There are two kinds of bike thieves, the kind that target any bike with weak security and sell it for $20 and the kind that are specifically targeting $3000 bikes in an organized fashion for whom no bike lock will be an effective deterrent if your bike is parked somewhere unattended for a long time or in the same place on a recognizable schedule.

Yeah, we had one of the latter kind get taken down here in Austin last year: http://keyetv.com/news/local/austin-police-arrest-man-connec...

Connected to 97 thefts of bikes valued from $1k to $12k, including taking only "the most expensive one" of the several owned by the fella interviewed in that story.

Although he really was exploiting a weakness, in that people figured their bikes would be safe in their closed-up garages. I wonder if a good lock would have been enough to make him move on to the next target on his list.

Maybe its just because I am a cyclist and have an emotional attachment to my bike (a 90s bianchi with campagnolo components that I paid $100 at a pawn shop for... which probably means it was stolen)

but I truly despise bicycle thieves.

Well, if your $100 dollar bike is locked-up with a beefy u-lock next to other $100 bikes with flimsy cable locks...