Introduction, and request for tips locking in a shared bike cage

[dwillen]

This is my second post here. My first one is over in the lost and found (re: stolen) section.

A brief introduction: I lived and biked in St. Paul MN, Davis CA, Pittsburgh PA, and Boston MA. I cofounded a bike non-profit during my time in Pittsburgh that works to offer social and fun group bike rides, with a focus on safety, to all level of cyclists. Link for those who are interested. I look forward to meeting each of you, and joining the cycling community in Arlington.

I moved to town a few weeks ago, and was overjoyed to learn my apartment had a locked cage in the parking garage for bikes. No more wife yelling at me for tripping over dirty bikes inside the apartment, I thought!

In less than two weeks, my bicycle has become a unicycle. The problem I face is that there doesn’t seem to be a very effective way to lock a bike in a cage like this. It isn’t possible to U-lock the frame to the cage with the bike hanging on the hook. Currently, I have a u-lock around the rear wheel (the most expensive part of this particular bike), and a cable connecting the rest. I thought that within a locked cage, this would be sufficient.

To properly secure my bikes against future theft, by my estimates, I would need at least 3 u-locks for each bike: rear wheel to cage, rear wheel to frame, front wheel to frame or cage. Just incase, I have contacted Kryptonite to see if they could cut me a deal on a bunch of locks with the same key. In total, we have three bikes, so this isn’t the most efficient or economical solution. In the short term, I have purchased a set of gravity locking QR skewers (flip the bike to undo the QR), but I understand that a reasonably determined thief (which is what I seem to have on my hands) will have no trouble with these, and I don’t know how well they work with the bike hanging at 90 degrees. I’m not aware if there are cameras in the garage and there are very few passersby, so theoretically someone has all the time in the world to defeat superficial security measures.

Anyone have experience with this type of problem? Any advice?

Topic

[Tim Kelley]

Why not just take off the front wheel, set it next to the back wheel and run one u-lock through both wheels, the rear triangle and the cage?

That being said, if you have a nice bike that you’re worried about having stolen, keeping it in your apartment is the way to go. I also live in Ballston and our secure bike cage has been broken into and multiple (like 20!) bikes were removed all at once. You don’t know who has access to the garages, and it’s easy enough to piggyback on someone coming in.

So yeah, that’s why we have 6 bikes and a jogging stroller in our apartment, new mountain bike not shown:

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[dwillen]

Unfortunately, there is no way to hang the bike up on the wall hooks and lock anything but a wheel to the cage using a u-lock. Maybe a thick chain? If I had known the cage was more useless as locking out on the street I would have opted for a larger apartment. Right now, I would need to throw away furniture to have anywhere to put a single bike, let alone 3.

Did the management of your building do anything in response to the mass theft? 20 at once seems like it would require some amount of police investigation?

[DCAKen]

How about a locking skewer for the front wheel? I use a Pitlock skewer, but there are others.

[vvill]

If I really had no other choice (I would probably figure out *some* way of keeping the bike in the apartment, furniture be damned), I’d get the thickest, heaviest chain lock from Kryptonite or OnGuard, and add two u-locks. Maybe even look at a bike alarm. But with a history of what sounds like quite petty theft, I wouldn’t want to use the same bike cage again.

[Steve]

I’m sure you’ve tried to figure out different ways to store them in the APT, but here’s some pretty cool ideas, some pricey, some less pricey:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/12-space-saving-bike-rack-solutions

[Amalitza]

I was a supporter of TiGr lock kickstarter project, so I have one. http://tigrlock.com/ It’s long enough to secure frame and both wheels, at least on my bikes (which admittedly aren’t particularly long-framed). I’m not really picturing how you lock your bike to the cage, so I’m not sure if you would still need another lock to secure the bike to cage or not. They’re pricey as heck, but probably less so than 3 high-quality u-locks per bike. As far as I know, no one’s ever tried to steal my bike, so I can’t offer first-hand experience regarding theft-resistance. They have nice videos of the designers trying to break them, but they are trying to sell locks, and I am not a bike thief, so I view that with a certain amount of skepticism that I assume I don’t have the expertise to judge– make your own call on that, please. If you want to look at mine and see if it’s something that might work for you, send me a pm.

That said, I agree with vvill. If people are going to break into the cage to take a wheel, seems like they’d just take the seat or something else removable if you make the wheels hard to get to. Doesn’t sound much like somewhere I’d want to store my bikes, regardless of the quality of locks, if I had any choice in the matter at all.

[MRH5028]

My apartment complex also has a locked cage, but I refuse to use it because of the risk of theft and the annoyance of having to go to parking garage when I want to ride. My wife does not like my bikes inside the apartment through. Luckily our balcony is fairly well protected from rain, so I bought a bike cover and put my bike out there. I bring it in during bad storms etc. No rust or other damage to speak of so far.

If you have a balcony that has a roof or is well protected I would recommend looking into a bike cover. That or a less clumsy wife who looks where she is going

[vvill]

Of course, another option is to sell your bike and get a Brompton.

When I lived in an apartment in Falls Church, I stored my bike on the balcony too. (Without a cover. It did get rusty.)

[MRH5028]

@vvill 44238 wrote:

Of course, another option is to sell your bike and get a Brompton.

When I lived in an apartment in Falls Church, I stored my bike on the balcony too. (Without a cover. It did get rusty.)

I do worry about rust, but the cover does a good job of keeping moisture away. I also check it regularly for any signs of rust, in addition to making sure everything is properly lubed up.

[Terpfan]

Where we live now they have a bike room that is in one of the condo buildings and then in a locked basement type room. So it requires two keys just to get into the room. So my bigger problem is less the securing of the bike and more that there are tons of people who leave their bikes in the first row and then never ride them. I even put a note on one once for a month saying, “if you’re not planning to ride frequently, could you kindly leave the front row open?” A month later, I realized the bike hadn’t moved and I decided to check their tire pressure, which was of course flat given they probably hadn’t ridden in months, if not a year. But I guess that’s a better problem than worrying about the security of my bike. The woman above us has a very nice road (or maybe it’s touring) bike that she lugs up to her place every time she rides.

[KLizotte]

This was posted to the Feds On Bikes listserv yesterday:

Bike theft is a problem worldwide and last night our office building in Salem Oregon had a bike stolen from the bike cage from the parking garage.
This is the second time a bike has been stolen from this same cage. After the first time a coded door lock was added to the inside and outside of the door and crossbars were added to the walls.
Unfortunately, no crossbars were added to the door and that’s how thieves stole the bike.

The thieves used some sort of cutting tool to cut pretty thick metal mesh on the door and the bike lock (see below pics.)

Our building plans to add crossbars to the door just like the ones you can see on the cage walls. Sadly this is too late for the person who lost their $700 bike to theft last night.

So how do we mitigate bike theft risk? (Feel free to add to this suggestion list)

1. If you have to park your bike on the street then park and lock (with strong locks) your bike where there are people around all the time.
2. If possible don’t park your bike overnight or anywhere in an unattended location that it can be seen by potential thieves or known it’s inside a bike box, etc any locks are easily cut.
3. When you have time look at your bike parking situation. Even if you think it is very secure ask yourself if you had a high powered cutting tool where could you cut to remove a bike and where are the weak points of the secure bike parking and how would you fix those week points to help deter bike thieves?
4. Suggest to whomever is in charge or your bike security to put up a camera that records. It might not prevent theft but could help in recovering the bike if police officers have a video of the thief.
5. Ask your building and office manager if they will let you bring your bike inside your office (especially if you need to park it somewhere overnight.)
6. Double lock your bike with good locks and lock your seat, etc. Yes grinder tools will still cut these but it could prevent a casual thief without a cutting tool.
7. Register your bike with local law enforcement and a national bike registration. (I’m not sure which registration is best? Anyone have suggestions on registration?

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[Steve O]

Suggest to whomever is in charge of your bike security to put up a camera that records. It might not prevent theft but could help in recovering the bike if police officers have a video of the thief

Hahahaha. My bike was stolen in August 2013. Upon looking around I noticed that the location was visible from a security camera of the adjacent office building. I spoke with the guard who put me in touch with management. Management was awesome and said they would be happy to coordinate with the police. I contacted ACPD’s Heather Hurlock, who (at least at that time) coordinates the bike registration. I think she made some sort of perfunctory effort on my behalf, but I know that she never made contact with the management nor ever viewed the video. At that time there was a raft of bike thefts in Rosslyn, so even if they were unable to use the video to clearly identify the thief, they may have gotten a look at a vehicle that was used or something else that could have helped them track something down.
So unless someone actually cares, a video camera is useless except possibly as a deterrent. In which case an empty video camera housing would be cheaper and just as effective.

[LeprosyStudyGroup]

@Steve O 155721 wrote:

In which case an empty video camera housing would be cheaper and just as effective.

This is probably an irrelevant aside, but just be aware that doing this opens the property owner up to huge liability/damages in the case of a more serious crime or accident in which the victim would have a reasonable expectation of security or investigation from the “fake” camera. One of those “burglar sues you for falling through your skylight” kind of situations, among others more rightful and serious.

[EasyRider]

I think you should just find the most compact and visually pleasing way to keep the bikes in your apartment, and make it up to your wife either by selling one of the three or getting rid of something else that is “yours” and takes up space.

[cvcalhoun]

@EasyRider 155732 wrote:

I think you should just find the most compact and visually pleasing way to keep the bikes in your apartment, and make it up to your wife either by selling one of the three or getting rid of something else that is “yours” and takes up space.

Do not, however, sell the wife. In spite of what you may read in this forum, she is more important than the bike.

[Author]

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