Originally Posted by
Rustyoldbikes
If a crook has a choice between a brand-new shiny Wal-Mart bike and a rusty, dented, spray-painted relic from 1988, he will take the new bike...even if it weighs 40 pounds and the rusty bike weighs 21 pounds.
Maybe. I was at my LBS when a twentysomething kid and his dad came in for a new wheel for his rusty beater bike. The old wheel hadn't broken -- it had gotten stolen. He had gotten that bike exactly for the reasons you describe, that it would be ignored because it's so old and crappy-looking.
Thieves will take anything, especially if it results in an operable bike somewhere else.