Originally Posted by
I-Like-To-Bike
Same limitation applies to the suggestion of loosening QR and other painful booby traps for the forgetful owner. If the cyclist is that careless/forgetful about bringing a lock along, or using a lock is only a sometime thing, what makes him have a sharp memory for safing his own booby trap(s)?
As someone that used to do this, back in the late '70s, I can tell you that there is no solution for the memory issue, but that loose QR and gear shift thrown off only tend to cause you issues like dropping your wheel or jamming your chain, both embarrassing yet recoverable problems that don't mean too much unless you are trying to make a fast getaway on a stolen bike.
A thief can recover from these too, but it takes a few minutes, and in the mean time, hopefully you'll notice someone on your ride messing with it. These techniques only slow a thief down, they don't really stop 'em.... and if a thief is just grabbing your bike and tossing into a truck... it's gone baby.