Comments on: Idiots and their bikes will soon be separated

By: Zan Dobersek

Zan Dobersek — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:19:57 +0000

What I found amazing is the courage of this person to actually go around the town with a $1000 bike. There is no warranty that the bike will not be stolen, even if you triple lock it or do something similarly obscure.

By: Bike Fail Blog #2 - Handle Bars

Bike Fail Blog #2 - Handle Bars — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:54:09 +0000

[...] For those of you just tuning in, see the first intallment: Seat Post. [...]

By: tvol

tvol — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:36:37 +0000

re: photoblog of bike idiots = awesome

By: joshp

joshp — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:52:47 +0000

hey guy, you live near me, you interested in, or have you done any “scenic” or non-commute type cycling in A2?

I am trying to commit to every sunday post-yoga cycling in the afternoon hours…let me know, the warm weather is almost gone

By: Jad

Jad — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:35:37 +0000

Greg,
Lovely :-)

By: Janne

Janne — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:14:28 +0000

As Bruce Schneier has said, security is not an absolute, it’s a sliding scale. What is or is not an appropriate level of security depends on the risk you face, the value of your loss and the cost (in money, hassle and worry) of the security.

A cheap tin-plate lock through the rear wheel, not bolting the bike to anything, still protects you from well over 90% of all prospective thieves – the drunk looking for a faster ride home, opportunists not looking for a bike but not averse to picking one up “for free”, children and so on. It depends on the place too; I live in Osaka and I, like everyone else, just lock the bike through the rear wheel. Bikes just aren’t stolen that much here (or rather, there’s so very many bicycles around that the risk for any one person is very small).

Sure, a 5kg bike chain would protect the bike far better – but with that kind of bulk and weight dragging around, the point of getting a very light (expensive) bike is gone; you could add those kilos to the bike itself, making it far cheaper in the process. And locking a cheap bike with an expensive lock doesn’t make much sense either.

Again here in Osaka, there is a wrinkle: it’s not allowed to lock your bike to things. Many, many people ride bikes here (more common than cars as transportation) and there is a constant struggle to avoid snarls of parked bicycles stopping traffic or pedestrian access. If a bike is locked, it can’t be moved to clear the way. So the local police and guard companies have a tendency to cut the locks and confiscate the bike if it’s locked to public property, and it’ll cost you a fair amount of money to get your bike back. In other words, “securely” locking your bike to things actually increases the risk of losing your bike than just having a symbolic wire going through your rear wheel.

By: Announcment: New Launchpad Team - Ubuntu Cyclists

Announcment: New Launchpad Team - Ubuntu Cyclists — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:00:16 +0000

[...] Consilience The Blog of Bringing Things Together Skip to content « Idiots and their bikes will soon be separated [...]

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:20:41 +0000

@Thempleton: I wasn’t going to bring it up (you’ll noticed I used non-gendered pronouns), but it was indeed a woman in this situation.

Not sure if it is generalizable or not, I’m not touching that ;)

By: Thempleton

Thempleton — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:10:53 +0000

That’s a classic feminine way to lock it, I could observe.
Yes, I know, this seems to be sexistic but believe me, I’ve checked this in a study on masculine and feminine behavioural psychology.
We are dumb in different and very specific ways.
Never got stuck about how different drive men and women? They make completely different mistakes and no sex is better or worse.

;-)

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:00:50 +0000

Done: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-cyclists