Also second-hand and rusty ones are better than new ones. Some Dutch cities have a free-of-charge engraving mechanism where you basically engrave a serial number on a bike to make it easier to track down stolen bikes, as well as to know that you're not actually buying a stolen bike.

Also, you'll be responsible if you're caught with a stolen bike, which is a nice deterrent to actually use a reliable source when purchasing a bike. Shops act as a middlemen between you and the person selling the bike, and they're responsible for making sure that the bike you're purchasing from them isn't stolen. On the downside, that drives the cost up a bit, but on the bright side, you usually get some months of warranty period in which they'll repair your bike free of charge in case anything happens to it.

That advice predates the battery-powered angle grinder, which many bike thieves in Western Europe now use. Even the toughest, most expensive U-lock can be broken in about a minute with an angle grinder.

2 locks is indeed the standard in big cities. Also make sure they are sold secure gold rated or Art 3. Anything else is a waste of money. There are a few new lock types which are supposed to work better against angle grinders like Tex-lock or LitLok.

Because the average bike price is going up it also becomes interesting to steal parts. A decent handlebar + shifters are easy to sell individually. Companys like Hexlox or Pinheads are working on locks to tackle that.

That's an interesting point. Doesn't that make a folding full-size bike the only real solution?

Something like Changebike DF-611MB:

https://www.changebike.com/df-611mb

> There are a few new lock types which are supposed to work better against angle grinders like Tex-lock or LitLok.

After a quick search...

Tex-lock cut in 32 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ictBpMHKhK0&t=1m20s

LitLok cut in 16 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On0DGcDlc&t=1m25s

Presumably if it's actually his bike, he'll be thankful.

Of course, my confidence to do so was buoyed by the fact there were two other bikers parking at the same time as me, it was in a busy public area, and I was wearing a bunch of leather and kevlar.

Or get two different ones. Bike thieves specialize on one or two specific locks and prefer easy targets.

On the other hand there are multiple trails which I can and will use now that spring/summer is here.

I think the reluctance to use bikes for basic transport is more to do with lack of space on the road rather than theft.

side note: the ubiquitous Japanese bike style you're referring to is called "mamachari"

I did feel a major sense of safety in Tokyo, however.

I have a number of friends with anecdotes about forgetting items on a bus/train and the lengths to which individuals or companies will go to return them is pretty impressive.

Once you accept that, it's not that much money. The bad part is that you can never buy that Really Nice bike you'd really want.

I'd neither, but a friend of mine did. He got his bike insured (replacement value), for a pretty reasonable amount, considering. And AFAIK most people with expensive bikes do, which is probably also the reason police is not too keen on acting.

Pros: Never had a bike stolen

Cons: Can't really just ride it somewhere and let it sit all day.

My use cases have been:

1) Commute to work (my work let me bring it up to my office to park it during the day)

2) Ride somewhere and back home (always parked in my dwelling)

3) Ride it to maybe a place to eat, but park it literally outside the window, locked, so I can watch it while I eat.

Sucks I can't just do whatever with it, but I have a beater if I needed to do that.

Morale hazard:

https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-definitions/morale-hazar...

Which is one of the reasons I don't have one, that and the types of drivers make it more dangerous, got better from my observations, but still, I'll walk more as unlike the country - not as far to go for most things.

That and if I'd endured a few thefts, I'd just end up getting angry and knocking up a bobytrapped bike and probably go too far and that's probably another reason for me to not own a bycicle. Though I did checkly suggest upon twitter once to the local police that they should have a bait bike, maybe has a spike in the seat that raises up. They liked the idea with supportive comment. But I'm sure it would not playout well legally. Besides, imagine some poor person, drunk for the first time, gets on the wrong bike by mistake. Though I'd probably build some form of electric shock into it, though again, I'd know I'd go too far.

Reminds me of an initiative in Amsterdam many decades back, 90's era iirc. The city had put a a large number of bikes in town for people to use, park up, free for all to use - early bike hire, ride and drop thing without any paying - just free use bikes. Coz what happened was people stole many of them, not everybody lived in Amsterdam and with that, maybe a good initiative, but needs to be done on a large scale to work.

Until then, i'd not buy anything new, second hand end-user type of affair as locks are just not that good and anything close to good would be more than the cost of a use and abuse bike.

Racing bikes don't need locks, since you stall them at your garage or a private place during the night.

Bike theft is usually common in student cities, were cheap bikes have cheap locks and one "steals" from another. The more expensive ones (> 400 €) are normally not stolen, since they also have more decent locks.

Also, bikes can be engraved ( eg. like a serial number).

Fyi: My bike is parked at a "big" train station at night (in Bruges) and it never got stolen in 2 years.

Of course it's mostly a problem at universities and train stations at night, where you can find big bike racks and no-one around. Lesser locks might be fine away from crime hotspots.

Are you happy spending 2 or 3 hundred dollars on burning gas within 3 months?