Originally Posted by
Leinster
The downside of that is if you'er asleep in your tent and your bike does get stolen by a hiker passing through, you have a loooooooong walk ahead of you...
This presupposes that said hiker would not have brought a bolt-cutters with him and so wouldn't be able to snip a cable lock. Whereas, the sound of him chopping it with his brush-axe would probably have woken you up.
We can imagine anything, no matter how unlikely. That's what I mean by irrational fear. I have been locking up bikes in the big city and leaving them unlocked in the woods for more than 30 years. Only place I have had a bike stolen was from inside my house, while I was home and awake. So either I am the luckiest guy in world, or, with appropriate precautions, the threat is just not as significant as many people imagine it is.