cable locks can be silently cut in seconds using a tool that bike thieves can easily carry on them. If it's a combination lock it can be opened in relatively short amount of time by a skilled lock picker.

ulocks at least take a bit of extra work and it's more conspicuous.

For anything longer than quick stops, I strongly recommend using at least a ulock. or both. But a cable lock by itself is only going to stop joy riders.


One time I locked my pedicab to a light post with a cable lock, and put a ulock thru the wheel and the frame. a potential thief cut the cable lock but abandoned the cab after realizing they couldn't ride it with the ulock in place. If i had only used a cable lock, I would owe the pedicab thousands of dollars. So yeah, use a U lock.