Bicycle gear: Bike locks

The bike racks outside MEC on West Broadway, today. Click the image to enlarge it.

I earn money by binning. I use a bicycle with a bike trailer to collect beverage containers to recover the deposit—keeping my ride is a matter of being able to support myself. Naturally I take bike security seriously.

Some basic suggestions:

• Make your bike less attractive to steal than someone else’s.
• Choose a security routine you can follow like a second nature.
• Lock both wheels—Use a long, 11-inch U-lock and a chain, or two short U-locks. Whatever.
• Ask a decent bike store about locking bike skewers, which can make it harder for thieves to take your wheels.
• If you lock your bike up outside overnight, get six feet of transport chain and a mini U-lock, which always stays locked to the railing or pole where you lock the bike.
• Don’t leave easily removable do-dads on your bike, like lights, unless you are in a gift-giving mood.

Here are some of my guiding principles about bicycle security:

Cheap bike: Expensive lock

All you can ever do is make it harder to steal your bike. Make sure yours is harder to steal than the next person’s. This should rule out virtually all cable locks, unless they’re shackled. Bike stores have lots of cute little quarter-inch cable locks in designer colours, and priced for impulse buying. If you must, buy them to give to someone you do not like.

Looks (and locks) can be deceiving

A bike thief is making a spur-of-the-moment decision; making your bike look hard to steal doesn’t hurt a bit.

Funny story: Back in 2006, I had a BikeGuard shackled cable lock—steel aircraft cable, strung with overlapping armour steel tubes, or shackles—swaged (secured) at either end. The virtue of the design was the hardness of bar steel, and flexibility of cable; the flaw was BikeGuard used cheap cable—which broke one day—rusted through. The shackles fell off like beads off a broken necklace. I hadn’t the cash to buy a new lock, and just enough time to buy duct tape from a corner store. I got it all back together, with super glue and duct tape; covering my handiwork with a bicycle inner-tube.

I ended up using that duct taped lock for nearly six months; binners at bottle depots, eyed it and said, “man, that’s a serious lock!” At one point, I saw a film downtown. Unlocking my bike afterwards, I noticed two rough tears through the inner-tube rubber, matched with faint scratches on the steel shackles.

While I was in the theatre, someone had tried to cut the shackles with a hacksaw—twice. They could’ve easily pulled it apart with their bare hands.

Think like a thief, and a victim

If you consider what you think would make your ride unattractive for a thief, consider also what you’d feel like if some, or all, of your bike was stolen. What would be worse, losing the front or the back wheel. What if someone just took your seat? A lot of bike theft is for parts: a thief steals a bike a block away, only locked by the back wheel, and look, here’s yours, only locked by the front.

I was talking to a Fairview resident a few weeks ago, who had just locked his expensive road bike to a railing in a lane—locking just the front wheel to the railing. He said he thought the back wheel was harder to steal. No it’s not but it is the more expensive one to replace.

I’ll never really trust cylinder-key locks

I have one U-lock which incorporates some aircraft cable, and takes a cylinder key, but it’s a special case. In general, I avoid locks which use a cylinder key, because lots of them may still be susceptible to the “Bic pen trick.”

As I was becoming homeless in late 2004, a scandal involving Kryptonite locks was boiling over. Krypto had known for some time their cylinder-keyed U-locks were easily opened with nothing more than a plastic pen barrel. Kryptonite had set up a Web-based product recall, and I got a free, new, and improved, Krypro U-lock. Executive summary. Got a part-time job in a bookstore in the Downtown Eastside. Owner wouldn’t let be put my bike in the back room. Had to lock it to a pole outside the store. Thank goodness I had the new Kryptonite U-lock! The second day, thieves stole the bike, and the lock!

Cylinder key locks still exist, and I read that the current generation is immune to the plastic tube trick. But I still do not trust them. And I avoid Kryptonite locks, in large part because, in 2001, they became a division of the very diversified U.S. defence contractor Ingersoll Rand.

Do what you can

A crappy lock is better than no lock. Get the kind of security that fits your ride, your budget, and your style, so that it’s easy to use all the time. A big huge, heavy lock might be super secure, but so cumbersome for you that you’ll make excuses why you don’t need it just to ride to the corner store.

My six foot, hard-to-cut, transport chain, with a Master mini U-lock — but I need a bike trailer to carry it.

How I’ve locked up my bikes

Before I became a homeless person, as it where, I was a long time, dedicated, cyclist.

In 22 years, I have owned six bicycles, and have had two of them stolen. For nearly 12 years, I dutifully removed my front wheel (I had quick release wheels), and locked it together with my back wheel to secure sign poles, using the longest, best U-locks that I could buy. Then I experimented with carrying one long, and one short U-lock. Then there was my brush with shackled cable locks, which I talk a bit about above. After that, I invested in three feet of hard security chain, with a mini U-lock. When I got my first trailer, I had to lock it also. Currently I’m doing that using a heavy, six-foot transport chain, with a mini U-lock.

This one, six-foot chain allows me to lock the trailer frame and the bike frame and both bike wheels, to a sign pole. I also still carry the three foot chain, in case, and some U-locks, but I have a bike trailer to carry all that steel.

My favourite way to lock to a pole.