To ALL stolen bikes

ANYWAY...(back to the thread)....I NEED A GOOOOOOD LOCK!!

Kryptonite Mini-D and Fahgettaboudit U-lock (the small one).

buy them from the U.S. ebay, much cheaper, got the Fah for £50 including P&P, the Mini-D for £25 including P&P.

Big Fuck-off chain and padlock from bikehut, weighs more than 2 bikes.

http://laekhouse.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-sticker.html

d-locks are easy enough to smash with a car jack (as any serious thief knows).

depends how you lock up. leave no space in the D and you'll be fine. the kryptonite NY locks at both end of the D so is much more secure.

all you have to do is make your bike less stealable / attractive than the one next to it.

Saw an epic fail I had no camera to capture, lunchtime on busy Soho street...

A fat square-section Abus medium Dlock, chopped in two places, about 7 cm missing...

One of those little circular saw thingys I think, there was some singeing at the face of the cuts.

So no, no locks work at all. For very long.

Kryptonite Mini-D and Fahgettaboudit U-lock (the small one).

buy them from the U.S. ebay, much cheaper, got the Fah for £50 including P&P, the Mini-D for £25 including P&P.

I bought my mini-d from these guys:
http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/products/New_York_Faghettaboudit_Mini.aspx

£49.50 for the Fahged Mini

http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/Products/Evolution_Mini_Standard_Lock_With_Bracket.aspx

£26 for the Mini

It's almost the same as buying from the US and you get the warm fuzzy feeling from buying 'local'.

don't lock your bike like this

2 Attachments

Saw an epil fail I had no camera to capture, lunchtime on busy Soho street...

A fat square-section Abus medium Dlock, chopped in two places, about 7 cm missing...

One of those little circular saw thingys I think, there was some singeing at the faec of the cuts.

So no, no locks work at all. For very long.

any lock will come apart with the right tools,
almost all high security motorcycle chains (£100+) can be cut in seconds with just a bolt cropper.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpf35C7wu6Q&feature=user"]YouTube
down for maintenance[/ame]

And anything else with a readily available dirt cheap cordless powertool.

Oh, and dont forget you dont have to "cut" anything at all, every lock can be picked with a little practice.

Something to stop the lay man walking off with your ride, is all one should really bother with. Just use common sense and dont leave it anywhere risky for too long.

I bought my mini-d from these guys:
http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/products/New_York_Faghettaboudit_Mini.aspx

£49.50 for the Fahged Mini

http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/Products/Evolution_Mini_Standard_Lock_With_Bracket.aspx

£26 for the Mini

It's almost the same as buying from the US and you get the warm fuzzy feeling from buying 'local'.

@Ed:

I followed your advice from one of the other threads about locks, and ordered the Mini Fug and Mini Evo from that site on Monday. The Fug's out of stock (of course), but I should receive it next week.

There's a row of bicycle parking U-shaped whatchamacallits opposite my office building. I'm thinking of setting up a webcam by the window, and writing some theft-detection software that will immediately flash a big red alert on my monitor and start recording if somebody's trying to nick my bike...

Incidentally, I've seen some websites selling security alarms for bikes. They're supposed to fit on the bottom side of the saddle, and if somebody moves the bike more than a certain distance (say, 1 m), the alarm will start making some loud unpleasant noises. Couldn't a thief solve that problem simply by smashing the alarm to smithereens, though?

writing some theft-detection software that will immediately flash a big red alert on my monitor and start recording if somebody's trying to nick my bike...

That would be very difficult no? How would you go about recognizing a thief via software? Image recognition is notoriously difficult is it not? If you did manage to find a method you would surly end up with lots and lots of false positives?

It's easier to just wire up mains power to your bike.. :)

Or you could just wire up a gps logger to a shaped charge in the handlebars. Couple of metres out of place and kaboom, one less bike thief.

I didn't say it would be easy... as you said, image recognition is extremely difficult, it's a big topic in computer science research. But I'm the sort of sick puppy who'd enjoy attempting this sort of thing.

At first blush the problem space is fairly small and isolated. I don't need software that will recognize all types and situations of theft. Just the theft of one particular bike (mine) from one specific area (the row of U-shaped whatchamacallits opposite my office).

The software needs to be able to recognize which bike is mine, first of all. If it can do that, then detecting when the bike has been moved more than, say, 0.5 m should be easy. Unfortunately, if somebody's moved it 0.5 m, that means they've gotten through the locks already and I can kiss it goodbye.

So I'd want something to recognize that the theft is in progress. Maybe a human being standing/crouching within a certain distance of my bike for more than some time limit? Or even better, somebody directly handling the locks on the bike?

False positives would be a problem, but given a choice between false positives and false negatives, I'd choose the former. Perhaps I could come up with some sort of statistical method for estimating the likelihood that this is a real theft... for instance, if the person standing near my bike is wearing a hoodie or a tracksuit, then the probability this is a real theft is 99.9%. Given that I work in a somewhat posh area in Belgravia, this is probably a decent assumption :-)

Mind you, I don't actually know anything about image recognition at the moment, so I could be talking utter bollocks...

Or you could just wire up a gps logger to a shaped charge in the handlebars. Couple of metres out of place and kaboom, one less bike thief.

I read that thread from a while ago about sneaky ways to exact sweet revenge on thieves who've successfully breached the locks already and are about to ride away into the sunset with our bikes. Definitely an appealing thought, and one that I'd use as a last resort.

It would be a lot easier to run a gps logger tracked from your computer with an overlay on google maps. Run that with a fisheye button camera mounted in the brake housing and you'll be fully equipped to track them down.

Optional extras include provision of incriminating evidence to the police or retribution with a high-powered rifle from a long distance.

i will keep my "Glasgow" spoke cards in and then nobody will steal it.

"Glasgow's homicide rate is twice that of London and even greater than New York"
not my words, the words of a reported on some t.v program.

fuck..I read once that Paisleys murder rate was twice Glasgows...eeek lol

I read that thread from a while ago about sneaky ways to exact sweet revenge on thieves who've successfully breached the locks already and are about to ride away into the sunset with our bikes. Definitely an appealing thought, and one that I'd use as a last resort.

Too new for that, although I'm not surprised that it's occured to other people. I'm also planning a quick release chainring to hurl at evil drivers Xena style.

It would be a lot easier to run a gps logger tracked from your computer with an overlay on google maps. Run that with a fisheye button camera mounted in the brake housing and you'll be fully equipped to track them down.

Optional extras include provision of incriminating evidence to the police or retribution with a high-powered rifle from a long distance.

That sounds cool, and very 007, and would be a fun project to do. But just to play devil's advocate, for the sake of discussion, here are some drawbacks:

1) Cost to buy and maintain external hardware (GPS logger and fish-eye camera).
2) Dependency on external hardware means possibility of failure, especially in weather conditions like we have here in sunny ol' England.
3) GPS has an error of about 10 m. In densely populated residential areas, such as an apartment block, that'd be a problem.
4) Prevention is better than cure... I'd rather not get to the stage where police have to be involved at all.

I'm thinking way too much about this... just goes to show you how bored I am at work.

Too new for that, although I'm not surprised that it's occured to other people. I'm also planning a quick release chainring to hurl at evil drivers Xena style.

Here's the thread:
http://www.londonfgss.com/thread4945.html

who wants to print these stickers?

(i love how fast you can knock something up in PS)

lol you weegies need to HTFU ;) anyone that makes a song and dance about wanting to slash/sparkle/chib you, is not about to do it.. while there ranting "aboot..bein the fukin big man aboot toon" or trying to engage you in a pushing match.. smack the cunt in the face, stand on his neck till he passes out then rape him. (rape optional)

In my experience people who stab people don't talk about it they just do it.

:D oh a merry subject, I do miss the feel of a cold screwdriver held against my throat

hahaha i don't threaten people......i stay clear of violence, i hate it.....but at the same time, i find it funny.

and do be honest, i agree with you, the people that make an issue about it are the ones least to be afraid of.

The software needs to be able to recognize which bike is mine,

Ah this is an easy one. Use a glyph spoke card to uniquely identify your bike. It's an old Xerox Parc technique but still useful in some modern applications.

Perhaps if the glyph is moved or obscured then you can start doing your thief inspection routine.

In London bike thieves go around, spot a lonely bike, come back with a van with a 2 meter long bolt cutter and nab ur lock, Failing that they use a grinder, failing that they use a blow torch, failing that they use a small explosives device.
Failing all the above they at the least will steal all they can, levers bars and so on.
London is a very special place.

So a mini D is essential, but if you have a good bike, u just dont leave it anywhere but inside, behind closed doors. And even then u have to lock it. LOL ?
Someone here had their bike stolen from inside his house.

Re: the Almax video.

They say the krypto chain was loaned to them by someone. Kyptonite posted on their blog that there's no proof that that is actually a kryptonite chain. It could just be a cheap chain with a kryptonite sleeve.