So, if I come over and do ten minutes work around your house....you gonna give me your bike??:rolleyes:

That's a huge chain hence the use for a motorcycle. I have a friend who had a Harley Davidson that he used a chain similar to that that he locked his bike up with then the chain was locked to a real thick hardened steel shackle bolted into the cement garage floor, then of course the garage was locked. Somebody(s) opened the electric garage door by driving wedge right in the center of the garage door at the top, then reached in with some sort of perhaps a coat hanger and grabbed the emergency release cord to the garage door and opened the door. Then they cut the chain with a cordless angle grinder. how long they spent in the garage doing that we don't know, but the bike was stolen and was never recovered. Of course his insurance covered it but it was a hassle never the less. So he now installed a burglar alarm on the garage and house, and he cut the plastic handle off the cord that releases the garage door so they can't grab onto the cord. I did the same thing to my garage door too.

No bonus points for accomplishing anything the hard way. Thermite.

We should just resign ourselves to the fact there are gangs who have bought off the police and judges, armed with AK47s and MLG-140s cruising around in vans filled with acetylene torches, hydraulic bolt cutters, dewar flasks of liquid nitrogen and SouthOrd Max lock picks and they have a jones for your Varsity.

Maybe that's why cops don't like going into gang neighborhoods? Wow, you may be onto something!

Besides, just wrap a thin amount of C4 around the shackle and stand back.

I am a product design student studying bike security and have spent the past month studying bike locks. We spent the past few weeks acquiring locks and trying to break them with various tools that thiefs commonly use and I'm sorry to say it but it is suprisingly easy to get through most locks these days. I agree that Kryptonite locks are up there with the best and motorbike chain locks are also good but very heavy.

I'm trying to come up with a new bike locker service for commuters and I'm currently at the design stage with the view to getting this manufactured. If you have a spare 30 secs and would like to contribute to the design of this and fill in a really quick 30 second questionnaire it would be very much appreciated and taken on board.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SS3FLRT

I know that kind of chain can be cut. It takes about 10 min to do it with an angle grinder. But i already gave one solution against the angle grinder in a previous post.
Anyway, the best way is to mix security systems. I don't rely only on the chain + padlock combo

Good point. I've read many sites about locking up bikes and most advised using two different kinds of locks that would take two different tools to break or at least take longer to do, even former bike thieves recommend this too.

I'm not a billionaire, I may be a millionaire but would have to sell everything to get the cash so don't kidnap my children because I couldn't get the million to you in 24 hours! Anywho, if I only had my 07 Mercain, and I was riding it to work and parking it outside and could only secure it with two locks I would feel nervous about it the whole day. Sure I have insurance but it's a $1,000 deductible and I would not want to cough up the money to replace the bike, nor would I want to replace the bike even if I had the money because it's a custom built bike that can't really be replaced. So I would better off taking a bike that I could find for $275 or less and ride and lock it up instead. I also know that there are plenty of bikes people can buy that cost less then $275 that would be extremely reliable to commute on, I see people doing that everyday on bikes like that and never saw one broken on the side of the road...even the cheap Walmart bikes! Most bike problems I've seen in 40 years of riding has been flat tires, flat tires effect a $15,000 bike as much as it would a $50 bike, probably more on a $15,000 bike since they use only thin racing tires which subject them to more flats. Most mechanical issues I've run into on the road have been kids bikes that I've helped to get going. Most adult bikes will hold up just fine as long as your properly maintain it, but mechanically failure from improper maintenance will effect a $15,000 bike too.

I have less expensive bikes I could use for commuting so I don't have the need to buy a Walmart special, also when I did commute I the luxury of bringing my bikes into the office with me. But my bikes were spic and span clean so grease and dirt was never a problem that would concern the carpet or the walls or clothing etc.

There is a cost of not using the 1000$ bike in place of the 275$ bike. This cost is related to your needs and the fact that you have already paid for the 1000$ bike. Both bike would answer your immediate needs (going from A to B). But the 275$ bike would not answer some secondary needs (satisfaction, wow effect, speed, reliability, effort, ergonomy etc...).
If we suppose the 275$ bike answer 50% of your global needs and the 1000$ bike 95%. Plus the fact that your 1000$ bike depreciate with time. Then here is the hidden cost.

Kryptonite fahgettaboudit to the rear wheel and frame with a cable running through the saddle and front tire. I'm thinking about picking up another fahgettaboudit just to be extra secure.