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Comment by avar | Hacker News Reader

    > If anything, having a tatty, battered old
    > bike affords more status as it attests to
    > a long and lasting love.

As an Amsterdam resident: What a romantic characterization of our high crime rates! Yes, the reason I still ride a shitty old beater of a bike is definitely my long lasting love for that piece of shit, it's not because I know that if I buy anything fancy I'm going to have to never take my eyes off of it, least it be stolen in under half a minute in certain parts of town[1].

1. http://www.iamexpat.nl/blog/culture/amsterdam-wins-european-...

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As a fellow dutchman, duct-tape the shit out of everything on your new bike. If you're really brave even partially paint it in a hideous color (purple or something).

You'll still have a bad looking bike, but at least it will be mechanically much nicer than your fifth-hand rusting omafiets.

Since I started doing that I never had a bike stolen in 15 years, despite living in Rotterdam and Utrecht (big cities) and buying 3 new bikes in that time.

There should be vinyl wrap for bikes that provides a paintable, duct-tapeable substrain for camo tape and radioactive fuchsia and orange also camo ejaculation. Flat (no shine) paint makes a bike even less attractive.

PS: I had a old/ugly bike that I had for 16 years in Davis, CA that I still locked and it was stolen from an apt complex the one and only time I forgot to lock it. There are thieves whom ride around in cargo trucks stealing bikes wholesale, in addition to people whom just "borrow" bikes and dump them whereever.

The idea for Amsterdam is to make the bike look unique, not always unnatractive, the more homogenous looking and mechanically sound, the more attractive to thieves.

Amsterdam is a smalll place so having a fluro green bike with a number plate of your name welded to the frame is a good deterrent.

Take care with welding - not every material likes welding, and especially not home-made welding without proper stress relief.

Drilling for rivets is also dangerous when done incorrectly. You do not want to be riding at full steam when the frame cracks, it's nasty.

Really though it's probably mild steel which is not heat-treatable. Mild steel fairly weak (for steel) but it doesn't get much stronger or weaker from heat exposure and isn't brittle.

High carbon, stainless, and fancy stuff is where you can run into problems. In general you won't see this on car or bike frames, too expensive in bulk.

If it's a newer bike it's probably aluminum which you can usually still weld with impunity. If it was high grade alloy the heat could matter, but as far as I know nobody cares that much about bike frames. Heat treatment, or "seasoning" in the case of some aluminum is expensive.

Source: used to cut up old bikes and weld the frames into crazy chariot contraptions we would tow around

> frame cracks

Steel is real, man. It'll bend, not break.

But in seriousness, yeah, I was following very closely behind a fellow who snapped his fork jumping over a bump in the road. I almost went over him. Despite the helmet, he lost memory of the accident. I called an ambulance for him and left my number. He called me the next day asking what had happened.

It was a nice aluminum frame, looked in good condition. Always check carefully for hairline fractures when buying a used aluminum bike.

There's a specific brand of bikes that does just that (welding plates with an ID to it) from production, like https://www.fietsenwinkel.nl/bsp-bold-2016-heren-sale and https://www.fietsenwinkel.nl/batavus-quip-heren

Maybe that's why my filibus cargo bike keeps not getting stolen. I'm often fairly sloppy about locking it to something. It's heavier than a regular bike, though, you a thief can't easily pick it up.

Protip: "Plasti Dip" spray paint is like vinyl wrap on a spraycan, it comes in all sorts of matte (or even sparkly!) gaudy colors. I think they even sell a desert camo tri-pack. I've seen it sold in car part/accessory shops in Europe.

There is also hydro-dipping"[1] It's usually used to add complex graphics to irregular surfaces, but I imagine they could make "ugly' irregular patterns for something like to this to make it unique and unwanted.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrographics_(printing)

Kind of surprised that bike manufacturers don't offer new bikes painted to look old and crappy, as an option, or as an after market service

Like jeans!

I used to believe my ugly old cheap bike would never be stolen. I was wrong.

There's the other part of theft; if someone got their bike stolen or lost, some people just steal another.

Fair point, althought some people told me a third option: metal frame reselling; apparently it's worth a few bucks; that was the only valuable part on this (everything else was plastic or lowest quality possible)

I think it still is most important to make sure you can't carry the locked bike away. It's mostly tool-less homeless people roaming the streets at night looking for an opportunity imo. Only bikes I got stole were not locked to a pole because I forgot or assumed I would be back in a minute and wasn't.

I agree about the shitty-ness, it is less likely to attract attention and you feel less bad leaving it out on the streets but I think most people would prefer to ride a nicer bike if only people with keep their hands off your property.

There are also professional thieves with good tools and a van they quickly load up with everything that's not sufficiently nailed down.

Anything goes, as long as your bike doesn't look like it's the most expensive bike in the rack.

Some people, particularly teenagers and students, can be quite creative in dirtying up their bike. A friend in school had glued sand to her bike, and then painted it. Quite a unique look. But it got stolen anyway, and when she found it, the thief had scraped all the sand off.

But there are many reasons why a bike might look ratty. The owner really could have had that bike for a long time, it could be second-hand (or more likely fifth-hand or something), it could have been stolen, it could have been found in the trash and refurbished, it could have been ratty'd up to prevent it from getting stolen, or it might be someone's artistic expression.

But in big cities it's certainly not unusual that the lock is the most expensive part of a bike.

Bike theft figures in the NL are indeed horrendous - and it is by far not just Amsterdam. (In fact, the other cities - Utrecht, Rotterdam, Groningen - are in many factors already "ahead").

We actually started an initiative to tackle this issue. So, in case you HATE BIKE THEFT as much as we do, give our FB page a like (https://www.facebook.com/AgainstBikeTheft/) and sign our petition (bit.ly/bikes-petition) aiming on getting more focus on the problem. It'd be a huge help for us.

We're also building an active solution - again, check the website and FB.

Sure beats paying for a car, insurance, road tax, gasoline, parking... did I forget anything?

Yeah, having your bike stolen sucks, particularly if on your way back home from a night at De School but whatever... still cheaper (and healthier and fun)

Get it over, or you can go live a couple years in Rome and learn what it means to live in a hideous car-infested city.

How is De School? I've been meaning to check it out and I heard it's from the people that ran the club in the Trouw building, which I kind of liked by the (relatively) mediocre Amsterdam club standards.

Yup, those guys. Never been yet, I heard they have a weird - haphazardly applied - door policy that boils down to "we'd like to be like Berghain", so don't go if you're a group of more than three not-so-sober men.

You've got to admit that the Trouw was good on its own merits, not just because of the poor alternatives (but then go check out the OT or the Bunker. Have you been there?)

I really like De School, went there for their Weekender during ADE and it was one of the best parties I've ever been to, good enough to compare to some days I had at Sisyphos in Berlin...

Out of ADE my last time there was back in December, wasn't really fond of many clubs in Amsterdam but De School is definitely one of the best, definitely worth checking it out and I'm going again now in the end of June :)

I love Sisyphos so that's good news! I take it they don't have chickens running around at De School though?

I've only been once (for FourTet/Floating Points) but it was spectacular. Very good vibe downstairs; super dark/minimal light effects, excellent sound, diverse and respectful crowd, spacious. Except for all the broken glass. The concrete floor was absolutely strewn with shattered beer bottles.

The small open garden is really pleasant, though unfortunately it closes early (maybe 3-4am?). It's a nice respite from the steamy floor.

I like the art installations too.

I was in Rome 6 months ago. I was surprised at how little traffic there was in the centre (I assume they have some laws in place to limit it only to taxis). I guess that only happens in the centre proper?

In the center there is ZTL, which is restricted to residents and enforced by number plate recognition cameras at all entry/exit points.

Take a trip anywhere outside the center during rush hour and it's a completely different story.

Can anyone explain why police don't do a huge crackdown on bike theft in Amsterdam? I heard repeatedly when I was there about how bad the theft is. Is there something stopping cops from putting out a dozen fancy bikes without locks every day and arresting everyone who grabs one and rides off? Is the legality of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment different in the Netherlands?

Because it seems like a relatively small policing effort could enable a massive improvement in quality of life.

I left the Netherlands 15 years ago, but if I recall correctly, entrapment is mostly illegal, and cops usually don't care very much about bike theft, which is very low on their priority list. From what I understand, rampant bike theft is less of a problem outside of Amsterdam (and maybe a few other "big" cities).

(I never had my bike stolen, living in an urban area in the south of the Netherlands. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen there... if you leave your bike standing in odd places, it may well be gone when you come back. One way employed by thieves was to drive around with a van and just pick up any bikes that were standing around, locked or not, in broad daylight or not.)

They do decoy bikes, e.g. here's a news article about a thief being caught by police stealing a decoy bike for the second time in 6 months published just 3 days ago (in Dutch, but it Google Translates):

http://www.nhnieuws.nl/nieuws/207931/Fietsendief-in-Amsterda...

The problem is that the police have other stuff to do, and they might as well be pissing in the wind with the amount of bike theft here. They could do a huge crackdown, but that's unsustainable and after the crackdown we'll be right back to the same theft rate.

Interestingly there was a case this year (currently going through appeals) where a judge ruled that a man stealing a bicycle in a residential neighborhood should be found not guilty because the police had created the circumstances of the bike's theft:

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/01/decoy-bikes-sh...

It's unclear what that means for bicycle entrapment in general, but an article in Parool (again, in Dutch) suggested that this may have implications for the methods of the Amsterdam police depending on how it goes:

http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/4/AMSTERDAM/article/detail/42...

> "The problem is that the police have other stuff to do, and they might as well be pissing in the wind with the amount of bike theft here. They could do a huge crackdown, but that's unsustainable and after the crackdown we'll be right back to the same theft rate."

How about using CCTV at bicycle locking points? Combined with satellite imagery it should be a relatively non-resource intensive way to catch the thiefs. Of course, there's still the question of whether a surveillance-based solution is worse than the crime it's meant to address.

Let's not turn Dutch cities into another example of the horrifying panopticon that UK cities have become.

Dude, they already are. Cameras everywhere

CCTV is heavily restricted in The Netherlands, and you need to post a prominent sign in any public place that's under CCTV surveillance, this would obviously make it ineffective to catch thieves.

>How about using CCTV at bicycle locking points?

Now you have two problems -- and a freezing cold wind coming in from the wide open Overton window.

>They could do a huge crackdown, but that's unsustainable and after the crackdown we'll be right back to the same theft rate.

Actually, there's evidence that a sustained crackdown can succeed in changing norms. I believe that the biking rate in Copenhagen is almost as high as Amsterdam but the theft rate is far lower. Norms matter. Here's an example:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/15/buenos_aires_...

What would you do with the bike thieves you catch? Fines mean nothing to the career petty criminals, and jailing people for petty theft leads to hopeless US style mass incarceration.

There is plenty of middle ground, from community service to light jail time, maybe even rehab for some of them.

Yes, I think community service (like picking up trash) is quite feasible.

I think there is a lot of bike theft, but people also keep this alive by buying a 3 AM Special from a junky in the center of town.

I've lived in Amsterdam for the last 9 years and the only bike I've had stolen was one that I didn't lock.... I even still have a bike sitting in a rack outside my house that has been mine for 18 years.

I'm riding a fancy looking €1000 bike daily, have been for the last four years, I lock it with just the default ring through the back wheel when I go into a shop or something, and use the chain I have to lock it to a bike rack. It's even insured if I just use the simple lock.

Thanks to some nice tax breaks (meaning you can get a bike for up to 49% off though your employer (look for 'fietsplan')) I am actually on the hunt for a new bike. :-)

They do crack down on bike theft, but you can never get rid of all theft, and the police has plenty of other priorities.

Police doesn't do much, because it is low on their priority list (despite the terrible numbers in the NL).

In case you HATE BIKE THEFT as much as we do, give our FB page a like (https://www.facebook.com/AgainstBikeTheft/) and sign our petition (bit.ly/bikes-petition) aiming on getting more focus on the problem.

We're also building an active solution - again, check the website and FB.

Don't you folks have chorbazar's [1,2]? Virtually every big city in India has one. Your stuff gets stolen, you go to the chor bazar, it'll be on sale, buy it back after some haggling over price.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chor_Bazaar

[2] http://www.indiatimes.com/culture/who-we-are/14-reasons-you-...

Phnom Penh has one too but I'm not sure how reliably you can get your stuff back. Two bikes stolen here for me, but only 40$ a piece.

Sounds familiar! In Berkeley and North Oakland potted plant theft is a big thing. I've had neighbors who, multiple times, had to go to the local flea market and retrieve their beloved plants.

The dutch version of this for bikes is 'go to a certain part of town late at night and someone will sell you a bike (by cutting the lock off one they stole) for cheap.

I don't get it - that competition is of bike thefts for unguarded and _unlocked_ bikes. Surely it means nothing. Do people not buy bike locks in those regions?

Is it typical for a 13mm+ Ulock in Amsterdam to get broken?

> Surely it means nothing

Well I guess it means that you can't leave your bike unlocked in parts of Amsterdam, which is a shame.

You can't leave your bike unlocked anywhere. Ever. At anytime. How come this isn't the initial reasoning? In fact, you can't leave anything unattended or not secured. This goes for cars, bikes, luggage, homes, i don't know what else.

our brave total surveillance future does have this silver lining!

There's still quite a few places on this earth where people don't even bother to lock their front doors, or don't worry about leaving their bike lying around somewhere unsecured.

What you said is mostly for true for major cities though.

Places where paranoia is still a disease..

I was surprised to see hundreds of unlocked bikes in Japan. Sounds like it's common over there: https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/3loaqx/bikes_par...

Bike theft is also common in Japan.

Interesting, since the discussion talks about bikes laying around for 9+ months, and gathering and tagging "abandoned" bikes every 6 months.

When I was in Tokyo I saw hundreds of bikes unlocked. There was a poster with a security photo saying "bike thief." My wife mentioned it was likely that person had just grabbed the wrong bike.

I'm not saying bike theft doesn't happen in Japan, it just seems to be significantly more rare in Japan compared to most other places.

I remember hearing San Francisco was trying to cut down on the secondhand market as a way to reduce bike theft. I see Japan has a registration system for bikes. I wonder how much that contributes?

That being true doesn't mean I can't lament the fact that these shitty people exist and are able to get away with it.

I remember Tokyo in 1998, almost every bicycle was unlocked. I hope it's still like that.

I've lived in a 250 people Swiss mountain town with 500 bed tourism and nothing was locked ever.

I've had three bikes stolen in about three months time. Each time, I used what was considered a high-end lock. I was usually more bummed out at losing the lock because they cost me more than the bike.

The best strategy, I find, is to avoid leaving the bike in theft 'hot spots', especially in the weekend. If that can't be avoided, make sure to put the bike behind another bike, preferable a fancy one or one with a shitty lock.

Yes. Another point is that even when you lock your bike, thiefs often carry the bike in its entirety or just screw off one of the wheels. Just don't buy a new bike when you're frequently in a hot spot.

Locking just a wheel is a rookie mistake, of course! Always wrap it around the frame and something that is solidly rooted in the ground.

It's just that even all that isn't always good enough if the homeless guy or professional bike thief has a power-cutter thingy.

My sister locked her bike to a pole through the frame in San Diego. When she came back literally every other part was gone, and the frame remained locked to the pole. They even took the cranks, the forks, and the brake cables. Who steals brake cables?

The people who steal a frame somewhere else. Otherwise they can not finish their bike...

I had the quick release clamp stolen on mine (after taking the seat off). Twice in one week, because i happened to have a spare. And the window wipers from my car one time.

I saw a bike chained to something once, little foldable bike, with the saddle missing. It dawned on me later that the owner probably took it with him, to make it less attractive to be stolen.

That, or the seat got stolen. Some people have an odd sense of humor.

A good leather bike seat can be pretty valuable on its own.

Especially if said thief had previously stolen a seatless bike.

Yeah I left my bike at work and someone decided he had more use for my rear lights than me. Who steals 5€ lights?!

Somebody who needs it and has a criminal attitude. It's 5 Euros for free, like a banknote on the sidewalk.

Also use 2 different locks, like dLock and a cable lock.

The weirdest thing happened to a friend a long time ago (not in the Netherlands though). He had a fancy lock on a crappy bike. The bike was there, but not the lock.

Create bike Safezones, by adding a small plasti foil bag with fish-oil beneath the saddle, which rips if not removed at ride-start. Even bike-thiefs do not want to stink.

Greasing the handlebars and seat may work well :-)

Reminds me of that 'prank' video where they left a bike on a steel cable, which the thieves found out the hard way (e.g. after leaving). Oh and another one where they put a tazer in the saddle.

I did that too. Back in university, I'd refurbished a white granny bike I found in the trash. The thick chain lock was the most expensive part of it. It got stolen one of the few times I parked it at Oude Manhuispoort (an infamous bike theft hotspot at a central location of the UvA).

Ever since, I try parking my bike near one that looks better and is locked worse than mine.

It's clearly meant to be humorous.

> Is it typical for a 13mm+ Ulock in Amsterdam to get broken?

Yes. One thing that still works is to get two different high-end locks and to always use both. Most thieves specialize in one lock only. But I'd still not leave a decent bike outside over night.

I would imagine that an angle grinder works equally well with all locks regardless of brand.

Cold spray and a hammer is faster and much less noisy and does not come with a free pyrotechnics display.

Does that work? And what do you mean by cold spray exactly? Ralgex?

If it wouldn't work I wouldn't write it.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cold+spray+bike...

Second to that. Metall becomes brittle at -20. Bing.

There's a video where a guy breaks a bicycle lock with a angle grinder, in the middle of the day in a city center. Nobody bats an eye. Breaking the lock doesn't have to subtle.

Yeah I think the main benefit of using two locks is that a thief will just go for an easier option. IIRC similar rules apply to home security. It's not only about deterrence; making your house more of a nuisance than other houses is important too.

I agree - you don't need to outrun the bear, you just need to outrun your friend.

welp, if this entire thread taught me anything, is that I need to lojack (or whatever it's called) my bike.

Because clearly, when stealing a bike, you want the entire neighborhood hear you for ten minutes, emitting sparks everywhere, while you had to bring an angle grinder.

You're supposed to be somewhat discreet when doing that, not warning everyone.

Most people's locks can be cut with a strong set of shears. The other ones are usually not worth spending your time on unless it's everything there is. In which case, like @jacquesm said, freezing temperatures are an excellent solution. More of a middle of the night thing though. Shears work 24/7.

I have 'stolen' my own bike after losing the key. It was in bright daylight in plain view with a ton of people walking by. No one said anything.

It does, but it requires power and time, and makes a ton of noise. Most thieves prefer something quick and quiet.

Here in the UK, savvy bicycle commuters buy an extremely heavy chain [1] and leave it locked up outside their office. Bicycle locks are a compromise because they need to be light enough to carry. If you don't carry your lock, you can use a massive lump of metal.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lDcViM1EKc

Then UK thieves are clueless. The recommended padlocks (SS50C or SS65C) can be picked (search for model + "picked" on youtube) in less than 30 seconds. For bystanders picking the lock looks like you are just too stupid or drunk to use your key.

It's not competition with unguarded/unlocked bikes. In order to minimize chance of theft you're competing for least desirability and most effort to steal. Most if not all Dutch bikes are by default fitted with an O-lock, which is a good first line of defense, combined with attaching your bike to a railing/bikestand/tree with a decent hardened steel chain lock.

I heard 2 horrible things about O-locks. 1 - Every bike has them in europe, 2 - you can open them by jamming a flathead screw driver through the keyhole and twisting. Any truth to that?

O-locks are pretty much just a nice place to keep your keys while you're biking. Everyone I know goes for separate chains, usually on the pricier end. From what I hear the ones that look like round padlocks are ridiculously easy to break, and the ones with the square lock part with two pins is considered among the best (but sadly also annoying to use).

But that's what multiple bike shop owners told me and they all wanted to sell me a lock, so I don't know if this is true.

Edit: Oh, I forget. O-locks are also very convenient if your bike is still within eyesight and you just want to avoid run-by-thefts. Perfect if you're popping into a shop for food or cigarettes or whatnot.

The thing with an O lock is that is locks the rear wheel. A chain lock then can lock both the frame and front wheel to a pole. Although not 100% safe, most thieves will look for easier targets.

That's the very old style one, you could also just open it with a piece of wire.

You can't easily open the lock, but as people can still walk away with the bike it isn't a real deterrent either.

1 is a myth, 2 is probably true.

The old models you can just bend open, the material is very weak (just keeps out honest people).

It's not hard to break a modern lock but it requires more than a screwdriver.

The old style ring locks from 30 years ago were trivial to open with a screwdriver. Modern ones are not. You need to grind through the hardened steel to open those.

U locks don't deter thieves at all. If they want a bike, they will get it no matter what. Almost everyone commutes on beaters for good reason.

https://www.citylab.com/navigator/2014/10/your-u-lock-is-bas...

I always heard that a small U lock[1] is always better than a larger one and I never understood why. Now i know, that modified carjack is something else.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Kryptonite-Evolution-Mini-Bike-U-Lock...

Also just a crowbar can be used instead of that jack. Small ulocks do help. But they have their own problem: they increase the chance of you being unable to lock your bike at all. Sometimes your destination doesn't have great bike racks, and you have to make due with something a small ulock won't fit on.

> If they want a bike, they will get it no matter what.

There's a god-botherer in my city who gets old bikes, attaches a placard with how you're all going to hell if you don't let jesus into your life, and then leaves them around the city... locked with homemade steel u-bolt locks filled with concrete, so that authorities have more trouble getting rid of them. Admittedly they're not valuable bikes, but I've never heard of one being stolen...

I'd be willing to bet those bikes don't meet the "want" part of the equation. They sound interesting though, any links on them?

Here you go:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/a-bloke-called-barry-and-t...

I believe the best locks are the heavy chains of 8 mm hardened steel. You see them everywhere.

Thinner chains are easily cut, as I experienced when my son list his keys. Proper ring locks are also impossible to cut, but they only lock the rear wheel and don't lock the bike to an object, so it can still be carried away.

For Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and The Hague; yeah, just get a beater. In the rest of the country, just lock your bike to something stationary (lanterns, fixed bicycle stands, bridge railings, etc.).

Maybe this is a naive question but why doesn't the local police care about solving this issue? It would seem easy to setup a few honeypot bikes and arrest the people that steal them. Do it for a few weeks a year and it would seem like the crime rate for bikes would quickly plummet.

It's sad to me that people take this for granted. I've lived in place that don't and they are wonderful to expect that petty theft is rare. In many countries though it's so common that there's generations of people that seem to just think "that's the way the world is". It's not, it's the way we let it be.

This is similar in SF. I don't know how quickly a bike will be stolen there but cars are broken into on such a regular basis that often you can walk down a street and see broken glass every 3rd or 4th parking space from someone breaking into all the cars on that section of the street. Again it seems super solvable with a few honeypot cars and seems like it would do much to make people's lives better (have had my cars broken into 7 times in California)

That's exactly what they do. They place 'lokfietsen' (lure bikes) at hotspots, but still it's no panacea.

In Rotterdam I used to "buy" my bikes from the homeless by offering a €5 kapsalon [1] in return for a bike. As a result, I didn't care too much if this bike got stolen and never bothered locking it, allowing others to take my bike. And then I would do it all over again.

In hindsight I realize I was probably wrong to contribute to this ecosystem, but the way I saw it, I was feeding the homeless to provide a social good.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapsalon

> In hindsight I was probably wrong to pay homeless people to steal bikes. :D :D :D

You don't say?

Just to provide context (without justifying it!): in my student days it was completely socially accepted to buy junkie bikes. The justification, to the degree that we bothered having one, was that we all had bikes stolen multiple times.

Most people I know stopped buying junkie bikes once they started making a bit more money though, so it's still generally frowned upon. It's just culturally not quite the same as outright theft (again, I don't approve of this personally but even I once bought a probably-stolen bike once).

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapsalon

I've never heard of that, and it even has its own English Wikipedia page! How can I be so out of touch?

Obligatory classical film reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Thieves

It would be so awesome to have a central EU-wide bike number system, like Denmark has nationally: https://secondhandbikes.dk/en/how-to-check-if-the-bicycle-yo...

I'm wondering how much of that crime can be attributed to the following circular thinking:

> the bike crime level is so high, no sense in buying half-decent bike

> no way I buy a lock that costs more than bike

> [the lock can be cut by bolt cutter in a few seconds]

> [the lock gets cut, the bike gets stolen]

> omg, they stole my bike! Gotta buy another cheap one

Funny. In Japan, there are many places where people don't even bother locking their bikes.

My pretty average (yet new and beloved) $75 city bike was stolen on an Osaka University campus when I left it unattended for a few days (it was locked)..

Osaka is definitely not one of those places :)

Is something preventing foldable bikes (that can be taken indoors) from catching on there?

You can't carry a foldable bike inside everywhere you go...

They are very popular, primarily because you can take them with you on the train. They're not as fast or comfortable as a regular bike, though. And very expensive.

Is it atypical to bring your bike inside at work/home?

I have a rusty old steel frame. Three nice wheels and a hubs on it so that it rides great.

15 years, noones touched it... San Francisco, which probably doesn't come far after Amsterdam in terms of bike theft.

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