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It sounds like a lanyard-- a cable looped through the wheels and u-lock-- would have prevented the wheel thefts you reference... or at least shifted the theft to other bikes :(
I think cross locking --using a u-lock *and* separate cable lock-- is as good if not better than 2 u-locks. Howard, I don't recall ever seeing a cross locked bike on the SBR. Have you? Can you generate reports from the data on that site? Anecdotally, I do think u-lock cutting type theft is on the rise and predict an explosion this summer...
People snake wheels because they are easy to get so any kind of lock or cable is going to slow them down and shift the theft to the next bike in line.
I use two u-locks (front frame and wheel to bike rack, back frame and wheel to bike rack, if there's room) and I have a thick cable that I snake through my seat and rear wheel and attach that to the rear u-lock.
It might be overkill, but when a bike thief is sizing up the options on the block, I'm pretty sure mine looks like it's more work than it's worth.
Many, many, many.
No way to filter for them though-- will have to ask Paul if we can reflect cross-locked bikes somehow in the stats. I think one of the most recent two or three is one such though, for example. There's a "stats" page but it does a not-so-great job of telling the story as people select the wrong thing more often than I have time to thoroughly edit (for example about one out of 3 victims select U-lock when no U-lock was compromised to steal the bike-- we've tried various changes to the way the choices are presented but nothing helps).
Howard, I just read through 10 pages of theft reports on the Stolen Bike Registry without seeing a single one which listed that both a U-lock and separate cable lock were used.
In addition, there is no way to indicate both or cross locked under "lock type".
I am going to respectfully disagree with your assertion that using a lanyard or separate cable lock in addition to a U-lock is of little help. Both prevent wheels, saddles or whatever it is looped around from being stolen without *some* kind of tool. The cable lock is another thing to cut, slowing down the theft, albiet slightly.
Reconsidering my previous post, I think that using 2 *modern* style u-locks, the shackles of each must be twice, or four cuts total, is vastly superior to one each U & cable locks.
But answering the question, using a cable/cable lock to secure wheels is a good idea.
H3N3 said:Many, many, many.
No way to filter for them though-- will have to ask Paul if we can reflect cross-locked bikes somehow in the stats. I think one of the most recent two or three is one such though, for example. There's a "stats" page but it does a not-so-great job of telling the story as people select the wrong thing more often than I have time to thoroughly edit (for example about one out of 3 victims select U-lock when no U-lock was compromised to steal the bike-- we've tried various changes to the way the choices are presented but nothing helps).
I did say that you can't search for cross-locked bikes-- not sure how that resulted in a "disagreement."
The very top listing at the moment is a cross-locked bike-- how could you miss that?"
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