I've had an empty Yakima rack stolen off a car in my driveway via the crowbar method.  Remember that the rack itself is worth some coin.  The car next to it also had a Yakima rack, but with rain gutter mounts and they couldn't pry those off.  They ruined the trim on the car trying though.  Three bikes stolen from my parent's garage a couple of decades ago.  They took one because my dad left the garage door open.  A couple of weeks later they came back when nobody was home and collected the rest.

Right now all my bikes are locked up in the garage.  Like you said, I'm hoping that will slow them down enough to where it isn't worth it.  Maybe they won't just smash or hacksaw the frames to collect the components.

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 9:11 AM, mike via Bike-racers <bike-racers@mailman.swcp.com> wrote:
In the interest of conversation, I’ve been wondering about keeping my bikes from getting stolen by learning from other’s tragedies.

It seems like mostly the stolen bikes have had a cable cut.

How many have lost a bike that’s had a chain or U-lock cut/broken?

I’ve heard of lots of the bikes taken off of racks. I’m assuming these are racks that hold bikes with both wheels attached. How many bikes have been stolen where the bikes are attached with a fork mount (with the front wheel removed)?

My theory is that it’s easy to just ride a bike away, but the extra time it takes to defeat the lock AND  remove the fork from a rack makes my bike a less attractive target. Especially if there’s no front wheel to ride away on. It is a couple extra steps to secure the bike, however, for me it’s worth it. Yes, they can steal the bike with no front wheel, but it’s not as attractive as an entire bike.
It depends on how much your bike or bling on your bike is worth.

I wonder about bikes stolen from garages. Are both wheels on the bike in the garage?
Even in the garage, I take the front wheel off. If I’m gone for any length of time I lock my bikes with a chain. Although inside the garage a thief has much more time to defeat my security.

The bottom line is that anything can be stolen. The trick is to make my stuff not worth the extra effort. Thieves are looking for an easy target. My task is to balance the effort to secure my stuff with the effort to use it.

What systems have worked? Have you found evidence of someone attempting to steal your bike, but were defeated? What was your system?

Just wonderin’
mike lucero






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