It’s extremely rare that I see a bike locked to an object like a post, or even to another bike. I was loaning a bike to a friend and it got stolen from outside his apartment while he was on vacation. Just a regular no-name everyday bike that was locked through the rear wheel and frame.
My bike isn’t top of the line, but I sure don’t want it to get stolen when I’m out and about. When I lived in TW 25 years ago I had 2 bikes stolen within a 3 month period.
How many of you like your bike to a rack, pole, other immovable object, or even another bike if your out with a friend? What lock set up do you use?
I use a D-lock through the rear wheel and frame and then a cable lock through the front wheel and frame. I also try to lock onto something solid with the cable lock but this is not always possible. In practice I rarely leave my bike out of sight anyway.
I think most people in Taiwan do a very poor job of locking their bikes and I am sure this contributes to the rate of bicycle theft.
At home, the bike stays in the spare bedroom.
When out: I’ve mostly given up trying to lock it to anything, and just use a D-lock through the rear wheel and frame. I don’t like doing it this way, but there are so few bike racks around: the Tianmu Carrefour has even added signs on all the nearby sidewalks saying no bicycle parking! These days I try to just pull into a street-level scooter parking area.
What confuses me is the number of bike parking racks along the riverside cycling paths. When you’re going by the Shilin incinerator, there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of decent bike parking spots in a number of racks - but WTF are they doing there?! Who would park and leave their bike under the highway, miles away from anything?
Perhaps they contribute to some statistic about how much bicycle parking Taipei has, and therefore how green a city it is.
At home my bike – $2000 mtn bike – was stolen from the spare bedroom. :fume:
I’ve never left my bike locked outside in Taiwan. Not once. I lean it against the 7/11 window and sit down right in front of it when stopping on a long ride. Otherwise, I don’t stop anywhere on a ride. If I did I’d bring it inside with me.
I do have a really crappy, beater, commuter bike, which I lock with a D lock not to any secure object, because it’s highly unlikely anyone would steal it and if they did I wouldn’t be overly bothered, given its value.
I had a bike (a cheap bike, but new) stolen a while back from outside the MRT, after I had actually locked it to a rack (for once). So it’s no guarantee. For the next bike, I figured that making it unattractive to thieves would be the best defense, so I had the guy at the shop do some spray painting to make it look pretty ugly and not new. Seemed to work. I leave it all over the place, and nobody’s made off with it. Of course now it’s a rusty piece of crap and I wouldn’t really mind if someone took it off my hands…
If I had an expensive bike, I’d have to agree with MT, leaving it outside would be asking for it.
I just got done like this as well.
Giant Boulder, 2 weeks old, two locks to the MRT bike rack, only had it 2 weeks, left it double locked, front, frame, and rear to the bike rank and came back to find the bike had been stolen and the locks cut with bolt cutters. The police seem to think the bike was spotten another day and the thief’s checked out the locks to come back another day to get it using the right tools. Apparently from JianNan MRT there has been ‘alot’ of stolen bikes in the last 2 months so it’s probably a gang.
So if you are offered a 21" framed, Giant Boulder 24 orange/white please PM me, when stolen the cranks/chainrings were not stock as I had had then replaced with Shimano one’s with more teeth.
Utter disappointed by this, how on earth can Taipei City Gov even think about trying to get people to commute if they can’t even leave their bikes in the MRT bike lots with 2 locks?
Eldrich.
Bummer. Sorry to hear that.
Good luck getting it back, but of course don’t expect that. I’d think there’s maybe a 1% chance of it being found/returned. At least that’s what I figure the odds are in the US, but Taiwan’s probably worse.
I guess there’s not much one can do if one hopes to leave it at an MRT station as part of ones commute. At least:
- Never leave it out overnight
- Always try to lock it in the most public, visible location
- Use a good kryptonite D-lock
- Record the serial number (before its stolen)
- Paint spots on it?
It’s no use if you can just lift-off the bike and lock … :roflmao:
I think the best protection against theft is to get a cheap get-around-bike, preferrably old and unauspicious looking, for a couple of thousand NT and combine this with the best lock you can afford. At least you will have peace of mind. And I don’t think you can really blame Taipei government for the thefts. This is a common problem in most cities. Amsterdam and Kopenhagen probably have the highest percentage of bike commuters in Europe. If you visit these cities, you’ll notice that almost all the bikes used for commuting there look more or less the same: old and cheap. You won’t find any expensive MTB or road bike being used for commuting. Why? It would probably be stolen within days.
People 'll steal it to sell as scrap metal … 
Well it was parked in a very visible spot, under 4 cameras, with other more expensive bikes there, two locks.
I do have the serial number.
Apparently paints spots are not a deterrent as most is repainted on being stolen to make it less likely they will be recognised.
It took 3 mins to cut the locks (11:38 to 11:41 on the CCTV).
It’s probably gone but the police (who have been great) have some good images of the man and are quite hopeful he’ll be recognised and pulled in at some point soon.
While I understand the bit about getting an old/rusty commuter
a) its hard to find 2nd hand bikes
b) its very hard to find bigger frames at all unless you buy something worth more than 8k anyway.
c) the bikes racks as designed make it very difficult to use a D-lock to go around the frame
d) I know that this is mainly my fault to being to optimistic about parking a double locked bike at an MRT station and hoping it won’t get it’s locks cut off and taken.
What I’m stuck at now is what to replace it with, I’m 182cm tall, 90Kg, commute approx 18km each day (5km one way, 13km the other) - different routes to and from the MRT and needs to be cheap so that a) it is unlikely to get stolen b) if it does I won’t lose as much this time around.
Thoughts?
Eldrich
Thoughts are that having your bike stolen is one of the shittiest things that can happen to you (if you love your bike). There’s no worse feeling that returning to where you left it to find the bike gone, lock cut and on the ground. Bike thieving scum are the lowest of the low and if I had time and money I’d love to set up some bike-baits in big cities.
Lock a nice bike, keep it under surveillance, see the thief move in, catch the thief, and then administer summary justice and/or torture outside of the law.
At the Yongning MRT station there are dozens of rusty bikes just sitting there in the racks … are they abandoned or stolen property?
Even used as trash receptacle …
Ha… trash receptacles! Happens all the time in Taipei to bikes and scooters with baskets. And why? Because there are so few public trash cans in Taipei.
How about paying to park your bike … safe.
You know I would have been happy to pay the same as the scooters who park in B1 at the MRT station since it’s NT$ 17 a day.
Anyway I’m thinking of getting a Merida RB620 as a replacement, taking it home and spending a weekend scratching it, denting it etc etc and trying to make it look too badly treated to be worth nicking. Seems a sad thing to take a brand new (if cheap) bike and doing this though.
If you have to buy new, downgrade the saddle, cover the frame with electrical tape or similar, get lots of dried mud all over it (but keep the drivetrain clean: chainwheels, chain etc.). Might improve its chances.
But really you want to be getting hold of a rubbish 2nd hand bike for as little as possible: neighbour, friend of friend etc. Many people have a crap bike they don’t use. Then spend the minimum needed to make it rideable, so if that too is thieved, you can bear the loss.
I’ve had good luck with a 5K KHS. The wheels are nearly black from oil/grime but it is a nice ride. Another option are the bikes (some name brands even) with the metal fender. I think they are cheaper and less likely to be the targets of thieves.
But whatever you do don’t leave your bike such that it is highly visible to the street. I’m guessing that most thieves are smart enough not to steal in the area that they spend a lot of time in (well I’m not too sure of this actually). But if every scooter driver can easily see a nice bike you might as well put a steal me sign on it.
Cool idea!