which bike will you lock where?

[vvill]

The building management in my office has rather recently decided they don’t like bikes being taken through the building, and I’ve started getting flak from building/maintenance staff about it (this is after 5 years of bringing a bike onto my floor, albeit irregularly). Good thing they can’t complain about lycra.

Anyway, there is a bike rack in the basement parking garage and usually around 5 bikes are parked there. It’s an older “wheelbender” style one. The parking garage is staffed but the staff are often running around doing stuff, and I doubt they really pay attention to the rack. The rack is also near an equipment room and sort of hidden behind some cars with government plates that always seem to be sitting there.

Should I feel safe locking up my “nice” road bike there? I lock my MTB/commuter there and don’t worry about it, but if I locked ride my road bike there it’d definitely be the shiniest and newest of the bikes there – mostly older steel road bikes or hybrids.

I use a u-lock + cable for QR wheels, and my office is at 19th + K St NW.

What bike(s) do you feel comfortable locking up out of sight, and where?

Topic

[PrintError]

Luckily my work is a “closed” compound and policed, so in four years of everyday commuting I’ve yet to even carry a lock.

That said, when I go to training classes at public buildings, you bet your spandex I bring my coil lock. The training building in Old Town has an underground garage with a wheelbender rack that I lock it to, or I hide it in the far corner behind the stash of old cop cars covered in dust.

I’ve noticed that the rack here at work contains a good number of locks as permanent residents. I’m guessing the owners just leave them here and don’t need them at home. If you’re in a public building though, I’d definitely at least throw a lock on there. Only takes one ^%&*!$@ to swipe it and ruin your day.

[mstone]

I keep a spare lock in the bike locker at work. The propriety of doing so depends somewhat on the environment. (I hate when there are so many locks on a rack that there is no room for a bike.) But if there’s enough space to keep it out of the way, it beats dragging the thing around.

[rcannon100]

Part of the answer depends on what type of parking garage you have.

I work at a govt agency in SW. We have a good parking garage, with restricted key access, and attendants. The racks are in the core – not next to the garage door – so parked bikes are not visible to the outside. And access to the garage is restricted to govt staff. In this environment, you see a lot of high end bikes on the rack.

If the racks are away from an open garage door, and there are attendants, and access to the garage is restricted in some way (as opposed to say a shopping mall where anyone is wandering around – restricted access meaning only people who should be in the garage are in the garage), that seems like a relatively good situation.

Lots of people at my work leave their U locks on the racks. I guess I dont understand that – but I guess I like to stop places on the way home and a lock is useful. With a pannier bike bag, I just throw the lock in the bag – the weight makes no difference.

[DismalScientist]

As long as the rack is not by the door, I wouldn’t worry about locking my bike in a garage. There are so many bikes on the street that I figure a thief would get them first before heading into a garage. I used to just use a coil lock, but now I keep a U-lock on the rack. (Not that anything actually happened to cause this change!) We too have wheel bender racks. I try to lock my bike(s) leaning on the end of the rack. If only middle spaces are available, I lock my bike to a railing in the garage. No one seems to mind.

[eminva]

This is a good thread — I will soon have the same problem as the OP — I work at 18th & L, in a building with a secure, access controlled bike cage, but my office is moving across the street next year and the bike parking appears similar to what vvill described.

I already carry a ulock with me at all times because I often run errands on the way home, so it sounds like that will do the trick. There is some heavy equipment right next to the bike rack, but I can give my business card and a small gratuity to the parking lot attendant and he can alert me if any maintenance work looks to threaten my bike.

On a related note, when will garages start getting better bike racks? And why don’t they think to install something that all the locks can be affixed to when not in use, so that you can actually park your bikes on the rack instead of dodging dusty old forgotten locks?

Liz

[paulg]

I can’t really add to the debate on locks but at least your building’s rack is inside and out of the elements. My head office has recently banned bikes inside with the only option of a rack outside that isn’t even bolted down.

I guess the only thing you might also watch for or worry about is damage to your bike by accidentally being knocked by others. Does it have a super paint job? Some form of soft protection between frame and rack would be good and a way to keep it away from the other bikes. If paint chips aren’t a worry.. then … well don’t worry!

[Terpfan]

We have wheel bender racks in our garage. It’s a pay-to-park garage, but most of the people are monthly permit holders and others have to stop with the attendant. You wouldn’t even know there were two racks in the garage unless you had parked near them. I was using a coil and ulock at first, but switched to just the ulock. I’ve seen one bike with no lock at all there almost every day. Seems relatively safe, especially with so many bikes parked on along the street. The other item with our parking garage (and I suspect many other garages) is that the ticket they give you for parking records your license plate and make/model/color of car and that does not seem criminal-friendly to me.

[Dirt]

So many places that I go don’t have bike parking… like my grocery store, drug store or local bar. I’ve contacted building management and owners a few times. I will continue to do so. It isn’t such a big deal with the Big Dummy…. at least not for shopping scenarios. I’m not sure I’d leave it anywhere too long without something substantial to lock it to. Interestingly, I’ve found that people go through the buckets, but they haven’t taken anything out of them. I leave tubes, bungee cords, cargo straps, tools and a pump in there. I’ve come back to have the buckets open, but never had anything taken out of them.

I use a big, bad u-lock and cable to connect other stuff (racks, seat, etc.). At work I use a u-lock with a huge chain. It is located in a locked and “secure” bike room. None of my bike stuff has ever been stolen, but I’ve had my shoes, belt and toiletries taken more than once.

[vvill]

@eminva 9534 wrote:

This is a good thread — I will soon have the same problem as the OP — I work at 18th & L, in a building with a secure, access controlled bike cage, but my office is moving across the street next year and the bike parking appears similar to what vvill described.

I already carry a ulock with me at all times because I often run errands on the way home, so it sounds like that will do the trick. There is some heavy equipment right next to the bike rack, but I can give my business card and a small gratuity to the parking lot attendant and he can alert me if any maintenance work looks to threaten my bike.

On a related note, when will garages start getting better bike racks? And why don’t they think to install something that all the locks can be affixed to when not in use, so that you can actually park your bikes on the rack instead of dodging dusty old forgotten locks?

Liz

I have two ulocks and two cable locks, so I leave a set at work. The rack here is installed very close to a supporting pillar, so the middle section of it is unusable (unless you don’t want to use your u-lock, or are willing to take a wheel off – only seen this once, when someone had locked up a Litespeed 😮 ). I usually lock my locks back on this mid-section when I leave so I’m not hogging up space. But seems like most people don’t do that. There’s at least a couple of cheap cable + padlock sets I’ve seen in the same place for weeks.

I think for now I’ll keep bringing in my road bike and locking it up. There are certainly a lot more bikes locked up on the sidewalks, and with the rack not visible from the road, and being next to the cars with government plates, I think someone toting boltcutters/saw/etc would be a little suspicious. I work in a government agency too, but the building is a commercial office. I also do park my car in this lot a couple times a month (used to be every day!) and try to be friendly to the attendants, and they recognize me.

paulg – sorry to hear that! What are you going to do in that situation? I don’t mind minor paint chips/scrapes, so I’ll keep it locked as is.

Thanks all for the replies.

-Will

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