Originally Posted by
idiq
Your reply is a bit inconsistent. First, you ask if I ever go out with a bunch of bike friends as an objection to my argument. Then you change the premise to an unrelated point, moving it from 'a bunch' of friends to locking it to a single bicycle. You can't offer the latter in defense of the former, as they're two different arguments.
Now, there's a difference between locking a bike to one other bike, and stacking eight bikes and locking them all together. Sorry if I didn't make my feelings clear. There's just something about daisy-chaining eight bicycles that makes no sense to me. If I lock it to one bike, I can leave when I want. If I lock it and have others locked to mine, I can leave when they want. Unless of course I ride in a crew and then we all leave at the same time, which makes perfect sense and you're completely right, is not trendy in the least.
I didn't really change the premise - if I go out with 8 of my friends and there is only one lock-worthy pole on that street, I'll lock my bike to one of my friend's bike - and presumably his bike will be locked to another friend's bike, and someone else will lock their bike to mine. A more likely scenario is if I'm at some bike event (the bike film festival, a race, etc) and there are 50+ bikes locked up. Then I'm pretty much guaranteed to be unable to find a place nearby to lock to - except for another bike.
We might not all leave at the same time, but I'll find whoever locked their bike to mine and they'll unlock for me, I'll grab my bike and they'll lock their bike to the bike I was locked to.
I agree that it's silly if there are alternative locations to lock my bike. I'll always look for another spot especially since I don't like to stay out late and so a bike pile is inconvenient. But I've never seen or heard of someone locking up in a bike pile because they thought it was cool, nor has that thought ever crossed my mind.