Originally Posted by
rudi
FWIW, and I've lived in NYC for a grand total of 6 days now so I know it isn't worth much, in my building there is a bike locker room and out of maybe 100 bikes in there, I've seen only ONE lock that was better than an OnGuard Pitbull lock (it was a big Krypto Fahgeddaboutdit chain). Meaning that 99 of those people seem to find ****ty U-locks and decent Krypto / OnGuard locks good enough. And yes I'm making the assumption that these people actually take their bikes and locks out of this room.
I see a lot of people riding around with little u-locks, and I wonder how well they do as far as bike retention goes. I bet they do well enough, but I bet they lose on the front wheel. I would assume most of the bikes in your bike locker room seldom leave it ... I'd say that there are a lot more people here that own bikes than there are people who ride them on any kind of regular basis. Pretty much everyone I know owns a bike, but I can count the number of people who ride regularly on two hands.
I've never used one so I won't know. It makes me nervous to lock my bike up with just a u-lock since I can't get it around both wheels, and know that using a cable to keep your front wheel through the u-lock is basically pointless (save yourself the cost of the cable, it will get cut). If I was riding around in a hand-me-down bike I'd prolly go with a single u-lock and not care. I don't know if I've just been lucky or what, but I've been locking up a pretty nice bike (Cannondale Capo, Cane Creek Track Vs, Thomson post/stem, Winwood fork etc ...) outside with a kryptonite chain for four or so years and it is still in my possession. I use the 5.5 foot kryptonite chain, shortened to a little over four feet, in a figure eight so that it goes through both, wheels, the frame and two stationary object (so they'd have to cut the chain twice to free the bike). I keep my bike in my apartment, not in a shared bike room.
The only incident I have ever had with theft is someone stole a bunch of parts off my bike (including the stock fork, which is why I have the winwood) ... they did this by unscrewing hex bolts etc ... Lesson learned: fill in all your hex bolts with aluminum foil and super glue.
I like being able to carry the chain around my waist, as well.