Video of a Bike Theft
Dec 5th, 2007 by Leo
It turns out that bike theft is an opportunist endeavor. Just the way a thief might see a wallet sticking out of someone’s jacket and ‘go for it,’ these guys literally see bikes and think ‘why not?’ As a result I’ve become even more of a fan of chaining the bike to something rigid. Usually this means finding a quiet side street and parking on the sidewalk mid-block, preferably to non-opening side of a green mailbox (the kind the carriers use to store mail). If I’m going to dinner on a busy street and I find a good space between cars on the street, I’ll make do parking on the street with a disc lock. But if I’m going to work and won’t be seeing the bike for several hours, I’ll park somewhere I can chain it up.
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Also to note, if I were buying a late model bike in the 10K area, then buying a lo jack for $600 bucks doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
Yeah for $600 it’s worth it.
The only down side is – on a sport bike, the crooks will probably find a lo-jack pretty quickly (once they have it someplace they can take a closer look) – there aren’t many places to hide something like that on most bikes.
I thought they were welded to the frame and unremovable.
Thanks Sam,
I don’t want to discourage people from getting Lo-Jack… the more Lo-Jack’s are out there, the better it is for everyone. Police usually find more than one bike when they recover one with Lo-Jack…
But even if they welded it to the frame (which would make it easier to find) someone who is familiar with the bike could probably find it in a couple of minutes…then unwire it or put a power drill to it… Or if they’re techy, they can get a “bug scanner” from a spy store to check if there’s a broadcast signal coming from the bike and jam it until they find the unit.
Having said that, I think Lo-Jack is a great layer of security… as is a silent alarm with a remote, or a chain, or a disc lock… and def. worth it for a new high risk bike. Even if it is disarmed 30 minutes after the theft, that might be enough time for the police to catch up with them…