Goebbels Gerbil

Fantastically worded response to an alarmist UK channel programme that a friend in the UK just sent me. You showed those R Soles for sure. All power to your elbow.

Kryptonite's response...

https://unbreakable-bonds.blogspot.co...-concerns.html

to this sham of a programme https://www.itvlocal.com/london/docum..._26&void=82777


I mean have you seen the Kryptonite workshop? It's like the shed that the A Team find themselves in when they finally get locked up by the baddies.

markhr

Inspite of "those that shall not be named" not testing their own locks the program was relatively objective I thought.

That is, the more you pay for a bicycle lock, the better equipped and determined a bike thief needs to be. However, if the bike thieves are committed "professionals" then no bike lock is 100% safe. Not exactly rocket science.

maddyfish

She's out of her mind $600 for 42" bolt cutters? Maybe from Snap-on or some other top quality tool co. I got mine at big lots $30. No they may not be high quality, but they have worked in the past when needed.

dobber

Isn't the latest weapon in the well armed bike thiefs toolbox a simple Bic pen?

Goebbels Gerbil

Fair's fair, they dealt with that pretty well.

dobber

Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

dobber

According to the blog: viewers to believe that 42-inch bolt cutters are common tools used by thieves. They are not. The 42-inch bolt cutters used in the show are large in size, expensive to purchase and difficult to obtain

According to McMaster-Carr, page 2260, I can purchase a pair of 42" cutters suitable for 1/2" hard steel/chain for $260. If I order them now, I'll have them on my doorstep within a day.

Rev.Chuck

I have worked in a bike shop that is less than a mile from a college with over 30,000 students since 1994. I have yet to have anyone tell me that someone cut their U-lock. That does not mean it did not happen, but I have had a bunch tell me about cut cable locks, you would think there would have been one or two stories about U-lock failures. Sure you can buy a some big cutters for around $300, theives are cheap, they will run doen to the picandpull and get a Euro car jack for $7. That and a couple of rubber bands will get you a U-lock breaker tha can pop lock in under a minute(I built one, they work) It is also way smaller than a near four foot long set of bolt cutters that weigh 40 pounds. Someone mentioned $30 bolt cutters, they will,not do squat, first time you try hardened steel it will ruin the cutters.

Cyclist0383

Just how would a bicycle thief transport 42" bolt cutters? In a van? Something tells me that professional thieves with massive bolt cutters, a van, and partners to drive the van have much more high value items than bicycles to steal. Used bikes go for cheap, stolen goods go for even less.

Nicodemus

ITV sucks donkey's nuts.

operator

Before or after you realized this bic pen flaw had been known for at least a decade by kryptonite, yet they still made them round key locks?

operator

Before or after you realize that two pieces of pipe make for a very compact and much more dangerous bolt cutter?

Cyclist0383

Yet still their are no mass reports of Sold Secure Gold and ART Foundation Four Star rated chains being defeated in the real world. Why is that if it is as easy as you claim to defeat them? Perhaps it's not as easy as you think.

BTW, having seen the TV show in question, it's a bunch of CCTV and hidden camera footage of real life bike thieves stealing bikes locked with cable locks using tiny cutters hidden in small backpacks and bags. Also featured is someone breaking chain locks with massive 42" (over a meter long!) bolt cutters which, it seems, bicycle thieves don't use in the real world, although strangely the people using them on the TV were oddly enthused to let everyone know the name, model, and size of the bolt cutters. Sold Secure was also featured using small, common hand tools like the ones real life bike thieves use to defeat all manor of cable locks, including armored ones.

What I gathered from the show was that real life thieves target easy to defeat locks with small, portable hand tools easily concealed in a small backpack or such.

We all love riding and wish for our bikes to remain ours, but we shouldn't let paranoia stop us from enjoying what we love. A little common sense and an investment in a high end, Sold Secure Gold AND ART Foundation Gold Four Star rated lock should be enough to keep our rides safe.

markhr

+1....at least 99.9% of the time

Goebbels Gerbil

Amen.

But don't rely purely on that Sold Secure or ART sticker, they do pass some crap, application of your own judgement is also needed. Too many people blinded by stickers.

Cyclist0383

Hence the part about common sense.

Goebbels Gerbil

Can that be proven?

alanbikehouston

Wasn't ITV the channel with the show that "proved" that President Kennedy was still alive, living as a captive of Martians who hide out in the deserts of Arizona?

You have three choices if you park your bike: no lock...a cheap lock...an expensive lock. The endless mewing about the fact that (in theory) any lock can be defeated changes nothing. It is a simple choice...no lock...a cheap lock...an expensive lock.

Houston is the crime capital of the South. In the past ten years of talking with regular cyclists and "pro" cyclists (the downtown bike messengers) I've never heard a credible report of anyone having a bike stolen if they were using a top quality u-lock and the "Sheldon Brown" locking method (filling the "U" with the rear wheel and a beefy locking post).

Regardless of the cr@p on ITV or U-Boobs, in the REAL world, crooks walk away from bikes that have the best locks and that are correctly locked up, and target the bikes with cable locks and cheapo Wal-Mart locks and the bikes that are NOT correctly locked up.

Still, the owner has to use good sense. You can not leave a $2,000 bike parked in plain view for eight hours a day, day after day, at the same rack. Eventually, a skilled crook is going to see the bike, figure out he has eight hours to take it, and put in the time and effort to take that bike. You always want to have the cheapest looking, oldest looking bike on the rack, not the newest, shiniest bike on the rack.

The bikes I would leave unattended in downtown Houston each look like they are worth $20 or $40 at a pawnshop (which is how crooks look at a bike..."what will a pawnshop give me for it?") But, each of they rides just as well as a $1,000 bike. So, I can enjoy riding downtown, and I don't have to worry about a crook looking at my bike...it ain't worth looking at.

Goebbels Gerbil

According to this page....https://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/crime3.aspx Houston is way down the list of scary places to live.

Either way, your advice is sound.

chephy

You'd be surprised. Used bikes are not so cheap in Toronto... crappy out-of-adjustment big box specials go for 80-100 bucks a pop and anything better is accordingly more expensive. There are people who still bikes for a living. Sometimes they'll just come to a rack that's not properly bolted to the ground, load the whole thing with a dozen bikes chained to it into their pick-up truck and drive off. Or so I heard from a former police officer who said he dealt with bike thefts a lot.

I've also heard of thieves who carry smaller bolt cutters and some PVC piping. This set up is much more compact and easier to carry discreetly but offers instant handle extension.

ghettocruiser

It would have to be steel pipe. The time I hastily tried to use PVC pipe as a leverage bar to extract a stuck bottom bracket, it... didn't go so well.

You point stands though.

SamHouston

Kryptonites response is firmly bolted to reality, a far cry from the claims of a UK chain maker that doesn't make locks, and has no products at all that are intended or at all practical for bicycles.

That's the weird thing, they show up here, indeed are probably reading this, and they seem upset that no one will listen to them about the hugely organized bike thieves with heavy, expensive tools that roam every city......no one listens because they're in some strange fantasyland, until they begin staging such thefts themselves, a likely scenario considering their known behaviour.

Yet they don't even sell bicycle locks, chains or accessories, and test their products on Youtube in questionable conditions that again support their weird picture of fantasy bike thievery.

Why not just focus on motorcycle theft, where there is a much better chance that the thieves would be organized and utilize larger less common tools as well as vehicles? Or manufacture something that's made for bicycles, after developing same, instead of trying vainly to convince bicyclists, the largest part of whom would not be frightened into buying their inappropriate & heavy chains with locks they didn't and couldn't make, that there is a need. They tried to invent a need with a manufactured scare tactic...odd

Who knows? One thing is for sure, they're touched in the head.

Goebbels Gerbil

Definitely, mad as gerbils, especially the fat one. I've heard a few things about him on the UK grapevine, not nice, not nice at all.

markhr

"They who shall not be named" probably suck when tested against that too

Goebbels Gerbil

Maybe we can call them Allah Max to save our typing fingers?