[mrsuprawsm]

For most bike "racks" here in NL it seems like the primary purpose is not security, but just having somewhere to lean bikes against and give people a sensible place to park their bikes (as opposed to "in a huge pile")

Most people don't bother physically locking their regular city bikes to anything (only using a ring lock on the bike itself), primarily cheap beater bikes but also there's a guy in my street with a €2000 Van Moof e-bike that I think is just leaning against his front wall.

[twelvechairs]

In the UK you absolutely need security - London especially anything not held down will be stolen quickly. Battery powered jigsaws to go through locks and chains, bikes stripped of components, etc. Its a whole different world from the safety of NL

Granted some of this is because of a culture of more expensive bikes but still if you used a beater bike it wouldnt be safe either

[Aeolun]

Honestly, that was my initial impression seeing this tweet storm. Living first in the Netherlands and then Japan, it seems like being so fussy about bike stands is wholly unnecessary.

[presentation]

Agreed as a Japan resident but having been a SF resident even crappy bikes would be stolen in seconds for sure. So it depends on the place you live in.

[OJFord]

> London especially

Cambridge too, which I think is interesting because it's otherwise often compared to NL et al. for density, relative friendliness, prevalence of attached buggies & wheelbarrows, etc.

[Chris2048]

I wonder why it isn't easy to catch bike thieves. The speed with which things are stolen suggest to me a few trap bikes would quickly pay dividends.

[m000]

> In the UK you absolutely need security

No. You absolutely need to get a theft insurance for your bicycle.

All bicycles parked outside can be stolen. Any "security" measures you may take just tip the risk-reward calculation of the bicycle thief in your favour, and against the folk parked next to you who didn't know better.

[mkl]

Theft insurance isn't going to get you to your next destination. It's sensible to have, but not an alternative to a couple of good locks.

[c0balt]

Fyi, most bike insurances in germany will require you to have your bike locked up against a solid (i.e., non-movable) object with some even putting requirements on locks (shackle diameter, ...). I don't know how much those rules are enforced though I imagine for some claims they may be challenged.

[m000]

In the Netherlands you are only required to (a) use a ring lock and a chain with a rating of at least two stars [1], (b) deliver 2 + 2 keys to prove that you had actually locked your bicycle (keys can't be removed without locking).

The "lock against a solid" requirement in Germany is unreasonable to fishy. Can one really prove or disprove that?

[1] https://www.stichtingart.nl/en/is-my-lock-approved/

[Cthulhu_]

That's probably the case for most insurances; they need to know you did at least some work to prevent theft.

Do you get to claim theft insurance on your house or car if you left it unlocked?

[kqr]

Depends on the conditions of the insurance. It could hypothetically pay for a new bike and a few taxi fares.

Though at the premium required for that, I suspect locks would be cheaper.

[mkl]

It might later pay you back what you spent monetarily, but the inconvenience is not merely financial. It seems crazy that I'm having to argue that locks and insurance are not interchangeable.

[IshKebab]

"Hello insurance? Yes I'd like a policy that covers my bike being stolen even if it's left unlocked in a UK city."

"Ah hahaha oh wait you're serious. Ok that will be £1k per month."

[sweezyjeezy]

Are you suggesting not to lock up your bike in London? That's insane - you will get your bike stolen every time you leave it somewhere for more than an hour - your insurance is not going to be happy with you after a short while.

[wink]

Not sure it's that easy. My contents insurance includes bikes but there are some weird clauses and this is in line with what I have seen with standalone theft insurance. I'm not hopeful they'll actually pay unless you maybe hand in a photo of your locked bike with 2 "good" locks.

[Symbiote]

I gave a police crime number (acquired online) and the receipt for the approved lock, and the claim was quickly approved. I think I chose the insurance company recommended by the London Cycling Campaign.

[ghostly_s]

No one locks their bikes in Japan, either. According to Wikipedia this is thanks to "strong policing and general public disregard for stolen items." I can certainly say I've never heard of a US police department doing anything proactive in response to a reported bike theft.

[franciscop]

In Japan every bike is officially registered and has a sticker with a number (think of it as a license number that has to be read closely). Foreigners are stopped by the police fairly often in Japan to check their bike licenses according to reports in /r/japanlife.

[archon810]

So what prevents a thief from registering their bike by removing the old registration sticker and applying a new one?

[rhizome31]

I can confirm this as I experienced it when I was there.

[watersb]

When I lived in Minneapolis, police encouraged a bike registry; they'd send you this serial number sticker plate that affixed to the frame rather well.

No doubt many flaws with that, I don't know if it helped. But I got a sticker.

(3M home town... they are good at sticking things together.)

[rtpg]

People lock their bikes... just using the ring lock in general. If only because you need to put the key in to unlock the ring lock (and ride the bike) and then when you're somewhere if you don't lock it your key is just on the bike.

Of course it's a tiny ring lock. It's to stop unmotivated people and also people just taking the wrong bike. But works well enough.

Probably not 100% but "no one locks their bike" is incorrect.

[b4je7d7wb]

You also have to to do some paperwork for buying a bike. I assume you have to transfer ownership when selling, so stolen bikes probably cannot really be sold on the open market.

[woodruffw]

Out of sheer ignorance: what are the implications of not having the proper paperwork? Do Japan's street policemen take note of suspicious looking bikes and follow up with their owners?

[laurieg]

The police stop bicycles and ask who it's registered to. They can look up the registered owner from the registration sticker. If you stole the bike then you don't know the name of who it's registered to. In general there's no requirement to carry ID (apart from for foreign nationals) so police can't rely on cross checking against the ID people are carrying. Also, bicycles might be registered to a friend or a family member, so knowing the registered name and providing an explanation should be enough.

If you have no idea about who the bicycle is registered to then the police will likely make further investigations.

[Aeolun]

I have been stopped when driving suspiciously at night. I do not know what exactly constitutes suspicious, but the main thing they do is check whether your bike paperwork is in order, and (as a foreigner) that your residence card is valid.

[ekianjo]

in japan bikes are stolen once in a while by drunk salarymen who dont want to wamk to go back home. so not 100% safe but fairly safe. also all bikes have a registration number so you eventually find them.

[trillic]

At what size is an island small enough, such that a drunk man riding a bike home is merely seen as borrowing it, and is not a thief?

[piperswe]

I'm not sure what you mean by an "island small enough" - is this metaphor or literal?

[bayindirh]

IIRC Van Moof bikes have internal security built-in, so you can't easily stole one of them on a whim.

Even if your bike cannot be recovered, Van Moof gives you another one [0].

[1] also tells that the bike locks automatically when you open the kick-stand, and unlocks when you're around.

[0]: https://www.vanmoof.com/en-NL/peace-of-mind

[1]: https://www.vanmoof.com/en-NL/s5

[madeofpalk]

Vanmoof owner - it doesn’t automatically lock when you open the kick stand. There’s a ‘pin’ in the back wheel that you can just tap with your shoe to engage the lock. https://youtu.be/BpeRUGgw8JQ

I disable the Bluetooth proximity unlock - I often lock and leave it when I’m staying nearby (outsiding seating at a pub, for example) and I don’t trust that it’ll stay locked if I’m still within a relatively close distance.

[mrsuprawsm]

Still, if I had one of those I wouldn’t leave it just on the street!

I thought about buying one but figured it was a bit much money for something I didn’t particularly need and would be fairly vulnerable to getting nicked, even with the security features. And I think the Bike Hunters thing where they retrieve a stolen bike for you is only for up to 3 years now, which is not really great, since you want to own the bike for much longer at that price.

[theobeers]

Those frame/ring locks are no joke. We had to have one cut off of one of our bikes after losing the keys.[0] It took the guy longer than I expected with an angle grinder, made a lot of noise, sparks flying, etc.

Swapfiets rental bikes have become popular in Berlin. They have a frame lock with an integrated chain. But even if you don't use the chain, what exactly is the theft scenario? The bikes are rather heavy—which I guess is intentional. Someone highly motivated could lift the bike into a van, drive home, and then worry about cutting off the lock. It just seems a bit far-fetched.

[0]: It was an ABUS like this: https://i.imgur.com/ytfVtex.jpeg

[michaelt]

> It took the guy longer than I expected with an angle grinder, made a lot of noise, sparks flying, etc.

Your guy was probably being very careful not to damage your bike. With the right tool, even top-quality locks with hardened boron-carbide shackles can be cut in seconds: https://youtu.be/cbYVmRNzGLc?t=368

> Someone highly motivated could lift the bike into a van, drive home, and then worry about cutting off the lock. It just seems a bit far-fetched.

One mode of bike theft in the UK is: A white van pulls up to the university/train station cycle racks, men with bolt cutters grab as many as they can in 3 minutes or so, then drive off.

As they're going for volume rather than quality, the bikes with the worst locks are the first to go.

[mrsuprawsm]

I got my keys stuck in the lock of an old bike and had to angle grind a similar lock off too - massive pain indeed!

>Swapfiets rental bikes have become popular in Berlin Same here in NL where they originated, in many cities a good 1/3rd if all the bikes you see (and that’s a lot of bikes) are a Swapfiets. Not too expensive, reliable, and less likely to get stolen than an average bike (good luck selling a Swapfiets inside NL, whereas other stolen bikes are much easier to offload for a few euros to drunk people late at night)

[kstenerud]

The lower the income disparity, the lower the theft crime. In places with high inequality like London, SF, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Paris etc, even beater bikes will have their locks sawn through.

[Rechtsstaat]

Yeah, most bikes in NL are not that expensive and/or old, have only integrated ring locks and are still not be attractive to opportunistic thieves.

Still, I'm glad that most places have proper Sheffield stands at most one block away here.

[Ichthypresbyter]

And if you do want to lock your bike to something immovable, the standard seems to be a chain that locks into the ring lock, with a loop on the end- which gives you a lot more flexibility than a D-lock.

The other factor, though, is that standard Dutch city bikes are not designed to be easily dismantled. If you have quick release wheels, you want to be able to lock the front wheel as well as the frame (and ideally also the rear wheel).

[ciupicri]

I was under the impression that bikes are stolen all the time in Netherlands. There was even a joke that if you bike gets stolen, just steal another one.