[SeanLuke]

I have an unusual folding bike. It's a Bike Friday Tikit, and basically has a Steal Me sign attached to it. But it also can be folded extremely rapidly and covered with a custom built-in cover so it looks like, oh, a tuba case.

My anti-theft strategy is: my bike has never had a lock. This forces me to fold and cover it and take it in with me wherever I go. Office buildings, federal buildings in DC (really), offices in the Smithsonian, labs. Restaurants nearly universally allow me to bring it in and tuck it somewhere because as long as it's covered no customer is going to complain; they don't even notice it. It's like a Jedi mind cloak. This was the case for Rome as well, when I had the bike there for about a year.

The only place I ever had an issue was the National Science Foundation. I biked to a panel meeting only to discover they wouldn't let me take the bike in. There was a bike cage in the basement but for "employees only". And the guard station wouldn't let me tuck the bike there out of liability concern. However it turns out that the panel meeting was on a second floor room which coincidentally was attached via a sky bridge to a shopping mall across the street with no guard station. The guards hinted that I take the bike to the mall, up the escalator, across the bridge, and right into the room. Which I did.

[kelnos]

I really like that the guards recognized that the rule was stupid, and sneakily gave you a workaround. It's just a shame that inflexible, arbitrary rules end up existing in the first place, and that (presumably) the guard would have gotten in trouble if they'd let you in directly.

[hahamrfunnyguy]

Rules is rules!