Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
How expensive is your bike? The reason I ask that is because thanks to battery powered portable angle grinders they can steal your bike in less then 30 seconds regardless of how good the lock is. So if you have an expensive bike and are worried about it getting stolen then I suggest you buy a Walmart bike or a used bike for less then $250 and lock that up at work.
Don't expect lock protection warranties to help either because I've never heard of one ever paying out for a bike that was stolen. The reason for that is due to the all the requirements needed to be fulfilled to get them to pay and then only if the company ok's it. Requirements like first sending in the completed form along with the original receipt and UPC code of lock off the box. Then at time of theft send in police report, original receipt and upc code along with the box...wait you sent that stuff in...now what? Next you need to take detailed pics of the crime scene at the same time of the day it was stolen, along with photos of street lighting, public access, the broken undisturbed lock, and whatever the lock was attached to. Send those photos along with the lock...what if they took the lock? too bad! Then you need to send recent photos of the bike, recent appraisal of bike, and the original receipt of bike. Then they get all that stuff and figure out if they should pay or not, and most of the time if not all the time it's a no.
If you use a U lock there is only one best way to use these locks, see this for how:
http://www.missinglink.org/page/how-lock-bike
Well.... sort of.
Anyone that wants your bike will get it. The trick is to make the hassle difficult and to have much more tempting targets nearby.
My kids both have their bikes down at a major urban university. We use the Kryptonite Evolution locks - they each have two: 1 with the longer 9" shackle and the other with the 5" shackle. They use the 9" when they go to class and at their residence hall or for longer times, they use the short shackle lock around the front wheel and the 9" shackle on the rear wheel/frame. The locks are keyed alike so one key does it. They also have pit locks on the hubs, seat post and stem. We have had zero issues. That angle grinder would take the same 30 seconds to steal our bikes but there are way easier bikes to steal that are close by that are a lot less hassle.
The keyed alike likes work great. They typically will leave the short shackle lock attached to the bike rack back at the dorm. The alternative that we also use is a 4' cable to goes through the shackle of the rear lock thru the wheel. It's just easier to have the two locks and faster.
We use the Sheldon Brown lock strategy and it work just fine. No need to take off wheels or get too crazy about locking the bikes up.
http://sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html
With this, when a potential thief looks at our bikes, they see a LOT of work to get it done and then once they steal the bike they still need to deal with the pitlocks. The bikes we use are late '80s mid range to low high end road bikes - nice bikes in other words, but not at all flashy. They hold up well because they are quality but they are really not worth much - maybe $200 or so apiece. They are just worth more than that to us, we find we have less maintenance issues using good stuff, they hold up better etc... So, we don't worry about it or have to deal with the hassle of police reports and replacing them. Besides that it works well. Been doing this for 2 1/2 years and it's worked great despite bike theft being epidemic on the campus and seeing broken locks and various bike carcasses with parts missing still locked to the racks around campus.
J.