<p>My son has replaced the bike that was stolen from his college. He now needs a lock. I know he needs a U lock. Is there a difference in the different materials they are made out of. It seems like the prices have a wide price range. I prefer to spend as little as possible but also want to make sure this bike stands a chance of surviving the school year.</p>
<p>My cyclist-husband says not to get a U lock because that only gets you the rear wheel and frame or front and frame. He recommends a long cable with a really strong lock. The lock can be a combination lock. The cable would go through both wheels. Sometimes the seats are even stolen off of the bike. Our daughter’s bike was stolen at Rice a few years ago, leaving only the front wheel chained to the bike rack.</p>
<p>He had a cable lock with the first bike. The theft cut the cable. He does not go to school in the nicest community.</p>
<p>Wow. Stronger cable or maybe U lock and cable? I’m thinking this bike needs to be inside.</p>
<p>There is no lock that will stop a determined and skilled thief with the right tools. The best that you can do is dissuade the casual amateur thief and present sufficient obstacles to the pro so that the time required to grab the bike is a disincentive and the thief looks for an easier target. The best way to do this is with the heaviest, most narrow U-lock you can find coupled with a thick cable. The U-lock is used to secure the frame and the cable secures the wheels to the U-lock. The heavier and more narrow the U-lock is, the more difficult it is to pry apart or otherwise manipulate to access with the tools required to overcome the lock. An even better alternative is to take your bike with you into any building you are entering if you can get away with that. Or, buy an old beater bike for daily commuting, put duct tape on all the decals and badges, lock it securely to a rack and hope no one is interested in an unidentifiable beater.</p>
<p>For a college bike the real answer is to have a beater bike that you ride around campus that you can lock up with just about any lock and not worry about it getting stolen if such a thing should happen. $20 at goodwill is the bike you want for tooling around campus. If you ride seriously you keep your good bike in your room. This is the advice of my son who bikes pretty seriously and who fixes bikes for friends and dorm mates.</p>
<p>Lololu-The bike that was taken was not his “good” bike. It was a inexpensive BMX that he got for his birthday when he was 13. He purchased another old BMX from Craigslist. He keeps the bike inside his apartment. The bike was stolen in the time he went inside a school building to turn in a project and come back out. He figures he was gone max 30 minutes. He likes the BMX over a cheap cruiser or mountain bike because he likes to do tricks as a stress reliever.
I laugh that he does not want to bring his “good” bike. His good bike looks like a piece of junk to me. It is a single speed downhill mountain bike that he assembled from parts when he was 14 or 15. The frame was purchased from a small manufacturer and my son asked for the frame to not have any decals or naming on it. So it is not easily identified as a certain brand. To an untrained eye his mountain bike does not look expensive. It would only look like it was worth something to a person who knew what he was looking for.
They sell combination sets that include a U Lock and a cable. I think that might be the best choice.</p>
<p>Most bikes are stolen because they are:</p>
<ul>
<li>not locked at all.</li>
<li>are worth money.</li>
<li>have any easily broken lock. (Remember the famous trick to open a Kryptonite with a Bic pen?)</li>
</ul>
<p>So lock the bike, don’t ride a really nice bike and if you’re absolutely serious, use a hardened chain - the kind that resists a bolt cutter - with a hardware store lock, like a real master lock. (Problem is a really hardened chain weighs as much as a small woman.) </p>
<p>And then … do basic protection things like put decals or tape on your bike that mark it as yours. A thief wants to sell a bike and if it’s personalized and made ugly with tape and stuff, then it’s not generic and he makes less $ on sale. I’d do something like take duct tape and write “Marcy’s Disgusting Bike” on it and put it over the bike’s brand name.</p>
<p>I also recommend that if there are a lot of bike thefts around, get rid of or don’t buy a quick release seat. It really sucks when some a*****e takes your seat post because he could flick up the quick release. (Note: sometimes you can thread a cable to lock the seat in place. It won’t be a thick cable but anything is worth keeping the seat.)</p>
<p>As someone else said, a determined thief will not be thwarted by a lock. The college kids I know who use a cheap beater bike that won’t break the bank if stolen.</p>
<p>mom60. It was too good of a bike, it was something he cared about. The ideal bike is one that you really don’t like, but it gets you around. Son says he never locks his campus bike, he just sticks it in the bike rack and goes. he paid ten dollars for it three years ago and it still hasn’t been stolen, but it is the ugliest, most run down looking thing you have ever seen, for a while it even only had one pedal. Last summer he left it in front of the dorm when he left and figured campus security would haul it off. He came back three months later and it was still right where he left it. He thinks God wants him to have it.</p>
<p>“And then … do basic protection things like put decals or tape on your bike that mark it as yours.”</p>
<p>Did this … didn’t help. Perhaps the trick is to make the uglies permanent. In D’s case the thief cut through the cable securing the bike. Really cheap Walmart bike. Who’da thought anyone would go to ANY trouble to steal that?</p>
<p>You can’t know why any specific bike was taken. Maybe the guy wanted a ride home and had a cutter with him. All you can do is take the general precautions because they are general. They don’t necessarily work for a specific incident.</p>
<p>I figure most any bike is worth something. Even if the theft sells it for 20 bucks. I think my son’s bike was parked in an ideal location. His department building is on the far edge of his campus. It would be easy for someone to cut the lock and take off pretty quick out into the surrounding neighborhood.
I ordered him a U lock with cable. I think if this bike disappears he will have to go back to his skateboard.</p>
<p>google: u lock bic pen trick and watch a guy break open a u lock in 30 seconds. Really pretty depressing.</p>
<p>I believe that defect has been corrected by the manufacturer in question. It was pretty surprising to see, though, when this first was revealed a few years ago.</p>
<p>This Kryptonite lock (U-lock) comes with a small insurance policy: $3000.</p>
<p>[Kryptonite</a> New York 3000 Lock at BikeTiresDirect](<a href=“http://www.biketiresdirect.com/pkrny3/kryptonite_new_york_3000_lock/pp.htm]Kryptonite”>http://www.biketiresdirect.com/pkrny3/kryptonite_new_york_3000_lock/pp.htm)</p>