Originally Posted by
GeraldF
The whole point of using locking skewers or Pitlocks is to make locking a bike as convenient as possible while making it highly unlikely that a wheel will get stolen. I find locking up the rear wheel with a U-Lock to be inconvenient for two reasons:
1. I often wear a book bag which is sometimes heavily loaded. Locking the rear wheel means bending over and thus putting strain on my back OR taking my book bag off, putting it on the ground while I lock the wheel, and then putting it back on. It's MUCH more convenient to just lock the top tube of the bike, especially considering I lock my bike to a rack 500+ times every single year.
2. In urban areas where one often finds himself sharing a bike rack with an adjacent bike, fiddling around to lock the rear wheel can be a hassle.
In your situation the best you can do is get yourself a set of trans-x penta-nut skewers or Zefal's Lock 'n Roll skewers. Neither are high security, but they're slightly better than nothing. The Trans-X skewers are vulnerable to vice-grips and I lost a seatpost & saddle that way (but not my front wheel, go figure).
As a tall dude I can sympathize with your back problems. It's all about a trade-offs. Those times when there's not a perfect spot immediately available it's worth it for me to spend a couple of minutes finding a place that I can lock my rear wheel to.