Or because it provides a counter example which disproves sheldon's claims. That is useful to people weighing the security provided by his method when making an informed choice of whether to use it or not.

My guess is that it would take tens of seconds to hacksaw though a rim... less then it would take to cut with with boltcutter even in multipe cuts. Also less time then it would take to jack open or saw though a U.

Yes, we've all seen the poor orphan wheels...but have you (or anybody on the list) ever known of a bike being stolen by cutting the rim? I have never heard of any instance of this happening.

Sheldon "Difficult, Not Impossible" Brown

No but I've only ever seen a handful of bikes locked that way.

Yah, just a wider U-lock seems good. They are some pretty wide ones out there, I've nevee had a problem with them. Pick up twp smaller ones maybe? Two small ones might be lighter than a giant chain.

Any time I've ever seen an orphaned wheel is usually the front, with the quick release dangling in the wind.

I usually double up by locking on the frame and the rear wheel. But when I'm in a hurry, or just going in for ~15 minutes, I'll just lock the frame down.

My number 1 bike theft prevention is my bike itself. It's a raleight capri wrapped in tubes and duct tape. with a rack zip tied to the back. and a blinkie held on with a coat hanger. I work in a very secure area, and lock it up through front wheel and main triangle with one of those curly little cable combination locks. The guy who rides the DeBernardi track bike locks up with a on-Guard mini-U Sheldon style.

Different people need different locking styles depending on what type of bike they ride and where they ride it. Mine comes in at night though.

I like the convenience of leaving the lock curled around my top tube and just stretching it down to lock through the front wheel. It's all I need because there are nicer bikes right next to mine which are locked with similar locks, and it's parked beside the federal courthouse.

Wider u-locks really leave you open to the Volvo Jack though, a popular method since it's small & portable.

Sheldon don't ruin my fun, I argue with dutret because he can't be wrong, not because he is wrong. Whether or not I'm wrong doesn't affect the entertainment value at all. It's wrong & probably twisted, but there is no better candidate eh?

I've seen & heard of bike theft in any fashion imaginable, like most people on this forum. By & large the thieves stay away from complexity, something breaking the wheel has, & they target locks or posts for destruction before the bikes themselves everytime, a methodology your lock tech ingeniously takes advantage of. With those things going for it it's a winner, arguing over the best method to beat it is just arguing on the internet, don't play to win unless you actually have a stake, play for fun instead.

Did I just admit to being a troll....I should edit this **** quick!

i think the best solution would be to get the city to install bike parking that accomodates standard u-locks. the op's problem is that there are only trees and giant lampposts to lock to. it sucks. In nyc, there are some blocks like that, where you must go a block or so away to lock up. other times (like the subway strike) all available poles are being used. here at least, you may call 311 and go through a lengthy pain in the ass process to get the city to install a bike rack. if brighton has any similar administrative apparatus, you should get a new bike rack.

oh and seriously, every method could probably be defeated in less time than you think. i used to think the american lock & big chain combo were the most secure, but now i know those padlocks aren't that tricky to defeat. u -locks are notorious for getting pried off with a piece of scaffolding or sidewalk trash. that said, i use a mini primarily and pretty much always lock just the frame and have never been ripped off.

Or, you know, you could try walking down the street til you find something you can lock to.

I think we're kind of up a tree here about whether you can cut a rim with bolt cutters even being relevant. Once you have cut a few more than half of the spokes, you can pretty much taco the rim into something that will go through the rear triangle once you undo the hub. Bare rims are pretty weak.

I carry the Krypto NY F-G heavy-*** dive weight chain, lock both wheels and the frame, and never think about it. I wish it wasn't so heavy, but I wish for a lot of things.

Anybody use any type of locking skewers or bolts or what have you for a seatpost collar, threadless stem, etc., wheels, etc? I found these, but haven't heard anything about them...

https://www.urbanbiketech.com/secure_shop.html

In LA you can rent a bike locker at the metro stations for $25 a year. Slide the entire bike into the locker and you're done. Of course, it only works at one place. But its still a pretty good idea.

In my city, the police don't investigate the theft of a bike. But, damaging a city-owned parking meter or a city-owned "No Parking" sign would be a felony. And, it would be a felony requiring loud power tools, as there are no manual tools that could damage the beefy steel poles used by the city of Houston.

You are worrying about what an imaginary crook might do if he had unlimited time, no fear of prison, and thousands of dollars worth of power tools. Houston is one of the most crime-ridden cities in the civilized world. In fact, the crime rate in Houston may disqualify Houston from being part of the "civilized world".

The bike messengers who work in inner city Houston are up against some of the most skilled crooks to be found anywhere. And, the downtown bike messengers talk with each other, especially about whose bike has been stolen and how. And, what the messengers agree on is this: no messenger in Houston has ever lost a bike when the owner was correctly using the "Sheldon Brown" method, combined with a beefy steel post set in concrete.

In real life, crooks go after the easy targets. Of every hundred bikes I see locked up in Houston, 95 could be stolen in under one minute using silent, cheap, portable tools. So, no "real world" crook is gonna invest in expensive power tools to go after the other 5 bikes. Why bother? Last summer, I saw two $3,000 Cannondale bikes locked behind a museum. They shared one $5 cable lock. Every city is full of these sorts of "free" bikes.

You think it would be easy to defeat the "Sheldon Brown" method by cutting the tire and rim. You are right. It would be easy on a workbench, in a bike shop. But, lock a bike to a parking meter on a public street. Then, go after that tire and rim. And, remember, a REAL crook is gonna be hacking away on the tire and rim while also looking over his shoulder for the bike's owner and the police. Texas law says the owner of property has the right to KILL a thief if the owner is trying to stop the theft of his property. Good reason for a crook to be looking over his shoulder.

My guess: cutting the rim while on your knees on a public sidewalk will take you ten or fifteen noisy, sweating minutes. And, you will have ruined the rear wheel of the bike. You will be walking away with your "loot", not riding away. And, as you walk slowly down the street, you will look exactly like a guy who just stole a bike.

Most crooks in Houston pawn the bike within thirty minutes of the theft to avoid being caught with stolen property. No pawn shop is gonna take a bike without a rear wheel. One more reason why no one in the Houston cycling community has ever seen a bike stolen where the crook cut the rear tire and rear wheel.

One of the reasons that many people lock their bikes with ONLY a $10 cable lock, is that some moron told them that "any crook can steal any bike, no matter how expensive a lock is on it". That advice confuses theory with reality. And, the reality is, the "Sheldon Brown" method combined with a "gold" rated lock around the rear wheel and a "silver" rated lock around the front wheel guarantees that crooks will just walk on by, looking for the bikes using only cable locks or u-locks from Master lock and other fake lock makers.

www.soldsecure.com/Leisure.htm

Not being investigated doesn't make it not a felony. Do you really think the police investigate every broken sign.


Streed signs are easily defeated by taking the sign off the top and pulling the bike lock and all over it.


If crooks don't have power tools why waste money on a $90 lock? Won't a 25 dollar one work just as well??

15 minutes of loud sweaty work to clip a rim with bolt cutters? On your knees? hacking away? You didn't even bother to read did you? Noone is talking about using a hacksaw.

You once saw two bikes locked up poorly last summer? Houston must be a veritable garden of eden for bike thieves.

You're pretty good at laying waste to your own arguments as well as your strawmen. How about actually adressing the issues raised.

The wheel could be cut in a matter of seconds.
This could be done with bolt cutters probably the single most common tool of bike theft.
If the thief really needed a rear wheel an unlocked one from a well secured bike could easily be had.
Thieves steal bikes without wheels all the time. Both rear and front(front is probably more common in a large part because more bikes are locked that way.)
If you are locking to something more easily defeated then a basic u lock why spend money on a super fancy one?

Not to pick on you, but that's a great way to shatter a hip in a crash.

Houston has a cycling community? I thought you guys all just rode horses

Kidding of course.. I'm from N. Houston, I'm living in boston now though...

I just picked up a Kryptonite NY Noose - it's pretty awesome. Noose goes around rear wheel/frame, chain fits around a standard pole or Toronto bike lock-up and the disc lock goes around the front wheel. The whole bike is totally secure. Weight is 4.8 pounds. This is my "leaving it unattended" setup - for in-and-out lock-ups I just use a Kryptonite Mini Evolution through the frame and front wheel.

Wait, what? You noose at the rear, go around a pole, and then lock to the front wheel? What's keeping someone from detaching your front wheel and walking off with the whole rig? I can see it working for one of those keyhole lockup things where the front wheel couldn't go through the hole in the thing (cue above debate), or if you locked to the frame up front or went through the wheel and then locked to the frame, but I don't get how what you described is supposed to work for a pole or a bigger rack.

Beh, this difference between just locking in the triangle is just purely academic. If you can lock the frame as well, problem ****ing solved. Seriously.

There is no disadvantage to doing this if you can do the other, whereas the other chance there is a risk.

But if you have a mini u, chances are you *can't* go around both.
If it was that simple, no one would be debating it.

So what locks your front wheel

A cable.

Either one with loop ends that the u lock secures, or one with its own lock to double-lock the whole bike.

This always seemed really simple to me. I have a very strong chain (about 5500 lbs working load limit), that generally speaking is not easily cut with a hacksaw, and can't be cut with bolt cutters (tried it at the hardware store with the biggest one they had). I use one of those round locks. When both links of the chain are in there, the shackle is obscured (basically all padlock attacks focus on the shackle).

I put the chain through the rear triangle and through the spokes (securing both). I then take off my QR front and put it through the chain. Seems fairly secure to me.

PS: Does Sheldon have dedicated machines that scour the internet for his name? It seems like almost every time someone questions one of his methods, he replies within a day.

Hahaha, ya. NOT THAT WAY. In my mind I had just planned on using it w/ the noose around the wheel/frame/pole. You could do it safely the way you mentioned if you cross the chain over the downtube, but then you're taking up as much chain as the other way and you could probably fit the front wheel through the main triangle on larger frames.

You'd think so. Maybe I've been lucky so far, because I've crashed in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons...including a pretty nasty car smack (and several smaller ones, and trolley tracks, and booziness, and trying new stuff, and and and and....) and have yet to have any problems because of the chain. In fact, while splitting lanes during CM one month it actually kind of saved me. A cab and bus tried to squeeze me and in the process of standing up to hammer it took the mirror off of the cab. I hate to think of that mirror catching me instead of the chain and throwing me under one or both of the vehicles. Seems to me that slung over the shoulder is riskier. Hip bones are much stronger than collarbones.