Well, my bike is insured, and I bought a recently released angle grinder-resistant lock [1].

My workspace is also fairly well located so that also helps.

[1] https://eu.litelok.com/products/litelok-x1

Are you locking your bike to something angle grinder resistant when out and about?

The last bike I had stolen was from an underground bike store, behind two armoured locked doors and locked to a permanent bike-rack embedded in concrete. Thieves didn't cut a single lock, instead they cut all the bike-racks and emptied the place.

As with nearly all security, nothing is perfect. You are just raising the bar high enough to lower risk to an acceptable level. Cutting an entire row of racks and hauling off all the bikes is a bigger, noisier, longer job, requiring more coordination, than taking one. It presents more risk to the thieves themselves, which means there are going to be fewer thieves willing or able to take it on.

The concern I have (in NYC FWIW) is that someone will see they can’t steal the bike and will instead just trash the thing while it’s still locked. Maybe I’m too pessimistic.

That's pretty much my experience in the city where I used to live. I'd regularly pass bikes securly locked to some post or other but with the front wheel stoved in and bent. I always assumed a would-be thief had done it in a fit of pique, after failing to get the lock open.

Drunk assholes smash random stuff all the time without first trying to steal it.

Bicycle wheels are unfortunately easily bent by kicks from the side.

These days it seems worth it to get a folding bike. I am currently trying to get one myself so I don't have to worry about it getting stolen OR trashed. I just fold it up and take it inside where nobody will touch it

Insurance won’t get you to work.

And if you don’t need it to get to work you don’t need a car in the first place, so I wouldnt see a point in comparing.

You can take a cab on the one day you're without a bike.

Most bike insurance include covering the cost of paying for a taxi or other transport alternative on the day of your bike theft.

This is the same company that creates the touted highly secure LiteLok Gold that LPL cuts in 16s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On0DGcDlc

I'm skeptical of any bike lock's security that is not reviewed by LPL.

  >I bought a recently released angle grinder-resistant lock [1]....

€169 --Jeebus! My bike didn't even cost that much.

Then you don't need this lock for your bike. - Cptn Obvious

Not neccessarily, it depends on the environment. In some places even bikes in the sub 160€ range are at danger of being stolen.

I think you'd want a tetanus shot just by looking at my girlfriends bike with too much insistence.

We still lock it with a chain but I guess that is a good deterrent as there is always a nicer bike that looks more worth the effort on the same rack.

My car is insured, and I'm not sure how you would steal it given that when I lost my key to a cheap car from the 1990s about 15 years ago it cost a fortune to get a new key made which would actually start the engine thanks to the immobilizer. The majority of car thefts are stealing the keys.

Yeah I agree with the general sentiment of the comment but that point I think is wrong.

Yeah mine goes from my apartment to my work's underground parking so little risk here. Would be way more wary if I had to park it on the street