Originally Posted by
catonec
this may be a little extreme but
"DO NOT LEAVE ANY BIKE UNATTENDED THAT YOU DONT WANT STOLEN!"
If you do have to use a bike for transportation and leave it locked up for long periods of time, buy a $100 POS on craigslist, make it functionally perfect, ride it until someone steals it, start over. Sorry.
I disagree...depending on where you live. In Philly a properly locked bike is safe and few thieves know crap from gold. I get nervous leaving things overnight, but I haven't had issues. I know I've said this before - but my Merckx was abandoned with a crappy ubolt in north Philly for 4 months and no one stole or stripped its campy c-record parts.
There's also insurance.