Originally Posted by zacster (Post 23182152)

I'll have to find a lighter lock then. What I have is pretty heavy duty. But yea, I only need it to stop an opportunistic thief. Even my Kryptonite NYC Fuhgeddaboudit was broken. I had bike parking inside in my office, but they didn't want locks left on the rack so I'd leave the lock outside locked to a public rack. I did it for years. One day I ride up to get my my lock and it was gone. It just showed me how any lock can be broken. My guess is that someone decided to clean up all the dead locks because mine wasn't the only one on the block. Some of them looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Anyway, I bought a new somewhat lighter one since I had to carry it with me now, but it is still heavier than I want to carry 500 miles.

Originally Posted by Tourist in MSN (Post 23214897)

Experiences like yours are clearly unfortunate. Rare, but they do happen. Thanks for reminding us that we need to be careful, even in a case like yours where you left your bike after sunset and it was already gone before sunrise.

***

My community used to license bicycles, I licensed all of mine to get the sticker on the bike that the police could use to find the owner if found later.

My community stopped licensing bikes, they instead recommended using Bike Index or a similar service. I listed all my bikes on Bike Index. I also bought the Bike Index stickers and put on my bikes. I bought the generic stickers (no QR code), but it appears such stickers are no longer available on their website.
https://bikeindex.org

These stickers and registrations are no guarantee, but they can help. Several decades ago my dad's bike was stolen, months later the police called and said come and pick up your bike. It was in terrible shape, but a local bike shop straightened the bent frame and fork, I got it working again with some use parts.

Someone on this forum (I do not recall whom) had his custom Co-Motion bike with Rohloff stolen out of his garage. Many months later, a bike shop called him, someone brought a bike in for repair and it sounded like it might be the one he informed local bike shops about. It was his. All serial numbers were ground off, but it was his.

Originally Posted by stevepusser (Post 23217592)

The beach one nearest me (San Elijo) is $15 apiece. Since they can jam eight people in that site, I don't think $120 has them losing money on the deal. And it's a terrible HB site anyway.

They have two campgrounds at 4000' and 5000' inland in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, and they still have the deal where you can use the huge day use areas for HB for $5 overnight--multiple nights OK, or the camps are only five miles apart. You just have to break down your sleeping arrangements when the picnickers are there. Lots of oak and pine, deer, turkeys, hiking, and you're away from the main campground with all its smoke and noise.