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this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Technology
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Personally I can say the only reason I don't ride my e-bike more for daily use is due to the rampancy of bike theives and vandals. Shit is genuinely getting hard to deal with and I don't have time or money to put up with it.
If I could guarantee with just a high end u-lock or bike chain, something not too unreasonable, if that allowed me to park my bike at a busy grocery store and be able to ride home 15 minutes later, I'd use it that way. I genuinely love my e-bike and find it fun to ride, even with the annoyance of locks and security.
But after having wheel(s) stolen, a shifter broken, lines cut and even a lock fucked up, and after having transients and crackheads harass me for parking and locking up, I've just given up. Our police are still choosing not to do anything about this kind of crime, and I can't get insurance against theft like I can with my car.
Plus, my EV has security and cameras, and critically is big enough that even a jacked up thief can't walk off with it. Worst they can do is break windows or smash mirrors. I'll waste the extra time and energy driving to the store if it means I won't lose thousands of dollars to theft with absolutely zero chance of recompense.
I remember a YouTube video someone did in New York City where they simulated stealing a bike using various increasingly-slow and obvious methods. Started with a pair of bolt cutters and went through a few others, including an angle grinder.
It culminated with them using a hammer and chisel to slowly carve their way through a bike lock chain. Someone stopped to help, suggested that they hold the chain differently. A NYPD cruiser stopped, asked them to move out of the street because it was on the edge of the sidewalk and they were lying in an active lane of the street, and then moved on.
I think that as long as something is light enough to be placed into a van and is stored in the open, if crime is an issue in the area, it's probably going to either need to be really cheap -- so not worth stealing -- or have sophisticated measures to deter it, like requiring registration or maybe smartphone-style components that require cryptographic authentication and can't be "reset" without the owner being involved.
Really cheap bikes is the Dutch way, you buy it for 20€ from your local bike thief and when it gets stolen you get another one. It's a circular economy really.
You've hit on an important point here. I'd love to ride my bike downtown to work on the days I go there, and everywhere else. Problem is, the minute I take my eyes of it, it's going to be gone. 100%.
As someone who would also love to do that, why don't more cities have public lockups? I worked at a place near downtown that had one for employees and it was amazing. I could bike to work ditch the bike and catch a bus or train and not have to worry about my bike while I was out.
They still get into the lockups. The building at my former workplace had a secure lockup that required key card access, and a stringent card granting process. Yet it still happened. Just takes one bonehead to leave the gate unlatched, or to let someone in. Short of actual security guards standing within the cage, unfortunately I just don't trust it enough.
Wow, that's crazy! I certainly did not have that experience with my lockup, but it was in a parking garage behind a second locked gate, so fairly secure.
I guess that just becomes part of your risk assessment for biking places then! I know in my situation I'd have to lose an awful lot of bikes to make the cost of a car worthwhile, but I'd really rather not lose any.
What city are you talking about?