in a similar situation on one of the islands at Charing Cross:

Drunk guy - "Give me your money"

Me - "Nah, sorry"

Drunk guy - "Give me your phone"

Me - "Hah sorry mate you ain't getting it"

Drunk guy - "Give me your money then"

Me - "Eh no"

...

And so it carried on until I started laughing and he tried to swing at me. I bolted it up Woodlands because I ain't the biggest guy in the world and I was scared he would eat me or something.

I would not have eaten you!

You sure? I'm kobe style.

Perhaps not. I like my meat lean.. but followed with 12 courses of dessert.

Can't help you there I'm afraid.

haha.....i had a story at charring X also....

jakey bastard - "here mate, can i use your phone to phone my gran in hospital?"

me - "no money in it man"

jakey bastard - "lets see then"

me - "eh nahhh"

jaket bastard - "give me some money to use a pay fone then"

me - "not got any, im skint"

jaket bastard - "gee us yer fone ya bam before i slash ye"

me - "get to fuck" then RAN LIKE FUCK!!

hahaha he didn't get my phone, money OR a fight.

ANYWAY...(back to the thread)....I NEED A GOOOOOOD LOCK!!

Kryptonite Mini-D and Fahgettaboudit U-lock (the small one).

buy them from the U.S. ebay, much cheaper, got the Fah for £50 including P&P, the Mini-D for £25 including P&P.

Big Fuck-off chain and padlock from bikehut, weighs more than 2 bikes.

http://laekhouse.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-sticker.html

depends how you lock up. leave no space in the D and you'll be fine. the kryptonite NY locks at both end of the D so is much more secure.

all you have to do is make your bike less stealable / attractive than the one next to it.

Saw an epic fail I had no camera to capture, lunchtime on busy Soho street...

A fat square-section Abus medium Dlock, chopped in two places, about 7 cm missing...

One of those little circular saw thingys I think, there was some singeing at the face of the cuts.

So no, no locks work at all. For very long.

I bought my mini-d from these guys:
http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/product...udit_Mini.aspx

£49.50 for the Fahged Mini

http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/Product...h_Bracket.aspx

£26 for the Mini

It's almost the same as buying from the US and you get the warm fuzzy feeling from buying 'local'.

don't lock your bike like this

any lock will come apart with the right tools,
almost all high security motorcycle chains (£100+) can be cut in seconds with just a bolt cropper.


And anything else with a readily available dirt cheap cordless powertool.

Oh, and dont forget you dont have to "cut" anything at all, every lock can be picked with a little practice.

Something to stop the lay man walking off with your ride, is all one should really bother with. Just use common sense and dont leave it anywhere risky for too long.

@Ed:

I followed your advice from one of the other threads about locks, and ordered the Mini Fug and Mini Evo from that site on Monday. The Fug's out of stock (of course), but I should receive it next week.

There's a row of bicycle parking U-shaped whatchamacallits opposite my office building. I'm thinking of setting up a webcam by the window, and writing some theft-detection software that will immediately flash a big red alert on my monitor and start recording if somebody's trying to nick my bike...

Incidentally, I've seen some websites selling security alarms for bikes. They're supposed to fit on the bottom side of the saddle, and if somebody moves the bike more than a certain distance (say, 1 m), the alarm will start making some loud unpleasant noises. Couldn't a thief solve that problem simply by smashing the alarm to smithereens, though?

That would be very difficult no? How would you go about recognizing a thief via software? Image recognition is notoriously difficult is it not? If you did manage to find a method you would surly end up with lots and lots of false positives?

It's easier to just wire up mains power to your bike.. :)

Or you could just wire up a gps logger to a shaped charge in the handlebars. Couple of metres out of place and kaboom, one less bike thief.

I didn't say it would be easy... as you said, image recognition is extremely difficult, it's a big topic in computer science research. But I'm the sort of sick puppy who'd enjoy attempting this sort of thing.

At first blush the problem space is fairly small and isolated. I don't need software that will recognize *all* types and situations of theft. Just the theft of one particular bike (mine) from one specific area (the row of U-shaped whatchamacallits opposite my office).

The software needs to be able to recognize which bike is mine, first of all. If it can do that, then detecting when the bike has been moved more than, say, 0.5 m should be easy. Unfortunately, if somebody's moved it 0.5 m, that means they've gotten through the locks already and I can kiss it goodbye.

So I'd want something to recognize that the theft is in progress. Maybe a human being standing/crouching within a certain distance of my bike for more than some time limit? Or even better, somebody directly handling the locks on the bike?

False positives would be a problem, but given a choice between false positives and false negatives, I'd choose the former. Perhaps I could come up with some sort of statistical method for estimating the likelihood that this is a real theft... for instance, if the person standing near my bike is wearing a hoodie or a tracksuit, then the probability this is a real theft is 99.9%. Given that I work in a somewhat posh area in Belgravia, this is probably a decent assumption :-)

Mind you, I don't actually know anything about image recognition at the moment, so I could be talking utter bollocks...

I read that thread from a while ago about sneaky ways to exact sweet revenge on thieves who've successfully breached the locks already and are about to ride away into the sunset with our bikes. Definitely an appealing thought, and one that I'd use as a last resort.

It would be a lot easier to run a gps logger tracked from your computer with an overlay on google maps. Run that with a fisheye button camera mounted in the brake housing and you'll be fully equipped to track them down.

Optional extras include provision of incriminating evidence to the police or retribution with a high-powered rifle from a long distance.

fuck..I read once that Paisleys murder rate was twice Glasgows...eeek lol

Too new for that, although I'm not surprised that it's occured to other people. I'm also planning a quick release chainring to hurl at evil drivers Xena style.

That sounds cool, and very 007, and would be a fun project to do. But just to play devil's advocate, for the sake of discussion, here are some drawbacks:

1) Cost to buy and maintain external hardware (GPS logger and fish-eye camera).
2) Dependency on external hardware means possibility of failure, especially in weather conditions like we have here in sunny ol' England.
3) GPS has an error of about 10 m. In densely populated residential areas, such as an apartment block, that'd be a problem.
4) Prevention is better than cure... I'd rather not get to the stage where police have to be involved at all.

I'm thinking way too much about this... just goes to show you how bored I am at work.

Here's the thread:
http://www.londonfgss.com/thread4945.html

who wants to print these stickers?

(i love how fast you can knock something up in PS)

lol you weegies need to HTFU ;) anyone that makes a song and dance about wanting to slash/sparkle/chib you, is not about to do it.. while there ranting "aboot..bein the fukin big man aboot toon" or trying to engage you in a pushing match.. smack the cunt in the face, stand on his neck till he passes out then rape him. (rape optional)

In my experience people who stab people don't talk about it they just do it.


:D oh a merry subject, I do miss the feel of a cold screwdriver held against my throat

hahaha i don't threaten people......i stay clear of violence, i hate it.....but at the same time, i find it funny.

and do be honest, i agree with you, the people that make an issue about it are the ones least to be afraid of.

Ah this is an easy one. Use a glyph spoke card to uniquely identify your bike. It's an old Xerox Parc technique but still useful in some modern applications.

Perhaps if the glyph is moved or obscured then you can start doing your thief inspection routine.

In London bike thieves go around, spot a lonely bike, come back with a van with a 2 meter long bolt cutter and nab ur lock, Failing that they use a grinder, failing that they use a blow torch, failing that they use a small explosives device.
Failing all the above they at the least will steal all they can, levers bars and so on.
London is a very special place.

So a mini D is essential, but if you have a good bike, u just dont leave it anywhere but inside, behind closed doors. And even then u have to lock it. LOL ?
Someone here had their bike stolen from inside his house.

Re: the Almax video.

They say the krypto chain was loaned to them by someone. Kyptonite posted on their blog that there's no proof that that is actually a kryptonite chain. It could just be a cheap chain with a kryptonite sleeve.