Spotted in NYC yesterday. Was going to post as a joke...but on further thought...that U-Lock has done all it was asked to do...and the vultures have otherwise picked that carcass impressively clean!

Are you sure it's not someone else's idea of a joke? Maybe a cyclist with a little artistic talent taking a slightly activist view of bike locks.

The picture does have a bit of artistic bicycle flair! It sure is picked clean, I wonder if they took the crown race too!

Probably not. (Guessing you don't live in a big city.)

I've often seen bikes in time lapse states of disassembly over weeks or months in downtown Baltimore. Once the first few parts are gone, people start taking what they happen to need currently for their bikes.

When I was using two bikes for commuting each day (3 miles to the Baltimore train station, then 4 miles to the office in DC), I even had a few pieces stolen from the various bikes I used over 20 years, e.g., an Ultegra front brake and a rear skewer off a Schwinn Peloton in DC and a front wheel and a saddle and seatpost off a Cannondale SM500 MTB in Baltimore, despite the fact that the bikes were locked in plain sight in the stations' bike racks.

There's still a perfectly good Presta valve cap, a fine axle, and a pristine reflector. Amateurs...

Yeah,once something is stolen,the vultures pick it clean. Esp if the bike hasn't moved for a couple of days. I've actually told people not to park their bike the same way all the time,to put it on one side of the rack of the other or to point it in different directions on the rack so someone won't think a bike parked the same way every day had been abandoned.

Careful there. Some of us have been made fun of here because we use that presta valve cap to keep our valve stem clean on the outside where the pump head attaches..

And others of us use it to protect the rolled-up tube when it's demoted to patched-spare status.

I once tossed a presta cap onto my bench and had it stand up on the tip. No joke,the mechanic at the next bench was a witness.

I find your mode of commuting most impressive!

I wonder what Hal's grade would be?

+1. Total setup.

Kryptonite's famous ad from the early 80s:

Alternate plausibility - the owner lost the key and, not knowing anyone who owned a battery-powered angle grinder, stripped their own bike. Posters have admitted to doing this over the years.

There is no headset, I have to agree it is fake!

I've never damaged a tube with the stem when I've folded it sewup style so the stem lies between the tube folds. (50 year old habit. Like tying my shoes and shaving.)

The good stripped bikes have Schrader valve caps, so you can (ahem) use them on your car, just sayin for a friend...

Yes, I was taught how to fold my tubular spares in 1964 (60-year-old habit ) , so I'm well aware of the technique. But, as you may or may not know, that method has nothing to do with protecting the inner surface of the tire from the valve stem and everything to do with keeping the tread on the outer side of the folds, to avoid folding the tread back on itself and thus risk the formation of cracks in the tread (edit: or, come to think of it, they might have also wanted to avoid breaking carcass threads in delicate handmade tubulars).

Folding the tube exactly as manufacturers fold it (with the valve nestled between the tube folds) works perfectly. And why not keep the valve cap on? You avoid the possibility, however remote, of abrading the tube with the pointy end of the Presta valve.

That looks like a 700c wheel , but the frame looks like a BMX frame that’s too small to take a 700c wheel.

That looks like a 700c wheel , but the frame looks like a BMX frame that’s too small to take a 700c wheel.

Sure hope it is!!

It still has a bottom bracket, front wheel spindle, lock mount. I broke my lock mount; a replacement cost as much as a new lock. I looked longingly at the one on an abandoned bicycle mostly picked over at the local U, left it there. Thieves, apparently disappointed, bent my frame and wheels.

Good catch!

In better news... I also snapped this pic a few blocks away. Free secure bike storage at NYC Port Authority Bus Terminal.

I remember back in the early 80s. The PA bus terminal was one scary environment. One time I got off a charter bus from my MA high school. Some older creep asked me I needed a place to stay. Probably thought I was a runaway.