Doom And Gloom

2 comments to “Doom And Gloom”

Adam, September 29th, 2008 at 1:20 pm:

• Thumbs down to whiners. Who was whining? The speakers? The questioners? Both?

  I find there are solutions to various problems. No bike lane / people pass too close? Project a “no car zone” onto the street at night. Don’t like having bikes stolen? Lock your bike the Sheldon Brown way.

  The people getting killed part sucks, but we must remember, even if we get run over from time to time, our life expectancy increases the more we ride!

Jack, October 12th, 2008 at 7:52 am:

• By all means, check out the advice from the late, great Sheldon Brown. I do differ with him on one point: It’s smart to remove your front wheel and lock it to the rear wheel and frame (and of course, lock up the whole kit and caboodle to a secure signpost or rack that’s publicly visible and well-lit). Or you can carry your front wheel away with you. But I think it’s just as good to use the wonderful Kryptonite Mini (on mine, I put a two-dollar reinforcing cuff over the weak end of the cylinder as an extra measure) to lock the frame and then a strong cable lock (preferably one embedded with metal shards to resist cable cutters) to secure both wheels. I once had a thief cut a cheaper cable, but he was thwarted by the u-lock. The trick is to make the thief take a long time; in high-visibility and high-traffic areas, no sane thief will spend more than a few seconds applying tools to your locks. If you use a cheap, thin cable, the thief needs only those few seconds to cut it, and then speed away on the getaway vehicle you’ve unintentionally provided him. But even with monster locks, if you lock up in the wrong location, a thief can work at his leisure, and given enough time and the right tools, your seven pound lock is toast. Another consideration: you don’t want to leave your bike someplace out of the way even if it’s physically as secure as Fort Knox, since bikes also are vulnerable to vandalism - and accessories can be lifted with ease, as well. (I recall a time when there was a fashion in NYC for side-kicking wheels/spokes to make them collapse - or maybe this was an urban legend, though I remember seeing a good number of bikes locked along sidewalks there that had wheels resembling taco shells!) Of course, if you have a true folding bike, you can carry it inside a building with you - but even in this case, you should carry good locks for certain situations, like a trip to the public market, where you don’t want to tote a suitcase-size bundle as you shop.