Last year I bought a shiny new bike with all the latest accessories and the biggest fuckoff lock you've ever seen.
After a week it needed extensive repairs when the gears started grinding against the protective cover. Then it was stolen, lock and all, within three weeks, from a guarded underground bike park.
Early this year I bought the shittest, most broken-looking bike I could find. It's been kept in working order for probably 20 years so runs like a treat, but it looks like somebody abandoned it years ago. I bought the cheapest, most flimsy lock possible and have been leaving it in some of the most bicycle-thief-infested parts of Beijing, right out in the street, sometimes for a week at a time. Nobody's so much as touched it. I've cycled it for the best part of the year without having to so much as pump the tires up.
( Zuowan, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 13:02, 1 reply)

The best way to ensure your bike never gets stolen
Is to lock it next to a bike that is much nicer than yours.

I've been riding an early 90s Trek for 4 years now with no real maintenance other than new tubes and chain grease.

Those carbon fiber spandex types can shove it.
(raulduke, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 19:21, closed)