Clever bike lock scales light posts | Hacker News Reader

Clever bike lock scales light posts

dothegreenthing.com

106 pointsyread56 comments

Conrad is a catalog-based mail order company for electronics, tools and so on. From the final image of the video, I think this is a commercial for the Conrad company, showing the cool things you can build with their parts and so on.

I don't think Conrad is developing this bike lock as an actual product.

"Entstanden im Rahmen unserer Aktion „3 Teams, 14 Tage, 150.000 Möglichkeiten" und entwickelt von Team A aus Hamburg." --- It was a contest - roughly translated 3 teams, 14 days 150.000 posibilities. The lock has been developed by Team A from Hamburg.

I can confirm that the part of the video starting at 1:20 is actually airing as advertising on German TV.

It's nice to see that this is a real device and not just CGI.

Conrad also has a few brick-and-mortar stores. They are like toy-stores for grown-ups (and not-so-grown-ups).

What happens if another guy with one of these locks comes along and parks his park on the same post as yours?

Also as far as I can tell this lock relies on the poles/posts being of a certain diameter

You just have to trust other cyclists. If you use a regular lock, anyone with another regular lock could lock your bike and screw you anyway.

There's bike vandalism to watch out for, too. It's not very common, but few locks protect against it. Locks handle a much more common occurrence, that people want to steal a bike for material gain, not only for the detriment of the bike's owner.

Vandalism is just as common as theft in the Washington DC area. Usually if they can't break your lock, they break your bike instead.

DC has replaced some bike racks with bike lockers that totally enclose the bike. The downside is the lockers take up a lot of space so there are only a few of them at each metro station.

The thing is with that lock you have a stack, so the first bike on that pole can't get down until the others are gone. With regular locks problems happen only by mistake or by being an ass.

Putting your bike under someone else's is not being an ass?

1 bike -> 1 post. There isn't enough posts for all the bikes.

The stacking problem could be trivially solved by adding a small explosive charge that ejects your bike sideways when needed.

I guess it is, but it would be by using the lock as designed, rather than by being careless.

Either you have one bike per post, which is not efficient or enough, or you stack them.

So basically, though it's an interesting idea, this design is very impractical.

> What happens if another guy with one of these locks comes along and parks his park on the same post as yours?

Presumably, if these were mass-produced, each device would have a rare or unique signal similar to car remotes.

> Also as far as I can tell this lock relies on the poles/posts being of a certain diameter

I thought of that too. There are standard light pole sizes, but they might be different in different countries. I wonder if it would work s well on wooden posts.

I think the bigger issue would be how would your bike descend with another bike under it?

Same issue as "what happens if someone locks their bike next to mine and they are dumb enough to put their lock through my bike".

You'd have to assume that anyone who double parks on the same post with a lock like this probably isn't smart enough to ride the bike in the first place.

The actual question should be "what happens when there are too many people using these locks so no-one can find any places to use it?"

> You'd have to assume that anyone who double parks on the same post with a lock like this probably isn't smart enough to ride the bike in the first place.

Such thinking is exactly the sort that is guaranteed to end up with your bike stuck up a lamp post due to a double parking incident ;)

(it doesn't quite fit, but the spirit of "Foolproof systems do not take into account the ingenuity of fools" applies)

Your bike would still be stuck up the pole until they removed their double parked bike.

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought he was saying the other person would use his remote to steal your bike.

Same thing that happens when another guy puts another lock on your bike!

No, because you can do a double lock on a pole (each side) so long as no one puts their lock through your frame (usually they could pass it through your lock if they wanted).

But for this if someone has suspended their bike below yours you could never lower your bike.

I don't see the huge problem. Climb on the pole and take off your bike? Yeah it's inconvenient but somebody double locking your bike with a regular lock is far worse.

If climbing up the pole is as easy as you make it sound, this device is totally pointless.

It's probably easier to climb the pole if there's a lower bike on the pole that you can grab on your way up.

I wonder how much weight the device can support? If you threw a weighted rope around a suspended bike and pulled on it, will you be able to lower it?

Isn't it locked around the pole? Otherwise, depending on your age and weight, yes climbing up the pole is easy.

It's a fun experiment but unfortunately totally impractical. Who wants to carry and recharge a heavy battery just to have their bike become a prime target for vandalism and police?

My first concern with any new anti-theft solution for bikes is "does it cost more than my bike?". If someone fails to steal my bike but can still vandalise the bike and the lock, I'm out twice as much money.

I've had multiple bikes stolen in the Washington DC area.

Your first concern should be - does it work?

From the close ups in the video there appears to be way too many leverage points that you could simply break it with a hammer. By looks it's hollow aluminum, a decent gauge but I work with aluminum and this doesn't appear at all sturdy for brute forcing the lock.

Aluminum is rather malleable, meaning it looks like force could easily be used to open the device enough to get it back down to ground level, at which point brute forcing becomes much easier. It also looks highly susceptible to leverage forcing or even wedging (which can be done very simply with two hammers)

Standard bike locks have the advantage that leveraging the bars generally only fastens the locking mechanism tighter meaning force has to be applied parallel to the bars against the lock - noticeably along the mechanisms strongest axis. Every other way generally fails in a way that makes it harder to separate the lock from its bars.

This being a circle allows forces to be applied to directly manipulate hinges, welds, and the lock. However, given that it fits tightly against the lamp post, it is highly susceptible to leverage - unlike a standard bike lock that has a solid 1 foot gap between the end of the bars and the mechanism, which reduces the leveraging potential enormously. You could easily get 40x the leverage on this climbing lock than you could on a standard bike lock.

The actual lock they place on this wouldn't last 2 seconds against a $5 screwdriver, I'm assuming it would be a genuine locking mechanism. However the device will have at least 4 welds at best, or likely a non-welded joint, 1 hinge or set of hinges and 1 lock. This means your lock is only as strong as your weakest element and if you're using a hinge, it's likely only as strong as a 1/8th screw.

Step 1: brake the wheels with hammer and bring it to ground. Step 2: Force a prybar under the hinge plate. Step 3: hammer the prybar and brake screws. Step 4: ride off on bike.

That's still my second concern and also has to be satisfied before I would buy it. But if I can get around town on a $100 bike and the anti-theft device costs $300, I'll stick with a more affordable lock and buy a new bike occasionally.

I'm concerned about the visual pollution of all these bikes halfway up lampposts, blocking sight lines. If it becomes popular, it'll get banned.

Also if it doesn't go up all that high then it'll be at the right level that passing pedestrians have to duck under it.

.. and what happens if it falls on a passer-by?

What happens if a meteor from space hits a pedestrian? Clearly the government must intervene to build a space shield to protect us all!

Y'know, it's poor argumentative technique to respond to "What if [fairly likely scenario]?" with a sarcastic "Oh yeah, what if [very unlikely scenario]? Clearly [outlandish idea]!"

As someone who is an award-winning keychain loser, I am concerned about recovery in case you lose the damn remote.

That's no different to a sufficiently secure bike lock, though.

I can't vouch for its security, but I've seen lots of people use combination locks on bikes.

Two thoughts.

Would this be a nuisance to utility workers who have to access lights or wires on city poles?

This inspires an idea for a similar product. The bike could have an RC-operated hook and winch. The owner can toss the hook onto any high mounted object such as a street sign or low aerial utility line such as phone or cable. Then real the line in with the remote, pulling the bike out of reach. There would be many more potential "parking spaces". The utility lines are supported with steel guide wires that can handle a significant amount of weight[1] and they're much lower than power lines so a careful toss is more of a danger by missing and falling than by reaching an electrical hazard.

[1] as a former cable technician I can testify to this, we were trained to hook our ladders onto the lines half-way between two poles if necessary

What happens when the batteries die (in either remote or lock)?

I wonder if you could sell ad space on those wheels? They will really capture some eyeballs.

Ya know, if you asked me before this, I would have said, "Bike locks don't scale." :-)

This gimmick seems impractical but it's good to see that there's always a new solution to every problem.

Well, it appears that this solution scales vertically, not horizontally. Vertical scaling for bike locks is a commercially solvable problem but ROI drops precipitously after about 20 feet.

Maybe he should consider actually locking his bike up correctly in the future. I notice from that picture he hasn't locked his wheels, which tend to be pretty prominent targets.

The bad thing I see about that is if (for whatever reason) it fails and falls you (and possibly that company) will have your pants sued off. Also birds perching on your bike seat and doing their business...

All and all though nifty idea.

I guess there's a reason this wasn't invented in the US.

We have these things in Miami http://miamibikescene.blogspot.com/2010/09/secure-bicycle-pa...

Cycling in the same roads as Miami drivers must feel like a gamble for your life. (I cycle every day here in SF, and I used to live in Fort Lauderdale, I speak from partial experience).

I've spent many a morning in SF dodging taxis, oblivious pedestrians and potholes and can't even imagine how Miami/Fort Lauderdale could be any worse.

It's suburban, which means the roads are generally 40MPH or faster, and cars drive extremely aggressively there.

Though a busy SF street may seem chaotic, the upper limit on speed gives drivers a lot more time to react to you and vice-versa.

I think this was linked a while back, it's a Japanese automated bike storage system. I couldn't find the original video (which had an interview with the designers), but this shows it in action:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/nov/05/bicy...

I thought one of the advantages of bikes was that you don't need several square kilometers of parking lots in the inner city ;) We have these:

http://www.edinboro.edu/dotAsset/141432.jpg

It seems to me that one of the best preventative measures for both theft and vandalism is having a bike that 'doesn't stick out' or attract attention. This fails at blending in.

I just bring my bike into the store with me.

Some people like going up a lamp pole with their bicycle. Each to his own.

And then it gets stuck halfway up because the user didn't notice that there was a traffic sign attached to the post.

That thing weighs more than my bike!

I heard a joke once that the weight of bike+lock is a constant regardless of price. People with more expensive bikes buy bigger, heavier locks to protect them.

Strippers can climb that pole and take that bike.

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