Sheldon Brown always said: Lock your wheel through the rear triangle. Good advice for more than one reason.




I locked my bike in a risky place (see attached photos). But - it looks like the pretzeled wheel spread the impact force to the dropouts smoothly, and the chainstays are still straight.

If the bike were locked directly to the top or seat tube, both the wheel and frame would be toast.

Rocked by the red rocket? Unpossible!

Parked with the back wheel sticking out in the bus's path? Whoops!

I had never stumbled on Sheldon's locking method before, but I get it and am glad it worked out <mostly> for you. The only downside occurs to me based on something I did a few weeks ago. I was hearing this low speed clicking in my rear wheel, exactly once per rotation (I could tell by looking at the label on the rim going by). Above a certain speed you couldn't hear it as the wind noise would drown it out, but it was certainly audible, coasting or pedaling at low speeds. If I walked my bike I couldn't hear it, so it had to be something to do with load. If I put practically all my weight on the seat while walking the bike I could produce the sound, but still couldn't narrow it down. I had my bike up on the stand to do a little maintenance a week or so later and I finally saw it. The rim was noticably "fatter" along a 4 inch section, but just on one side. On closer examination I had a growing crack clear through the machined braking surface that was spreading circumferentially in my 13 year old Mavic 217. I replaced the rim but was interested in investigating the failure. Was the rim cracked because I had worn the braking surface too thin or was it just a happenstance structural failure? So I hacksawed the section out of the rim and then sawed it again right at the center of the crack. The thickness of the rim was certainly adequate, barely different in thickness from the braking surface that hadn't been "braked on". It just had a crack that was spreading around the rim, probably about 4 inches long and almost unseeable when the rim was uninflated, but clear through the braking surface but you wouldn't know unless you examined the section with a jeweler's loop. Glad to not have found that failure out the hard way.

What does this have to do with locking your rear bike wheel through the rear triangle but not around a frame tube or stay? I was simply amazed at how few hacksaw strokes it took to get through the rim. So a thief with a common hacksaw could easily walk off with your whole bike in proabably a minute, albeit with a ruined rim, tire, and tube, but still a nice piece of pilfering.

just wondering, was that a rim alone, or a rim built into a wheel? I've heard tell (no experience myself) that because a wheel puts a compressive force on the rim it's harder to cut. Also, have you tried to hacksaw through a tire?

Did you cut the rim while it was still laced to the hub or not?
[edit]aww. Fuzz beat me to it

You shouldn't be surprised that it was easy to cut through some aluminum.

Somewhere a bus has a black streak down the side.

It's not going to make a difference. A thief could easily just deflate the tire and just cut the rim with little trouble. Mind you, they couldn't ride it out and if they were to go to such extremes it would be more work than just taking another bike without a U-Lock.

The spokes, not the tire.

nope, a rim is under compression, can't cut it without the blade/saw/grinder binding and possibly breaking.
you can of course cut all the spokes to relieve the tension, which is why one actually wants to lock the wheel and the frame to an immobile object.

mind you, cutting spokes requires some skill and eye protection, since they're under 100kg/f of force. you cut, they go flying.

I don't see how tensioned spokes would be hard to cut? Brass/aluminum vs steel hacksaw; hacksaw wins.

The rim was de-laced before cutting. I can visualize how that might be correct about it being harder to cut a rim on a laced wheel as the rim would probably bite on the hacksaw blade.

I guess if you really wanted to obtain a good bike via bike thievery you would just go around with Park cable cutters and an allen wrench. Steal a bunch of handlebars with expensive shifters and levers on them(probably 30 seconds of effort per bike), sell the bars and shifters on eBay and then go to your LBS and buy whatever you wanted. Plus you would have enough handlebar tape and grips to last a lifetime;-)

I think consensus is that the Sheldon method can easily be defeated if the thief first deflates and then removes the tire (which would be difficult to hacksaw through), then proceeds to cut the spokes, using a hacksaw, or else a pair of small bolt cutters, then they can easily saw through the rim and walk away with your bike.

Does anyone disagree?

lol, sounds easy enough

You still have to cut the tire and tube. Maybe if you can just move the bike a little bit while it's locked you can harness the power of maybe a passing bus to weaken the rim and detension the spokes for you.

Yeah, but you're still destroying the wheel which is one of the most expensive components to the bike. But I still agree with your logic to a point. Regardless of that, putting a U-lock around the rear wheel like that causes it to rest on the chain which means you get grease on your lock and most likely all over your hands when you're messing around with it. Personally I don't like having to wash my hands frequently when I'm using my bike as a form of transportation. That's why I prefer to lock aroud the frame and away from the chain. But hey, that's just me.

Despite where you put the lock, I would hardly think Sheldon Brown would recommend locking your bike anywhere near the path of a bus. But again,I can see how an effed up wheel is a pretty good deterrent towards theft.

I've never had my hands get greasy from this. I usually have the non drive side of the bike locked against the pole, or whatever. The U-lock hardly even touches the chain.

I think the reason locking the rim works is because the common thief may have a failed attempt at cutting the rim and he'll probably be too stupid to realize the spokes are what cause the difficulty.

Depending on location I will often use Sheldon's method to lock up my bike but it usually looks more like this... thinking that the Sheldon method might make some tweaker think they can remove or cut through the wheel.

I think this is the first time I've seen someone lock their cranks

I use OnGuard skewers and seat bolt, primarily for the convenience. I then just U-lock my top tube to a fixed object and don't have to worry about my seat or wheels.

It's easier to do with a single chain ring (I took this picture as a demonstration shot) and it puts the shackle in a place where it is harder to f with... even if you cut through the cable the little double pinned shackle is still in a place where it makes the bike un-rideable and then there is still that pesky rear shackle you have to deal with.

I have locking or allen keyed skewers and seat bolts on just about every bike I ride so the thief that wants my ride is gonna need to bring a full tool kit and hope I don't catch him / her in the act.

I have also used the mini shackle to lock the crank arm to the chainstay on some bikes in addition to using the shackle on the rear wheel... my biggest theft risk is from folks who are looking for a bike they can steal easily and ride away on.

The best locking strategy is to lock up next to a nicer bike that only has a cable lock on it...

One shackle is enough of a deterrent for opportunistic thieves but I would prefer not to have my parts stripped off my bike.

If I were the thief, and couldn't get my hands on a city bus then I'd use a cordless recip saw. Having used recip saws to cut computer hard drives in half using Wood & Nails blades (!), I have no doubt they would handle this task easily too. It might require a longer-shackle lock, but I'll stick with locking the rear wheel and frame.

I used to lock next to a Specialized [Allez?] that was secured with a cable lock while I locked both wheels together with a mini U lock. I don't see that bike around anymore though.