:lol:

Not that it makes any difference, but when I was in 8th grade, someone stole the cheap K-mart lock off my bike, but left the bike. So, not only was the punk a jerk, but he was an idiot, too. Determined to not be intimidated or bullied, I rode again the next day (probably using my sister's matching lock since she didn't ride to school) and caught the kid as he was trying to steal that one.

Some people never grow out of that teenaged jerk stage.

Hand held solid oxy torch will cut thru any lock you can buy......doesn't matter what it's made out of.Takes less than a minute to cut thru any lock,well,unless it's ceramic.

If somebody wants your bike/lock bad enough,it's gone.The only way to really keep your bike is to keep an eye on it,though that's not always possible.

Can one of those go through Ti? We might have found the one attack that the TiGr is actually strong against?

because i don't want to carry around ≈6Kg/13lbs of locks with me.

and... who the hell would go through the trouble of "stealing" these locks? especially when one of them can't be removed without destroying it?

i do carry an NY-STD as an "everyday" lock.

with a plasma cutter, it would take 2-3 minutes to chop an M18 off a rack (excluding set-up time). a gas torch would take longer, and either way there'd likely be slag in the ground.

it's also unlikely that any kind of thermal cutting tool was used, because the chain was wrapped tightly around the rack, and the rack doesn't have any burn/melt marks.

my money is on an AC angle grinder. either with an extension cord during business hours, or an inverter in the van, parked a few feet away.

Symbol: Ti
Electron configuration: [Ar] 3d2 4s2
Melting point: 1,668 °C
Atomic number: 22
Atomic mass: 47.867 ± 0.001 u

looks like a propane torch would melt a TiGr, if it's pure Ti. i'm sure there are Ti alloys with higher melting temperatures.

Most titanium things are alloys, probably with a higher melting point. Also, copper melts at a considerably lower temperature than Ti, but you'd have one hell of a time reducing copper to a puddle with a propane torch. Oxy/gas cutting torches don't work by melting the metal, they work by heating the metal and then burning it away (ok, oxidizing it away).

I'm still not sure if Ti is vulnerable to this kind of attack, and it's of minimal relevance to the question at hand.

That sucks. My paranoia is one of the reasons I don't commute to work much on my bike. I'd never leave locks behind though.

Because locks are heavy, and the place I park most often is the place I (usually) want my heaviest, most secure lock. I always carry a lesser (lighter) one for short/unplanned stops, but given that I have to park in essentially the same place every day I ride to work, it makes much more sense to park the heavy lock. Of course, my bike rack is inside an underground, attended garage, so the only real risk is the landlord.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=327071
Makes sense now!

wow, 41 second video... not good.

Could have been this guy:

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i...v6iNGGprsMWbn7

I have that same lock and it can be broken in seconds. The OP like many others leave their bikes locked in full view where the cooks can steal them. Unless I can see the bike, it's never placed in full view. The common misconception is that crooks never steal bikes in front of dozens, hundreds or thousands of people. Nothing could be futher from the truth.

Next time, hide or place the bike far from foot traffic if possilbe.

It's probably the landlord, though I suspect that even it was, the police couldn't do anything, since removing abandoned bike locks from his property is property maintenance, not theft. Weird that he wouldn't just say so, though...probably doesn't want you trying to get compensation or something from him.

If not him, then probably another regular user of the bike rack who's pissed about there always being locks attached. I find just leaving your crap behind you to be pretty inconsiderate behaviour. I don't know about this rack specifically, but I have encountered racks that are made much harder to connect to securely (with just a u-lock) because there's a pile of locks there.

Yep. Easier (and quieter) to just jack the lock apart.

Now that the OP has clarified the cable may have been the weak link, I guess that also raises the question of whether it was properly secured.

I had a bike stolen while locked with a cable, and I suspect I may have made a stupid error. It's possible I locked it to the end post of a free-standing rack, and all the thief had to do was lift the rack and work the cable down over the "inverted- T"-shaped foot of the rack. I knew better than to lock it like that, but might have done it that one time, due to a moment of inattention.

Why is this different from having a bike stolen from a public rack?

Not even that, 20-40 seconds at the most, also don't forget portable band saws. Bike locks are just not secure against power tools.

i don't think that'll work well, if at all, against an M18... but it won't work at all against a chain that's wrapped tightly around the rack.

band-saw vs hardened steel? unless it's got a "special" blade, pack a lunch...

sue 'em.

Good luck with that! :rolleyes:

Thanks! That's really instructive.

a- if i had more evidence than a suspicion and lack of other suspects...
b- if that wouldn't create unwanted friction between him and the tenant that i do volunteer work with.

if i had evidence, that i could present in court, that it was him, then i'd plough through (b) and let the chips fall where they may. as a purely practical matter, i need something more solid than "i can't think of anyone else who would've gone through the trouble" before taking it to a disputes tribunal (small-claims court).

edit: i don't even have hearsay or circumstantial evidence that it was him.

I'd bet someone complained. a chain wrapped around a rack makes it harder to use, sometimes much harder to use. Annoy another user of the rack, they're going to complain, and the property manager might cut them off. Now, of course, he knows who the guy who leaves stuff locked to his rack is...

unlikely. there are 3 commercial tenants in the building, and only one of them attracts people with bikes; that's where i go. my contact would've been the first to hear any complaints; if it's a complaint that she's unable to resolve, then she'd be the one raising the issue with the landlord/pm. the other tenants didn't know anything about it, other than telling me how looney and stingy the landlord/pm is.

anyway... the racks are big enough to make the locks look small; no one could reasonably complain that the locks were in the way of anything, especially with a 2nd rack right there.

i still think the landlord/pm just got tired of seeing them there, never saw a bike locked-up during the day, and assumed they were abandoned. if that's the case, then he screwed up by not talking to any of the tenants first, and he's lying to cover his ass. that's where i'd put 10-1 odds.

I'm truly sorry your locks were taken.

I show you a video of an 8mm security chain being snipped, and you reply that won't work against your U-lock. I refer you to an article explaining how straightforward it is to jack a U-lock apart and you reply that won't work against a security chain.

If you personally want to believe it takes hours to defeat bicycle security, that's fine - but I do not wish to see anyone else misled. There is ample, easily researchable evidence to the contrary.

is it more likely that someone did the job with multiple tools? or just one tool?

maybe someone used a bolt-cutter to bust the chain, after sliding it down to the ground.

maybe someone busted the M18 with a jack, but i'm not sure a jack would work on an M18... arguments against it are 18mm of Kryptonium™ steel held to a crossbar with two bolts, while the lock is attached to a vertical pole; if the lock was not on a vertical pole, more leverage could be applied to the jack-handle. arguments for it are plenty of room to get a jack inside the U, and a long shackle that may be vulnerable to a jack when it's not "stuffed". even then... if the shackle bends instead of snaps, it's going to be a real time-consuming PITA to bust it using that method. for locks that are smaller, poorly made and/or not properly hardened, or locks that only have a single bolt holding the shackle to the crossbar, a jack is a viable means of attack. i'm confident that a screw-jack would NOT bust it. a hydraulic jack vs M18... i'm not so sure.

i'm just saying that the only tool that's likely to bust both locks in a reasonable amount of time, without leaving slag or blast damage, is an AC powered angle grinder. a gas/petrol angle-grinder could also do it, quicker, but that's a less common tool.

A battery powered angle grinder would do the job in five minutes, including the time to put a cutting disk in. A corded one would take less time. Neither are particularly exotic tools.

Sorry, dude, but you abandoned your locks on someone else's property. You shouldn't be surprised they're not there when you came back.

i think 5 minutes with an AC grinder to get through an M18 is a an optimistic estimate. we're talking about two cuts through the shackle. that's likely to consume (at least) one disc per cut.

thanks for your sympathy...

first of all, "abandoned" is not consistent with "being used several times per week". if you want to determine if locks are abandoned, put some tape over the key-hole. check back a few weeks later. if the tape is gone, the locks are NOT abandoned.

saying the locks were "abandoned" is the logic of a bike-thief who rationalizes their theft by saying "someone just left a bike here. no one's sitting on it, so it's obviously abandoned." yeah, that's a common excuse when bike thieves are caught, and it's just as sociopathic when you apply the same logic to locks on a rack.

since the locks were (a) not in anyone's way, (b) no one complained to any of the tenants, (c) the landlord/pm claims to not know anything about it, it's odd.

add to the above the simple fact that it is, for all practical purposes, (d) impossible to remove an M18 without destroying it; so theft (in and of itself) isn't likely to be the simple answer - even if someone wanted to destroy the padlock and steal the chain, the M18 should still be there.

i actually AM a bit surprised. especially in a city where i've seen locks that have been really abandoned for years, tied up to racks, parking meters, signs, etc.

of course, the landlord/pm now says that he would've checked with the tenants before removing any locks... well, no ****, that'd be the Right Thing To Do™.

@dscheidt - also... if the locks were left on someone's mailbox, or water-line, etc... then i wouldn't be suprised to find them gone. but they were attached to a bike rack. that's an object that's designed, installed, and maintained for the sole purpose of attaching bike locks to.

it'd be hard for anyone to say the locks didn't belong there... but the landlord/pm (suspect#1) simply denies that he removed the locks, or knows anything about it.