How not to lock up your bike

xerxes · Post by **xerxes** » 31 Jul 2020, 3:24pm

Tangled Metal · Post by **Tangled Metal** » 31 Jul 2020, 3:53pm

It seems positively rude not to lift it off and place it on another nearby post? Not enough that they think it's stolen but enough to make them doubt themselves about their memory of where they left it. With luck they'll work out that it has been moved and how!!!

Public service idea with a twist of evil perhaps

mjr · Post by **mjr** » 31 Jul 2020, 4:13pm

It looks like a low-end chain store MTB. It might be too heavy to lift far enough off the ground. Did you see a heap of failed bike thieves writhing on the floor with back pain?

mercalia · Post by **mercalia** » 31 Jul 2020, 4:16pm

would be interesting to just wait around a) to see if it gets stolen b) what the owner looks like. ( we are assuming this isnt a SETUP?)

PT1029 · Post by **PT1029** » 31 Jul 2020, 4:23pm

I saw a better one. Similarly cheap bike/cable lock.
The cable was still in its frame carrying bracket. The owner had simply left the lock in its bracket and locked the cable round the Sheffield stand.
When she came back (I was working by the cycle racks), before she unlocked it, I showed her that by pushing the red button on the lock bracket I could free the bike.
She appreciated the suggestion to put the cable through the bike frame when locking.

Re the original picture. Oxford police once told me that their record for such locking method having the lock slipped over the top of the post/pole, was a 3m tall pole.

Cheers.

Jdsk · Post by **Jdsk** » 31 Jul 2020, 4:26pm

PT1029 wrote:Re the original picture. Oxford police once told me that their record for such locking method having the lock slipped over the top of the post/pole, was a 3m tall pole.

But at least he'd be easy to identify.

Jonathan

Tangled Metal · Post by **Tangled Metal** » 31 Jul 2020, 4:33pm

Or the cable lock around the Sheffield stand but only wrapped around the handlebars, was very easy to tip the cable off the end of the flat bars on one side. I didn't though.

Did nobody ever put a d lock or cable or chain around the week only as a kid for example? Or is everyone of the sort of age that they didn't need to lock bikes up as kids? I was a kid in the 70s/80s and we still used chains to lock bikes? Being kids some of us didn't exactly take care of how we lock the bikes up.

foxyrider · Post by **foxyrider** » 31 Jul 2020, 5:20pm

Tangled Metal wrote:Or the cable lock around the Sheffield stand but only wrapped around the handlebars, was very easy to tip the cable off the end of the flat bars on one side. I didn't though.

Did nobody ever put a d lock or cable or chain around the week only as a kid for example? Or is everyone of the sort of age that they didn't need to lock bikes up as kids? I was a kid in the 70s/80s and we still used chains to lock bikes? Being kids some of us didn't exactly take care of how we lock the bikes up.

Not that i recall actually using it until the late '70's but my lock was one of those 4 tumbler combination jobs with about 6" of chain! The fact that i never had a bike stolen proves that back then you didn't need anything more secure! Most of the time we never bothered with locks, bike crime out in the sticks where i grew up was almost unheard of.

I'm sure the owner of the bike in the OP thinks they've done the right thing, how many of us have locked bikes to stuff that in hindsight was a bit daft - chain link fencing, wooden posts and so on, sometimes thats all there is, i've certainly had that on campsites and there is a town not that far from here which has bollards with a hole specific for locking bikes to except its nigh on impossible to do so properly as the hole is at the top of the 3' bollards!

So before you all go off on a laughing spree think about why the bike is locked up so badly. (not saying it couldn't be done better mind :wink:

)

Redvee · Post by **Redvee** » 1 Aug 2020, 12:54am

Saw worse some years ago, went to a building that was divided into flats and there was a bike in the hallway locked with a d-lock to a chair. The chair leg was through the d-lock so all you had to do was lift the chair up to seperate the two.

Norman H · Post by **Norman H** » 2 Aug 2020, 7:54am

It could happen to anyone.

gbnz · Post by **gbnz** » 2 Aug 2020, 8:30am

foxyrider wrote: why the bike is locked up so badly. (not saying it couldn't be done better mind )

I'm presuming you referring to the fact that some people, really could do with having a "better mind".

The brain is a wondrous thing and it's worth recalling that some people, simply aren't very bright :wink:

mercalia · Post by **mercalia** » 2 Aug 2020, 3:17pm

Norman H wrote:It could happen to anyone.

and he used to lead this country no wonder..................

Manc33 · Post by **Manc33** » 2 Aug 2020, 8:58pm

Look what they did to this guy :lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4herWkGMiaM

MikeF · Post by **MikeF** » 2 Aug 2020, 10:36pm

It's a sad reflection on modern society that it's necessary to have to lock a bike. It would never been necessary when I was young, and I wouldn't have had any thoughts of doing so. It would be just left anywhere convenient, but now................

Jdsk · Post by **Jdsk** » 2 Aug 2020, 10:41pm

Bikes were often stolen in Oxford in 1970.

Jonathan

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