Consilience

Welcome to the second installment of:

BIKE LOCK FAIL BLOG

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

Example 2: locking up your bike via your…

HANDLE BARS

Picture:

The Problem:

Cable simply passes around the handlebars and then through the bike stand.

How To Free the Bike

This picture includes my tri-tool already inserted into the bolt that secures the handle bars on the bike frame.  This tool is simply three different sized allen wrenches.  I carry this around with me at all times in case I need to tighten/fix anything on my bike.  Many people also carry (and should carry) a multi-tool with them at all times.

With 10 seconds of loosening, 5 seconds to remove cable, and another 10 seconds of tightening (25 seconds total) I could have a free bike!

In fact, I don’t even know if my tool is needed.  The cable is fairly long and even though the handlebars are themselve pretty long I think I could just pull the cable out around the ends of the bars and be done with it that way.  No tools required!

Lesson Learned

Don’t lock up your bike via your handle bars, nor your seat post.

Why I should have moved it

On this day, as you can tell from these next pictures, it was raining.  The spot this bike is in is my “usual spot” on campus, next to one of the Libraries.  This specific spot is right underneath an overhang thus during non-windy rain storms it protects the area from getting wet.  I don’t know about you, but I dislike a wet butt from a wet bike seat.

See how nicely their bike seat is protected?  Now look at what I had to do to try and keep my seat protected:

Good thing it stopped raining well before I wanted to head home and my seat had dried.  And no, I wouldn’t have moved it anyways, that would just be mean.

Till next time.

All Images CC:BY-SA Greg Grossmeier

In response to my previous blog post about cycling a commenter made the suggestion to somehow gather all of us cyclists in the Ubuntu Community and form a bond or relationship. I’m not sure what form this group will take or what resources it will want.

To make it slightly easier to do this I have taken a page out of the Ubuntu Smokers group and created a Launchpad team.

Say hello to Ubuntu Cyclists! All those who love biking in whatever form are welcome to join!

EDIT: We need a cool Logo and Badge! Anyone who has talent want to make one? That’d be great! Email me, greg@ the domain of this blog.

No, I’m not talking about bikers/cyclists in general. In fact, I am a complete supporter and advocate of using pedal powered transportation. It is my own form of transportation.

What I am talking about are those people who don’t know how to lock up their bikes.

Short Background

I go to a large state university, the University of Michigan, for grad school. I also ride my bike everywhere. In doing so, I see how other people lock up their bikes on a daily basis. I see everything from the over-protective (a cable lock per wheel, cable for seat, and a U-lock for the frame) to the apparent community bikes (not locked up at all).

The ones that make me think “this person should not be allowed to be in control of any security device, be it a bike lock, their home door lock, or a password” are the ones who come up with inventive ways of “securing” their bike.

Example 1

One such example, which I unfortunately did not have my camera at the time to take a picture, involved a roughly $1000 Trek road bike.

I stopped to get some soup from the best soup place in Ann Arbor (Le Dog on Liberty) and noticed this bike near the shop. After getting my soup I took a second look at said bike and just stood there for a moment; I couldn’t believe my eyes. This person had used a $10 cable lock (ie: easily breakable) to lock her $1000 bike. That isn’t the issue (although, never use those $10 locks, you will be sorry). The issue is the way in which they choose to use that $10 lock.

They looped the cable around the seat post and then through the bike stand. Let me say that again. They looped the cable lock around the SEAT POST and then through the bike stand.

If you can’t readily see the issue with this, let me explain. First a picture:

CC:BY – by “faster panda kill kill”

Look at the seat. See the seat post (the metal tube that goes from the seat to the rest of the bike frame)? They had simply looped the cable around that and through the bike stand. Anyone, and I mean anyone, could just grab that cable, lift upwards at an angle, and the bike would be completely free.

This is what I will term from now on as a “DSSTS,” or Dip Shit Simple To Steal.

The Future

I plan to start taking pictures of people who lock up their bikes in interesting yet idiotic ways; in fact, I already have one example but I do not have my camera cord with me. With these pictures I will produce a Bike Lock Failure blog post as time permits. If you have some examples please feel free to email them to me; greg@ this domain.

Note to Planet Ubuntu subscribers: I will be putting these forthcoming blog posts into a category which will not be picked up by the planet, if you want to see them, subscribe to my main feed.