Any suggestions for a simple bike lock

[Bill Baka]

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 01:32:11 -0800, Zoot Katz <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:41:50 -0800, <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] (Tom Keats) wrote:
>
>> So, once again, /stealing/ bikes here is really an
>> irrational and unnecessary waste of effort. But I think most of
>> our bike thieves are desperate crackheads wanting something to
>> immediately sell for just the price of a rock.
>
> Somebody stole Sophie the "yellow bike" from an unlocked storage room
> in my building. None of the three other occasional users left it
> anywhere.The cable must have been coiled around the seatpost. It was
> left locked to its secure point. The key was on its hidden hook.
> A 4ft. ficus benjamina disappeared from the foyer the same day.
>
> *Sophie was the Polish made ladys single-speed Free Spirit I'd
> salvaged from the trash and fitted with a rack and lights. I've still
> got the pretty handlebars though.

Sophie seems a fitting name since my aunt's name is Sophie and she is,
like me, Polish. Until now, I did not know that Poland made bikes.

--
Bill (?) Ba__ka

 

[Zoot Katz]

Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:54:40 -0800, <[email protected]>,
Bill Baka <[email protected]> wrote:

>Until now, I did not know that Poland made bikes.

Maybe they don't now. Canada, Sweden and the U.S. were the largest
markets for their exports.
This one was bought at Sears. It was rusty and missing a front wheel
when I brought it home. Another wheel manifested within two weeks.
Steel wool cleaned it all up well enough. Oil fixed the chain. I put a
wider more manly handlebar on the bike and used it for store runs. The
bike was available for others to use but I maintained it. One of them
didn't bother locking it through the frame.
--
zk

 

[Zoot Katz]

Sat, 18 Dec 2004 18:52:41 -0800, <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Tom Keats) wrote:

>Incidentally, while working at Broadway & Quebec I've been
>noticing /lots/ of nice looking urban cruisers. Mostly
>ridden by nice looking cyclist women. I'm guessing they're
>chickening out and bypassing that annoying Devil's Staircase
>on Ontario between 7th and 11th.
>
Quebec or Manitoba Streets are both easier grades.

The bike routes seem to miss the ideal streets by a few blocks in
several places.

>My condolences on your loss.

Because I didn't have much invested in the bike and expected it to be
stolen someday, and most likely due to somebody else's laziness about
locking, it wasn't much of a shock. My attitude is that there's now
another bike in the wild that might have been in the landfill.
--
zk

 

[Tom Keats]

In article <[email protected]>,
Zoot Katz <[email protected]> writes:
> Sat, 18 Dec 2004 18:52:41 -0800, <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] (Tom Keats) wrote:
>
>>Incidentally, while working at Broadway & Quebec I've been
>>noticing /lots/ of nice looking urban cruisers. Mostly
>>ridden by nice looking cyclist women. I'm guessing they're
>>chickening out and bypassing that annoying Devil's Staircase
>>on Ontario between 7th and 11th.
>>
> Quebec or Manitoba Streets are both easier grades.

I've only ever seen one recumbent going /up/ there on Ontario.
Actually, the rider was doing pretty good, too. I don't
mind the grade on that part of Ontario so much as the cross
traffic -- it ruins the rhythm; especially one stop sign
at 7th or 8th.

> The bike routes seem to miss the ideal streets by a few blocks in
> several places.

Indeed, I can see how some hub-geared bikes might not be
up to some the bigger challenges the routes offer. I do
wish the City would do something about the pavement on
parts of the Cypress route, and on 37th between Marguerite
and Granville. I'm almost getting tired of having to make
so much disrupting clatter, riding through those neighbourhoods.

>>My condolences on your loss.
>
> Because I didn't have much invested in the bike and expected it to be
> stolen someday, and most likely due to somebody else's laziness about
> locking, it wasn't much of a shock. My attitude is that there's now
> another bike in the wild that might have been in the landfill.

That's a good way of looking at it. I'm sure there'll soon be
another one to take its place anyway. Nature deplores a vacuum.


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

 

[Steven M. Scharf]

[email protected] wrote:
> Someone actually stole my friends bicycle while we were in the park. I
> can't believe it. It made me think I should buy a lock. There is so

<snip>

Look at a separate padlock combined with a cable something like:

http://www.mineolamoto.com/catalog_...&PartHeaderNumber=111320&ManufacturerCode=458

With a cable such as this, you can slip-knot the cable around a
stationary object, then thread it through the seat, both wheels, and
then the frame, and put a padlock over the other loop and lock the loop
back onto the cable.

What you want to avoid are cable locks where the lock is integrated. You
need a much longer cable when you can't do the slip-knot “trick.” I call
it a trick because few people realize that they don’t have to lock the
two loops together in a circle. Ken Kifer also calls it a trick, see
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/commute/tricks.htm

Even with a U lock on the frame, you'll still want a cable lock for the
wheels and seat.

Steve
http://bicyclelighting.com