Originally Posted by
staehpj1
One of the points I think cause some of the disagreement is the notion of what constitutes a small remote town. The example of Golden Colorado came up earlier in this thread. Perhaps I misunderstood, but I think it was being used as an example of a small town. I have to say that on most of my tours a town like that would definitely not be called a small town. First of all it is close to a big city and second it isn't small itself. On the TA we considered the dividing line between a small town and a large one to be whether or not it had a comma in the population. I might stretch that a bit to maybe include a town of 1,200, but for sure a town of 10,000 is not a small town in the context of rural touring. Also if it is within 10 miles of a big town it probably should be treated like it is in a big town.
I was actually using Golden as an example of a larger town. I chose it because it's not Denver, but it is a nice place for a lunch stop if you wanted to do any riding in the area. I would want a U-lock there myself. I did some motorcycle riding around there a couple of years back when a friend was working there.
I think a lot of this stems from having one motorcycle and one scooter stolen from me in the past. It just doesn't make sense to skimp on security to me. It's worth a pound. And I travel pretty light as it is. That and a picture of a very sad tourer with a cut cable lock.