This is what the city of Toronto has installed for us to lock our bikes to. It's well known that they can be broken with a wood plank, but the city assures us that it's rare (8 cases) and the ring-and-posts are still the safest way to lock your bike...

well, it happened to me. I had a beater bike (lent to me by girlfriend's dad) locked outside. 4am on my way home, I saw this:




What a waste of a $60 U-Lock. ARgh.

Yeah, there was a whole bunch of articles on this a month ago. The city is now beefing up the ring-and-posts.

Heh, no it's not. As you've found out. No lock is safe from that attack because the lock isn't being attacked. Up to the rider to be smart.

That seems like very bad engineering. Even if the "beef them up" those rings still offer a great place to insert a lever.

I think they should've made the top of the pole big enough to prevent lift-off, and made a forged-steel ring sort of like this idea (except thicker where the post goes through it):

Kryptonite used to sell to people fairly thick metal posts with a 9-12" solid steel ball welded onto it for use for bike parking. Very simple, very elegant, once installed, but looked like a pain to install because of it being so top heavy. Apparently it didn't sell, as it looks like they are not being offered anymore.

Here is an idea for those Toronto rings... why not have them mounted so they spin/rotate somehow on the posts's axis? A bottom bracket is welded on the pole, the ring is placed on the pole where it can spin freely (like a vertical windmill), and a top bracked dropped on top of that and welded/brazed into place. This will make it harder for a would-be thief to get the required leverage with a 2x4, as the thief would have to push up/down to break the pole off, not sideways.

This has been known for a while now, but the city hasn't done anything yet. I just feel like going out and breaking a bunch of empty ring-posts myself just to send a message.

The lock was probably worth more than the bike, it was a really bad beater bike that I wasn't keeping, and I am more pissed off about losing the lock. On the way home that night, I noticed the thieves did a thorough sweep of the city - Sunday night, empty streets. There was another ring taken off a post, and many victimized bikes. My main bike is actually a folder, so I don't have to worry about this BS anymore.

And leave the piece of wood there. But then again discolosure vs public safety?

It's probably best to just not use them.

It seems to me that it would be in the best interest of the cycling public to break those rings so no one locks their bikes up thinking they will be safe.

Open disclosure is fairly moot -- almost any would-be thief knows about the 2x4 trick. Its similar to the round key lock issue, the thieves knew, but the honest people didn't, so the honest kept using them not realizing.