Ways not to lock your bike

this, at midnight-ish yesterday. that lock is so loose that you could just loop it over the bars and walk away with the frame. i know it's a create, but still, learn2lock

The bike's there to save the lock...

Saw this the other day.
If I see the guy I'll have to show him this picture:
http://www.lfgss.com/post1895761-91.html

I think I may have sold him that bicycle and insist that he should get a D-lock as it's a lots more secure (partly because I remember putting the Evans sticker on the downtube instead).

Look like he got the wrong idea of 'secure'.

Which Evans do you work in Ed?

I like the way he has a cable to secure his seat, so thats nice and safe, however, the whole bike cold be removed in about 5 seconds...

Wimbledon.

Just back from sunny Balham high street - the Sainsbury's there recently did a refit during which they took away the several excellent sheffield stands and replaced them with a single shed containing maybe 6 of those idiotic butterfy stands. This evidently didn't do enough to discourage cyclists from locking up at Sainsbury's, so now they've taken the shed / butterfly stands away and replaced them with two tree-shaped structures with grooves in the stems. I gather you are supposed to lift your bike into the stands vertically and use a cable lock to secure your quick-release front wheel to the topmost metal bar of the stand. There doesn't appear to be any method using standard physics by which you can both secure the wheel to the stand and secure the wheel to the bicycle.

Two enterprising souls had a go anyway, everybody else just locked their bikes to the wooden railings that fence off the flowerbeds. Why do Sainsbury's hate cyclists?

I've been meaning to post a photo of this for a while. I don't think people would believe how staggeringly full of fail these things are without seeing them.

You can already see a severed cable dangling on there.

It's like a massive "fuck you" from Sainsbury's to cyclists.

They've got those things in Rough Trade East as well. I ended up putting my rear wheel at the top and locking through the seat stays/rim.

wow those look shocking.

the facilities at my local tesco (lewisham) are balls too in so much as they've chosen the most obscured/unlit section of the car park but at least they have sheffield stands to lock up to.

shame of the matter is there's a massive bit of pavement along the window that runs the length of the store where they could easily fit the same amount of stands without touching anything and the bikes would be nice and visible from the inside but as always these things are usually an afterthought.

edit: these 'umbrella' stands look much more thought out... http://www.bikearc.com/umbrelaArc.html

I just don't understand how something like this can come into existence. Someone had to design it - and in the months it will have taken for them to get from sketches, through CAD and prototypes, to manufacture, they didn't once realise how flawed it was? It makes me angry!

Found the culprits! Airstream Technology Corp.

I'm going to email them and tell them how much I hate them.

Found the culprits! Airstream Technology Corp.

I'm going to email them and tell them how much I hate them.

But:
'Eye catching designs make Cycle Pods products a fantastic ambient medium for the most creative advertising and branding'
and:
' The eye catching design offers 2 separate locking points per cycle and secures up to 8 bikes in a two meter diameter. the Cyclepod is an ideal solution for secure or semi secure locations where space and aesthetics are particularly important'

How could anyone hate that?

By ' ideal solution for secure or semi secure locations' I gather they mean that the 'Pod' itself offers little security. But offers great advertising space and is sooooo beautiful would-be theives will melt into a state of aesthetic yumminess and forget all about stealing bikes.

is there such a thing as a semi-secure location? it's either secure or it's not.

or is semi-secure a case of "it's secure so long as there's no bike thieves about"

semi-secure is similar to secureish

or perhaps it means only half the bike is secure.

Found the culprits! Airstream Technology Corp.

I'm going to email them and tell them how much I hate them.

E-mailed them too, for instructions on how to secure my bike using a proper lock, not just my wheels. Also would love to see my girlfriend try and lift her 50lbs+ Raleigh Cameo up one of those.

B'ham city centre today.
D-lock through rack but not through frame, cable lock through nothing.

Bit odd to leave two locks on it though attached to nothing.

Nice forks on that!

haha the lock on the front is actually locked around the frame! hah! it's not just hanging there. they obviously don't want that lock stolen

the chain looks like it's composed entirely of rust too, I think it's a decoy chain that they put on so any thief will hop on and get as far as the first junction before it disintegrates and they go under a passing bus.

E-mailed them too, for instructions on how to secure my bike using a proper lock, not just my wheels. Also would love to see my girlfriend try and lift her 50lbs+ Raleigh Cameo up one of those.

Just got an email from the CEO in Canada! Unfortunately all it said was "please get in touch with our London Office".

EDIT: and they sent me this: Cyclepods/Spacepods User Guide on Vimeo
- to be fair to them, it looks like it is actually possible to d-lock your rear triangle to it. You're out of luck if you're using a mini fag though.

Ye you can just about manage to position a d lock throught them, its a right hassle though

But not through the frame and the wheel.