Stealth bikes = effective theft deterent?
 

I'm putting together a Plan B bike based on an old Schwinn World frameset equipped with decent quality leftovers from the parts bins. At one time I thought of painting the frame and polishing up all the parts making it look like new, but then I thought "why not leave the faded scratched paint and dull finishes so a casual observer wouldn't give an old worn out Schwinn a second look?".

When I built cars and motorcycles we referred to these as Rats, vehicles that looked like old clunkers but were actually hot mechanically. Lots of fun leaving someone in a new Camaro looking at the taillights of what appeared to be Grandma's 4-door sedan at the stop light a few seconds ago.

I occassional visit freinds who live in higher theft neighborhoods and would like to have a bike that I could take along that wouldn't attract the attention of opportunistic theives. Do you think that a stealth rat would improve my chances of having my bike ignored or are most theives smart enough to spot upgrades even on a subdued ride?

A bit about chains, protection etc:
http://lockitt.com/chaininfo.htm


My stealth method, which has worked for the last 10 years:

a) Make bike as ugly and dirty as can be. Seat, handlebars should be the only parts of the bike that will not make you stain your clothes. OK, chain, derailleurs, rims should also be OK.

b) No Shimano, Scott, Giant mambo-jumbo. Take it all off. Tear it off - make it look ugly. If it's an aluminium frame, it won't rust so feel free to peel and damage paint in random places.

c) No shocks, disk brakes and other stuff that scream: "this can be sold on flee market to naive people as high end bicycle". Brakes on your bike can be expensive, but make it road, or v-brake - so they don't draw too much attention. 200 euro v-brakes draw less attention than the cheapest rubish disc brake.

d) Take off your bike anything you want to keep. Anything fancy definitely. I keep my tools and spare tyre in an old, ugly, greasy frame bag, but it just doesn't look like you want to touch it without gloves.

e) Bike should be as cheap as possible, so you don't cry when it does eventualy get stolen. Nice parts for commuting don't have to be expensive. Shimano Acera works just fine and doesn't cost too much, for example. Such bike will not be the lightest and the fastest, but it can be a really good ride. If it is flat - go for singlespeed for several reasons.

That's why my everyday ride has decent components but the worlds most boring frame. I figure if it looks like any old bike then its less likely to be a target for thieves.

just cover it in reflective tape. Everywhere. Stuff is really hard to get off

I did that the other day. I don't know if it helps, but it doesn't look too bad either. I have so much stuff bolted on and wires running everywhere, it looks like a mess anyway, but it works for my city riding.

that or bumper stickers to make it look like you're a hippie. Not that there's anything wrong with hippies, but Peace and Free Love stickers will make people think you're poor and it won't be high quality.

1970s-80s sport tourer, with upgrades as necessary, makes a good commuter. One example:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...7101740-04.jpg

Older rack, clip-on fenders, easily removable light, easily removable panniers, stem shifters. Putting a modern ramped freewheel on such a bike is a great way to get smooth shifting with older friction shifters (almost as good as indexed, without the click in the shifter itself). This one I pulled out of a dumpster and was my backup commuter until I had an incident and bent the derailleur hanger to hell. I've since built it up as a cruiser with a 2-speed kickback hub, but that's another story.

My effective theft detterent=My bike stays with me..In the rare instance when I do lock it up, I am looking right at it. I am not a fad of locking my bike up. Human nature is something else. I have been around a long time. I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't work!! http://www.cehoward.net/badteeth%5b1%5d.gif

In addition, I like my bikes (bicycles and motorycles) to look super good to my eye..Not slacking off because of "joe crook".. http://www.cehoward.net/badteeth%5b1%5d.gif

Is that a Raleigh Wyoming?

don't even fix it up, keep the beater a beater, just so long as it's operational.

Raleigh Marathon. 27" wheels. Raleigh 502 tubing. Nuthin' special, but does the job well.

That's nice, but I can't bring my bike to my office. So commuting bike has to look bad.

Motorcycle and the other bike are nice though. :)

If you want to make your bike look undesirable, I'm pretty sure you could use "rust paint" (ie, paint that is designed to look like rust). Although, how to most effectively apply it so it doesn't scream "fake!" is another question. Perhaps taping off small, odd shaped areas and painting them this way and spray-painting chrome bits like this might be one way... maybe. But again, my main concern with this is that it would look really fake... so it would probably require a degree of artistry/trial and error to get right.

Also, if you've got a nice seat, you could probably find a crappy seat, remove and thin out the foam, cover your nice seat in 1/8" or less of the foam padding, put some rips into the pleather seat cover from the crappy seat, and use it to cover your seat so that you have a really comfy seat that looks like a piece of crap.

texture would be the giveaway with rust paint. You'd have to use some form of other craft type thing to make it feel like rust. Easier to use real mud to decorate, and peal off the bike name if you were really really worried.

Seat is nothing special but could be a give away. The plan there is to get one of those aftermarket Schwinn padded seat covers from the local bike co-op, they have several of them in the seats bin that look like crap. They just drawstring over the seat and look as dorky as they are disfunctional.

It's got enough scratches, nicks and minor surface rust to look its age while being a long way from having structural issues.

There's a whole mixed bag of thieves. Some are just crackheads, who have no idea of value, but know that they can get a hundred bucks for just about any bike that they steal. Other bike thieves are pros and will see right through your thinly veiled camouflage.

At any rate, since there are far more amateurs than pros, I'd opt for stealth everytime!

Hot-rodders would refer to this as a "sleeper." I think it is a sound idea.

You could take sandpaper to your derailleurs and cranks to grind out the name of high-end components. Without a sticker proclaiming "XTR" or "Ultegra", most people (including me) couldn't spot the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff. Anything highly polished, though, just tends to draw more attention. Good wheels are hard to disguise, but you can pull labels off and maybe do a hippy paint job.

The three things that I think will be most difficult to disguise properly: the saddle, the pedals, and the grips. The best way to hide the saddle might be to just wrap it in a grocery bag. I see that often enough on rainy days that it wouldn't stand out as anything strange. If you use platform pedals, you could have the nicest Campy equipment available and thieves probably still won't mess with them. But clipless pedals look like good targets and they are easy to steal. And I'm really not sure how you could wrap your bars in a way that is ugly enough to deter a thief, and yet still comfortable and functional. Perhaps some really tacky purple grip tape?

Paint it pepto bismol pink with lime green polkadots. Oh, and don't forget to hang fringe from the handlebars. And get a big white seat and smear it with a little bit of red paint. I don't think anybody would steal it then. Only problem is you'd be too embarrassed to ride it too.

I'd steal that. ;)

Well, if you really want to be hard core about making your bike a rat.... carry a taco'd wheel with you on your back and switch it out with your functional front wheel when locking up, who would want to steel that?

Maybe you can find some Huffy stickers that you can put on your bike?

I definitely think a stealth rat would improve your chances of having your bike ignored.

Slaninar, I am blessed then. I can bring my bike in my office. I had a rift about it with another co-worker, but I prevailed. So, instead of in my cube, my bike is stored in a locked storeroom about 10 yds from my cube. ;)
When I come on the motorcycle, no parking lot, I park it on the pavement, right out in front my cube window. When it rains, it goes on the pavement, in the building underground. Still with in eyeball. Now, I do have two beater bikes and you can see in my sig. They take on the rough duty, but that is very seldom..

I am glad to see another rider that doesn't slack off the coolness because of "joe crook"... :thumb:

My motorcycle..

http://www.cehoward.net/pretty1.jpg

One of my bikes..

http://www.cehoward.net/mastexp60.jpg

Ugly condition + big and several locks, but there is still the bike stripping
to worry about.

Commence fear mode, : :crash:

I wonder if it matters. Our garage was burglurized a month ago: they took our road bikes (LeMond Sarthe and Gunnar Roadie, replacement value 6k) and didn't take our commuters (Bryant and Trek FX, replacement value 4k). They literally moved the Trek out of the way so they could grab the Gunnar. All our bikes are kept in like new condition. So, at least in SF in our garage on that night -- if it looked "Fred," the thieves around here don't want it -- this is based on my ONLY bike theft experience, so your mileage may vary.