...any kind of insurance that a person who might try to steal your bike would wreck less than a block later?

I kind of wish I had eggbeaters and brakless for this very reason, but then I think I'm silly. Kind of like the hotrods with the hidden starter or door handle.

no, every slime ball knows how to ride brakeless these days

And brings clipless cycling shoes?

thats like bringing the right tools to pick a lock. duh.

this totally works. it's why i took the brakes off my car. you shoulda seen the thief's face!!

Actually, fixed messengers do this in my city. Bums keep it movin'. Plenty never lock up, they would rather make money.

try installing powercranks ( https://www.powercranks.com/index.htm ) and see how far he gets. He'll take too pedals, and most likely fall off or hit a tree. Unfortunately, it's around $800 for the set.

fixed gear in general is an impedement for most theives. Remember the first time you rode fixed? Remember the first time it kicked you back? You were prepared. Now imagine the theif that steals your bike and hops on it to quickly ride away and gets bucked....good times.

Also riding clipless pedals in normal shoes SUCKS...especially eggbeaters.

But, if your bike is all blinged out chances are it's going to be stolen by someone who knows what it is and can ride it. So you are screwed either way.

You rarely see NYC messengers on bikes that don't look like total. I'm not saying they aren't good bikes, well some aren't, it's jsut they aren't calling attention to themselves. Those who know who what parts are good. THose who don't just see a rusty chunk o' crap. The really fancy blinged out bikes only come out to play on on weekends or races for some of those guys who have them. If you see a messenger on a fancy blinged out bike chances are they are new and haven't been beaten down by the street yet.

I'd like to see someone trackstand with those.

it's a great deterrant unless someone comes by with a van. than the tables are turned.

I think a lot of people overestimate the difficulty of riding fixed gear. Turn the pedals in a circular motion, bike goes. Only stupid bike thieves would be thwarted by the lack of a freewheel. Also it does nothing to slow down high volume thieves who would just throw your bike in the back of a truck anyway.

What is the significance of power cranks?

they will give the guy who steals your bike a perfect spin

well worth 800 bones

For one, they're impossible to pedal without straps, clips or clipless. So if you put eggbeaters on them, it's impossible to pedal a la platforms.

But it will be immediately obvious that something's wrong with those cranks, as both will be at the bottom, if I am not mistaken. The thiev will have advance warning that he's not going to just ride away with the bike.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Go on their site, there is a video. This is a great thing for people with injuries like myself.

Yep.
From simply reading their website, it becomes evident that they do not behave in a fixie-esque fashion, since they are each capable of rotating backward independently of one another. This means that you can't ride them brakeless, but it seems as though you could perhaps ride them with a fixed hub; it would just feel like a freewheel.
Neat.

Well, no, it wouldn't "just feel like a freewheel", as the cranks are independent of each other. A freewheeled bike you can use with platforms, these you can't.

Right. More complicated, since the pedals don't move together. What I intended to emphasize was that each crank basically has a small freewheel inside it, which means that you can ride them with a fixed hub, but it won't behave at all like one.

at my school thats what people do in teams of 3. Two guys hop out of a van, cut the bike and put it in the back and drive off. They would hit whole bike racks at a time and snap those cheap chains.

and they won't stop posting nothing but nonsense here. odd how that works.

i wonder fi they target u-locks as well.

yeah, it's not hard to ride a fixed gear, but what happens to the uninitiated thief when they get to a hill with a stop sign / red light at the bottom?

he'll **** up your bike and you'll get get pissed.

someone shoudl make this happen.
setup a bike atop some elevation and setup proper cameras