You'll still have a bad looking bike, but at least it will be mechanically much nicer than your fifth-hand rusting omafiets.
Since I started doing that I never had a bike stolen in 15 years, despite living in Rotterdam and Utrecht (big cities) and buying 3 new bikes in that time.
PS: I had a old/ugly bike that I had for 16 years in Davis, CA that I still locked and it was stolen from an apt complex the one and only time I forgot to lock it. There are thieves whom ride around in cargo trucks stealing bikes wholesale, in addition to people whom just "borrow" bikes and dump them whereever.
Amsterdam is a smalll place so having a fluro green bike with a number plate of your name welded to the frame is a good deterrent.
Drilling for rivets is also dangerous when done incorrectly. You do not want to be riding at full steam when the frame cracks, it's nasty.
High carbon, stainless, and fancy stuff is where you can run into problems. In general you won't see this on car or bike frames, too expensive in bulk.
If it's a newer bike it's probably aluminum which you can usually still weld with impunity. If it was high grade alloy the heat could matter, but as far as I know nobody cares that much about bike frames. Heat treatment, or "seasoning" in the case of some aluminum is expensive.
Source: used to cut up old bikes and weld the frames into crazy chariot contraptions we would tow around
Steel is real, man. It'll bend, not break.
But in seriousness, yeah, I was following very closely behind a fellow who snapped his fork jumping over a bump in the road. I almost went over him. Despite the helmet, he lost memory of the accident. I called an ambulance for him and left my number. He called me the next day asking what had happened.
It was a nice aluminum frame, looked in good condition. Always check carefully for hairline fractures when buying a used aluminum bike.
I agree about the shitty-ness, it is less likely to attract attention and you feel less bad leaving it out on the streets but I think most people would prefer to ride a nicer bike if only people with keep their hands off your property.
Some people, particularly teenagers and students, can be quite creative in dirtying up their bike. A friend in school had glued sand to her bike, and then painted it. Quite a unique look. But it got stolen anyway, and when she found it, the thief had scraped all the sand off.
But there are many reasons why a bike might look ratty. The owner really could have had that bike for a long time, it could be second-hand (or more likely fifth-hand or something), it could have been stolen, it could have been found in the trash and refurbished, it could have been ratty'd up to prevent it from getting stolen, or it might be someone's artistic expression.
But in big cities it's certainly not unusual that the lock is the most expensive part of a bike.
We actually started an initiative to tackle this issue. So, in case you HATE BIKE THEFT as much as we do, give our FB page a like (https://www.facebook.com/AgainstBikeTheft/) and sign our petition (bit.ly/bikes-petition) aiming on getting more focus on the problem. It'd be a huge help for us.
We're also building an active solution - again, check the website and FB.
Yeah, having your bike stolen sucks, particularly if on your way back home from a night at De School but whatever... still cheaper (and healthier and fun)
Get it over, or you can go live a couple years in Rome and learn what it means to live in a hideous car-infested city.
The small open garden is really pleasant, though unfortunately it closes early (maybe 3-4am?). It's a nice respite from the steamy floor.
I like the art installations too.
Out of ADE my last time there was back in December, wasn't really fond of many clubs in Amsterdam but De School is definitely one of the best, definitely worth checking it out and I'm going again now in the end of June :)
You've got to admit that the Trouw was good on its own merits, not just because of the poor alternatives (but then go check out the OT or the Bunker. Have you been there?)
Take a trip anywhere outside the center during rush hour and it's a completely different story.
Because it seems like a relatively small policing effort could enable a massive improvement in quality of life.
In case you HATE BIKE THEFT as much as we do, give our FB page a like (https://www.facebook.com/AgainstBikeTheft/) and sign our petition (bit.ly/bikes-petition) aiming on getting more focus on the problem.
We're also building an active solution - again, check the website and FB.
http://www.nhnieuws.nl/nieuws/207931/Fietsendief-in-Amsterda...
The problem is that the police have other stuff to do, and they might as well be pissing in the wind with the amount of bike theft here. They could do a huge crackdown, but that's unsustainable and after the crackdown we'll be right back to the same theft rate.
Interestingly there was a case this year (currently going through appeals) where a judge ruled that a man stealing a bicycle in a residential neighborhood should be found not guilty because the police had created the circumstances of the bike's theft:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/01/decoy-bikes-sh...
It's unclear what that means for bicycle entrapment in general, but an article in Parool (again, in Dutch) suggested that this may have implications for the methods of the Amsterdam police depending on how it goes:
http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/4/AMSTERDAM/article/detail/42...
Actually, there's evidence that a sustained crackdown can succeed in changing norms. I believe that the biking rate in Copenhagen is almost as high as Amsterdam but the theft rate is far lower. Norms matter. Here's an example:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/15/buenos_aires_...
How about using CCTV at bicycle locking points? Combined with satellite imagery it should be a relatively non-resource intensive way to catch the thiefs. Of course, there's still the question of whether a surveillance-based solution is worse than the crime it's meant to address.
Now you have two problems -- and a freezing cold wind coming in from the wide open Overton window.
(I never had my bike stolen, living in an urban area in the south of the Netherlands. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen there... if you leave your bike standing in odd places, it may well be gone when you come back. One way employed by thieves was to drive around with a van and just pick up any bikes that were standing around, locked or not, in broad daylight or not.)
I've lived in Amsterdam for the last 9 years and the only bike I've had stolen was one that I didn't lock.... I even still have a bike sitting in a rack outside my house that has been mine for 18 years.
I'm riding a fancy looking €1000 bike daily, have been for the last four years, I lock it with just the default ring through the back wheel when I go into a shop or something, and use the chain I have to lock it to a bike rack. It's even insured if I just use the simple lock.
Thanks to some nice tax breaks (meaning you can get a bike for up to 49% off though your employer (look for 'fietsplan')) I am actually on the hunt for a new bike. :-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chor_Bazaar
[2] http://www.indiatimes.com/culture/who-we-are/14-reasons-you-...
Is it typical for a 13mm+ Ulock in Amsterdam to get broken?
https://www.citylab.com/navigator/2014/10/your-u-lock-is-bas...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Kryptonite-Evolution-Mini-Bike-U-Lock...
There's a god-botherer in my city who gets old bikes, attaches a placard with how you're all going to hell if you don't let jesus into your life, and then leaves them around the city... locked with homemade steel u-bolt locks filled with concrete, so that authorities have more trouble getting rid of them. Admittedly they're not valuable bikes, but I've never heard of one being stolen...
Thinner chains are easily cut, as I experienced when my son list his keys. Proper ring locks are also impossible to cut, but they only lock the rear wheel and don't lock the bike to an object, so it can still be carried away.
The best strategy, I find, is to avoid leaving the bike in theft 'hot spots', especially in the weekend. If that can't be avoided, make sure to put the bike behind another bike, preferable a fancy one or one with a shitty lock.
Ever since, I try parking my bike near one that looks better and is locked worse than mine.
It's just that even all that isn't always good enough if the homeless guy or professional bike thief has a power-cutter thingy.
But that's what multiple bike shop owners told me and they all wanted to sell me a lock, so I don't know if this is true.
Edit: Oh, I forget. O-locks are also very convenient if your bike is still within eyesight and you just want to avoid run-by-thefts. Perfect if you're popping into a shop for food or cigarettes or whatnot.
You can't easily open the lock, but as people can still walk away with the bike it isn't a real deterrent either.
It's not hard to break a modern lock but it requires more than a screwdriver.
Yes. One thing that still works is to get two different high-end locks and to always use both. Most thieves specialize in one lock only. But I'd still not leave a decent bike outside over night.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cold+spray+bike...
You're supposed to be somewhat discreet when doing that, not warning everyone.
Most people's locks can be cut with a strong set of shears. The other ones are usually not worth spending your time on unless it's everything there is. In which case, like @jacquesm said, freezing temperatures are an excellent solution. More of a middle of the night thing though. Shears work 24/7.
Well I guess it means that you can't leave your bike unlocked in parts of Amsterdam, which is a shame.
What you said is mostly for true for major cities though.
When I was in Tokyo I saw hundreds of bikes unlocked. There was a poster with a security photo saying "bike thief." My wife mentioned it was likely that person had just grabbed the wrong bike.
I'm not saying bike theft doesn't happen in Japan, it just seems to be significantly more rare in Japan compared to most other places.
I remember hearing San Francisco was trying to cut down on the secondhand market as a way to reduce bike theft. I see Japan has a registration system for bikes. I wonder how much that contributes?
It's sad to me that people take this for granted. I've lived in place that don't and they are wonderful to expect that petty theft is rare. In many countries though it's so common that there's generations of people that seem to just think "that's the way the world is". It's not, it's the way we let it be.
This is similar in SF. I don't know how quickly a bike will be stolen there but cars are broken into on such a regular basis that often you can walk down a street and see broken glass every 3rd or 4th parking space from someone breaking into all the cars on that section of the street. Again it seems super solvable with a few honeypot cars and seems like it would do much to make people's lives better (have had my cars broken into 7 times in California)
In hindsight I realize I was probably wrong to contribute to this ecosystem, but the way I saw it, I was feeding the homeless to provide a social good.
You don't say?
Most people I know stopped buying junkie bikes once they started making a bit more money though, so it's still generally frowned upon. It's just culturally not quite the same as outright theft (again, I don't approve of this personally but even I once bought a probably-stolen bike once).
I've never heard of that, and it even has its own English Wikipedia page! How can I be so out of touch?
> the bike crime level is so high, no sense in buying half-decent bike
> no way I buy a lock that costs more than bike
> [the lock can be cut by bolt cutter in a few seconds]
> [the lock gets cut, the bike gets stolen]
> omg, they stole my bike! Gotta buy another cheap one
15 years, noones touched it... San Francisco, which probably doesn't come far after Amsterdam in terms of bike theft.
1. http://www.iamexpat.nl/blog/culture/amsterdam-wins-european-...