The Chainlink

So it looks like there are still bike thieves in the City of Chicago and that bike owners are still determined to make it easy for them. We had a modest increase (5%) in reports to the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry in 2013 after a whopping 42% increase from 2011 to 2012. The spreadsheet for the period of 2010 through 2013 is attached, but the numbers that stick out for me:

59% of thefts reported to the CSBR last year were of bikes which either weren’t locked (26.5%) or were locked with only some form of cable lock (32.6%).

Another 27.6% of reports to the CSBR were of bikes with a locking method identified as “Other.” The “Other” category has been a topic of discussion in past threads because this is sometimes an option selected by the victim and sometimes an option selected by the CSBR admins. Victims are asked to select "Other" when no lock was cut or broken to steal the bike, and admittedly, this fact is sometimes difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty. The admin protocol is to make the change when the narrative makes it clear that a lock wasn't defeated to steal the bike. "Other" includes by way of example, bikes which were only locked to themselves (regardless of lock type); bikes which are locked only through the front wheel (regardless of lock type) and the bike is stolen by leaving the wheel locked to the rack and taking the rest; bikes which were locked (regardless of lock type) to a sucker pole, wooden or iron fence, and the object which it was locked to was obviously broken or defeated.

Only 4.4% of reports to the CSBR were of bikes locked to a bike rack with a newer U-Lock. It’s that easy to minimize your risk of being a theft victim.

Register your bike. Write down your serial number. Take a picture of your bike. Don’t lock your bike and leave it in a common area that other people can access. Don’t lock your bike with some form of cable lock as your only security device. Don’t lock your bike to a fence or a sucker pole. Don’t leave your unlocked bike in front of a store, on your back porch, in a garage or in a yard. Bike thieves can and do climb fences and stairs.

CSBR%202010-2013%20FINAL%201%2027%2014.pdf

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This poster is an effective, simple diagram of what to do, published by BART, the "CTA" of San Francisco.  The only thing I'd add: is to include the bike rack inside Lock #2, along with the frame and wheel, so that the bike is attached at two points and can't be swung up as a giant lever, to break a single lock attached to a rack.

And make sure your bike is perpendicular to the rack just like in the picture :-)
 
Thunder Snow said:

This poster is an effective, simple diagram of what to do, published by BART, the "CTA" of San Francisco.  The only thing I'd add: is to include the bike rack inside Lock #2, along with the frame and wheel, so that the bike is attached at two points and can't be swung up as a giant lever, to break a single lock attached to a rack.

Yep, better to have two well-locked bikes placed parallel to the rack than 4 half-locked bikes perpendicular to the rack, as shown, though some cyclists consider this selfish.
 
h' 1.0 said:

And make sure your bike is perpendicular to the rack just like in the picture :-)

This picture shows lock one attaching the rear wheel and frame to the rack, lock two only locking the wheel to frame.  I'm suggesting that an improvement over this is to make sure lock two also locks to the rack, like lock one, even if it means turning the bike 90 degrees.
 
Cameron 7.5 mi said:

Is lock #2 not attached to the rack, or has MC Escher taken up cycling?

That's what I was trying to say.... if they make a poster version of this available for sale I hope it's blacklight-ready.

 Cameron 7.5 mi said:

Is lock #2 not attached to the rack, or has MC Escher taken up cycling?

Holy cow.... I stared at this for a stupid long time and could not see that the front lock was not actually attached to the rack.  It appeared to defy physics hence the MC Escher comment.

 

Edit-- or Tom cleverly substituted a different image since we last looked...
 
Thunder Snow said:

This picture shows lock one attaching the rear wheel and frame to the rack, lock two only locking the wheel to frame.  I'm suggesting that an improvement over this is to make sure lock two also locks to the rack, like lock one, even if it means turning the bike 90 degrees.
 
Cameron 7.5 mi said:

Is lock #2 not attached to the rack, or has MC Escher taken up cycling?

Okaaaayyyy--so maybe this isn't such a great illustration if it's that confusing.  Any graphic designers among the Chainlink ranks who can create the official Chainlink "good locking practices" poster, showing two U-locks locking frame, wheels and rack at two points?  I still like the little cable snippers warning at the bottom.
 
h' 1.0 said:

Holy cow.... I stared at this for a stupid long time and could not see that the front lock was not actually attached to the rack.  It appeared to defy physics hence the MC Escher comment.

 

Edit-- or Tom cleverly substituted a different image since we last looked...
 

It's actually a good trick (as good as millions of dollars of marketing research can come up with) if you're trying to get someone to look at something to make it just a bit visually confusing.

But now that I realize that the second lock is not locked to the rack, I'm less enthused.
 
Thunder Snow said:

Okaaaayyyy--so maybe this isn't such a great illustration if it's that confusing.  Any graphic designers among the Chainlink ranks who can create the official Chainlink "good locking practices" poster, showing two U-locks locking frame, wheels and rack at two points?  I still like the little cable snippers warning at the bottom.
 
h' 1.0 said:

Holy cow.... I stared at this for a stupid long time and could not see that the front lock was not actually attached to the rack.  It appeared to defy physics hence the MC Escher comment.

 

Edit-- or Tom cleverly substituted a different image since we last looked...
 

Thankfully, these wave racks aren't as popular in Chicago as simple inverted-U "staple racks", so taking up multiple spaces to double-lock your bike isn't much of an issue.  With the municipal staple racks, just lock each wheel and the frame to each side of the inverted U and no one will complain that you're taking up too much of the rack.

This is crude, but should eliminate the graphic error in the BART poster.

Attachments:

I still feel "uglifying" your bike may reduce the risk of theft. Bikes with ugly paint, masking tape, stickers ect... make the bike less appealing to pawn shops and the infamous Ashland Swap O Rama. Although if the bike is high end ($1,000 plus) then I could see this tactic not working. The bike thieves would be able to chop up the expensive bike parts. Harbor Freight just had a sale for a cordless angle grinder for like $50 bucks. That is pretty scary. And I have seen, what I believe to be, professional bike thieves roaming around downtown in white vans.

Jeff, I think you could take a chainsaw and saw a U-lock on a bike downtown on a weekday at 10AM and don't think people would even call 911.

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