Commuting - Securing a bike at a parking lot

I ride a commuter bus from a park and ride lot. If I bicycled, my bike would be there for roughly 11 hours a day unattended. How likely am I to face theft or vandalism, and what are reasonable precautions? I have a choice of two lots, one at the Naval Academy Stadium, the other at the H.S. Truman Park and Ride on Riva Road, in Annapolis, for those in the know. As a second question, do thieves in general seem to understand the relative value of road bikes, or are they kids looking for bmx and mountain stuff?

I've seen bikes vandalized when left exposed in every possible context. There's no guarantee. A bike left in isolation is even more vulnerable, if not more so, than one in a high-traffic area, especially if you leave it in the same place every day.

These buses don't have bike racks, eh? No bike lockers at the park-n-ride? Then the best advice I have is ride a beater. An old ten-speed with suicide bars and downtube shifters would probably be safer than anything new. Something you won't miss if it gets stolen or vandalized.

RichC

What Rich said.

The safest place for a nice bike is locked inside a building or some other locked domain.

Good bike thieves know the value of a bike. Unattended parking lots are magnets to thieves best is to lock it in a building or in a manned parking lot your odds are better. We had a bike stolen from in front of our warehouse last summer and it was locked and secured to the building. Do not take chances with your vehicle

I think a petition for bike lockers might be my best bet. Thanks. I contacted the MTA at http://www.mdot.state.md.us/

Use a beater. The least attractive are old sports/racer type, with rack and fenders. Avoid any quick-release mechanisms, these get messed with. Leave a heavy duty hardened steel chain or armoured cable at the lockup. Use a min of 2 styles of lock. The worst that can happen is vandalism, which is a bummer.

The response from MDOT:

What a good suggestion. I will forward to appropriate MTA staff to see
what can be done.

Thank you
Bonnie March
Service Planner

>>> MTA Info 06/03/03 02:48PM >>>
Thank you for your comments. Your ideas and suggestions are valuable
to us. We have forwarded a copy of your suggestion to our Office of
Customer Information and Service Development handling.

MTA Internet Customer Communications

>>> <> 05/28/03 01:28PM >>>
The following Suggestion related to Commuter Bus was received from the
website.

We could use some bike lockers along the route of the 950 commuter
bus,
both at the Naval Academy Parking Lot, to accommodate riders from route
2
and the Broadneck Peninsula, and at the Harry Truman Parking lot. We
already have more cars than we can handle, and every bicyclist
arriving
and locking a bike is one less parking space we need.

>>>>>>>The safest place for a nice bike is locked inside a building or some other locked domain.<<<<

I leave one of the bikes I commute each day inside the building at the light rail. It's a public building which commuters pass in order to get to the train. Well. As you can imagine. The workers at the rail don't like my bike and CUT MY TIRES so that I would not park inside the building.

Over the past several years of bike commuting, I've discovered that it's best to ride junkers that no one will steal. This is why I'm a fan of 3 speeds and folding bikes with 16' wheels. These strange and old looking bikes are not in demand as the crooks are looking for mountain bikes. Don't even think of locking even a midlevel bike like a Trek hybrid to bike rack. It just won't last long and you'll need to carry about 40 pound worth of locks. Seriously.

Believe it or not. I'm having VERY GOOD results with my Pacific Toy bike ($89.00 bike) that is left on the streets of New York City every day 24/7. It seems like the crooks leave my toy bike alone since its parts are worthless and you would be nuts to put them on your ride. I will have a full report about this experience in a couple of months.

(HEY!! THIS IS MY 200TH POST)

fwiw ...

I created a brochure for my local cyclist advocacy group about how to lock a bicycle.

Locking a bike well won't keep it from being vandalized, and anythng that ain't nailed down, and many things that are, can be stolen all the same. That much said, I've never had a bicycle stolen in 21 years of regular riding.

The brochure is in MS-Word .doc and PDF formats. It's entitled, "How to Lock (and Keep) Your Bicycle" linked to my webpage right here (http://tomrevay.tripod.com).

Wow, that brochure is excellent :thumbup: I like the point about how thieves are not likely to be carrying tools for defeating two dissimilar types of locks at the same time.

My bike goes in the server room. :) I'm blessed with a great workplace where the boss is a cycling enthusiast.

Originally posted by mechBgon
Wow, that brochure is excellent :thumbup: I like the point about how thieves are not likely to be carrying tools for defeating two dissimilar types of locks at the same time.

My bike goes in the server room. :) I'm blessed with a great workplace where the boss is a cycling enthusiast.

Thanks. The praise for the two-lock suggestion ought to go to Sheldon "Belt and Suspenders" Brown, whose article on locking, at http://www.sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html , is superb, succinct and sensible.

Still, I'm having a tough time getting over his recent changes ...
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/eagle.html :eek:

Someone told me once to get a bike with mudguards, and no one will touch it.
He left it in a shopping centre, unlocked, and it was still there at the end of the day.

I'm lucky like some, where I can keep mine inside our work building..but we had to start locking the room after a colleague's bike was stolen from the room..lucky mine's so old they left it behind?!

I always use two locks.

My commuter bike is a Specialized Crossroads. Not the best
bike there ever was but I may still be a victim of theft or some
kind of vandalism even in the best of times I suspect.

My workplace has a locker room and showers for cycling
commuters as well as the fact that the bike rack is located
in our loading dock. This is a weird choice but I think a smart
one.

You can't even see the bike rack unless you walk into our
loading dock. Second of all, the actual rack is made of large,
metal pipes that are about four inches across and sunk into
reinforced concrete - in other words, it's a permanent part
of the building.

We'll see how I fare with this. I made a note to look at other
bikes there and none of them were really fancy but the other
day I saw a cannondale MTB parked there.

On the way home last night I saw two high-zoot rides locked
with very minimal protection: a Specialized S-Works hardtail
with full XTR right out on the city streets! (I bet that lasted
about ten minutes before it vanished) and a Specialized dual
suspension bike with XT that was just locked up with a U-
lock and it hadn't even had the front tire locked....just the rear.

Sigh. I guess they'll learn the hard way.