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Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

Nothing is impossible to steal; you just want to make it harder.

That's exactly it, most locks (bike or otherwise) are to reduce thefts of opportunity, or to otherwise discourage things. Bike chains and locks and the like can be clipped within seconds with the right tool (you can even get battery-operated hydraulic clippers these days, see e.g. [0]).

But if it's noisy or visible, it's discouraging.

Anyway, instead of paying a premium for a bizarre frame contraption, buy a cheaper bike with enough lock to discourage a quick snatch. It won't be worth the effort to steal on the one hand, and it'll be cheap to replace on the other.

If you get an expensive bike instead, get theft insurance and make sure there will be visible evidence of theft if it gets stolen (e.g. clipped chains or whatever).

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMz89XjRXj0

All bikes+locks weigh the same. The cheaper the bike, the cheaper the lock. So as bike value goes up, the lock securing it gets heavier, therefore:

Bike+lock=constant

I once asked a construction worker (with the help of my former boss who worked in a supermarket and vouched for me) to help me cut open a friend’s bike (she went on a school trip, the day before the key broke in the lock, so she asked me to take care of it so no one can steal it). He used a gas powered angle grinder to cut it open. No one even seemed to look in our direction in the middle of the day in the city center.

My five-year-old once managed to change the code on my bike lock while I was locking it, without me noticing before I scrambled it. Couldn't get it open after many guesses. We were outside a supermarket, so I went inside and bought a hammer, and smashed the lock to bits. Nobody even looked at me twice.

Yeah but you can get away with pretty much anything in a construction safety vest. [0]

0. https://youtu.be/GyvRamX1VyA

I would be wary of insurances that require visual proof since that’s really never guaranteed.

The insurance my friend got only needed proof that he purchased a sufficient lock, which they do tell you beforehand, so you can just keep the bill as proof. Also, they need the police report. He got his money quickly. (This happened in Germany.)

He even had one of those fancy GPS tracking looks-just-like-a-normal-tail-light. Neither the police nor the insurance cared and since he didn’t want to confront the thief (or more likely the buyer) all on his own when he got a signal a couple of weeks later he just dropped it …

Unfortunately the rate of bike theft is so high that even with the best locks, if its left in view of the public, its going to be stolen.

In view of the public is substantially better than out of sight to avoid theft.

I've had thieves steal components off my bike in broad daylight on a busy street. I think it's best to park your bike in a place where there's not a lot of foot traffic.

My experience is that locking your bicycle publicly can be good for you – while locking your bike in an unexposed place can be bad.

The best place is one:

* which is not visible from the street

* still has some public traffic (aka "someone could exit the building at any time")

* the bikes next to yours are worse protected than yours

I am faring quite well with this strategy for 10 years now and haven't had a single bike stolen from me despite using the bike as my main mode of transportation. In the same time my collegues had theirs stolen roughly every 2 years.

The worst place is one:

* which people pass by alone

* which is still somewhat visible from the street

* where your bike is the only one there

even better if it's less desirable and harder to steal THAN another bike nearby.

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