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#31
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
"41" wrote in message oups.com... Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote: Tom Nakashima wrote: My son enters college this fall, so I put together a bike for him by salvaging spare components and a frame that I wasn't using. Suggestions on making the bike inconspicuous? Maybe di sguising the bike isn't worth the effort for today's thieves? Suggestions from college students. -tom Yay! I'm an expert on this. Okay so here are my ten steps to a theft-proof bike: 1. Spraypaint... the cheaper the better. Spray t he whole bike frame and make sure to spraypaint the tires and grips, too. It makes it look like the owner is really dumb. Put some scratches in the paint so it doesn't look so cherry. This should be easy to do since the spraypaint will probabl y just flake off just by you looking at it funny. 2. Stickers! Get so many stickers that you're almost inhaling them. Get them from your local radio station. The flashier the better. Apply stickers to everything on the bike, especially the frame. Make sure to do the saddle, too. 3. Duct tape! Put random duct tape bits so that they look like they're actually trying to hold something together. Tape the saddle, too... this makes the bike really cry out "I am a ****bomb!" 4. Cover up any and all brand names and models. 5. Put a crappy, broken, bent rack on the back for ultra-nerd factor. Add rusty fenders and baskets to taste. Nobody wants a dorky bike. 6. Attach as many broken reflectors and light mounts as you can on the handlebars, seatpost and seatstays. These will make it seem like the owner keeps breaking lights, buying new ones, and never getting rid of the old mounts. 7. Place tennis balls and cards in the spokes, and of course bar plugs with streamers coming out. That might scare off even the seasoned thieves. 8. Apply the biggest, most gaudy bell... no wait, horn... on the bike... something like this Barbie Deluxe Bicycle Horn: http://img.epinions.com/images/opti/...resized200.jpg Tell your son to honk it within 100 feet of any human or animal. 9. If you want to go overboard, find a cosmetically rusty chain and cassette and put those on. 10. Lock up the bike with both a non-pickable u-lock and a cable lock! We should not have to go to such extremes and to ride garbage. What would car owners say if that's what they had to do to their cars, simply to make them workable transportation devices? Agree, if people didn't steal, we wouldn't have to go through this. -tom |
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#32
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
Hi Tom,
Phil the Squid is pretty thorough. As for QR's, hose clamping them front and rear can slow down the opportunistic thief. Marc |
#33
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
Brandtness wrote:
Hi Tom, Phil the Squid is pretty thorough. As for QR's, hose clamping them front and rear can slow down the opportunistic thief. Marc A good tip for sure, salvaged clamps always look best. Everybody seems to have forgotten the old hot glue gun bead, gold and black paint. Yes that's right, the fake bad glob and hope brass braze repair. Guaranteed to make the thief look elsewhere. - Marcus |
#34
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
Tom Nakashima wrote:
"41" wrote in message oups.com... Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote: Tom Nakashima wrote: My son enters college this fall, so I put together a bike for him by salvaging spare components and a frame that I wasn't using. Suggestions on making the bike inconspicuous? Maybe di sguising the bike isn't worth the effort for today's thieves? Suggestions from college students. -tom Yay! I'm an expert on this. Okay so here are my ten steps to a theft-proof bike: 1. Spraypaint... the cheaper the better. Spray t he whole bike frame and make sure to spraypaint the tires and grips, too. It makes it look like the owner is really dumb. Put some scratches in the paint so it doesn't look so cherry. This should be easy to do since the spraypaint will probabl y just flake off just by you looking at it funny. 2. Stickers! Get so many stickers that you're almost inhaling them. Get them from your local radio station. The flashier the better. Apply stickers to everything on the bike, especially the frame. Make sure to do the saddle, too. 3. Duct tape! Put random duct tape bits so that they look like they're actually trying to hold something together. Tape the saddle, too... this makes the bike really cry out "I am a ****bomb!" 4. Cover up any and all brand names and models. 5. Put a crappy, broken, bent rack on the back for ultra-nerd factor. Add rusty fenders and baskets to taste. Nobody wants a dorky bike. 6. Attach as many broken reflectors and light mounts as you can on the handlebars, seatpost and seatstays. These will make it seem like the owner keeps breaking lights, buying new ones, and never getting rid of the old mounts. 7. Place tennis balls and cards in the spokes, and of course bar plugs with streamers coming out. That might scare off even the seasoned thieves. 8. Apply the biggest, most gaudy bell... no wait, horn... on the bike... something like this Barbie Deluxe Bicycle Horn: http://img.epinions.com/images/opti/...resized200.jpg Tell your son to honk it within 100 feet of any human or animal. 9. If you want to go overboard, find a cosmetically rusty chain and cassette and put those on. 10. Lock up the bike with both a non-pickable u-lock and a cable lock! We should not have to go to such extremes and to ride garbage. What would car owners say if that's what they had to do to their cars, simply to make them workable transportation devices? Agree, if people didn't steal, we wouldn't have to go through this. -tom That's not the problem. Bicycles are still thought of as children's toys in America. A large percentage of the population only know what Huffys are, and have only heard of those $5000 bikes... To the average joe, bicycle theft is hardly a problem, so no solution needs to be formed. -- Phil, Squid-in-Training |
#35
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
Jasper Janssen wrote: ... Make it *con*spicuous. If they have to repaint the bike and/or sell it a few states over to avoid the original owner claiming it when he sees it across the street, they won't bother.... I guess my bike, http://www.ihpva.org/incoming/2002/sunset/Sunset001.jpg, should be pretty theft-proof, then. -- Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley |
#36
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
Brian Kerr wrote: Someone wrote: G. Daniels wrote: try rusto auto paint in primer brown or grey then wear bright colors or use dayglo poster paper take the seat with you-bikes without seats are useless I used to see a bike commuter on a regular basis (over a period of several years) that rode an ATB without a seat. Female? By all appearances, no. Sorry. -- Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley |
#37
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
Per Phil, Squid-in-Training:
That's not the problem. Bicycles are still thought of as children's toys in America. A large percentage of the population only know what Huffys are, and have only heard of those $5000 bikes... To the average joe, bicycle theft is hardly a problem, so no solution needs to be formed. Somebody I know who came back from the Netherlands said bike theft there was even worse than anyplace he'd heard about here. He says there's a saying in Amsterdam that the canals are 8 feet deep: 2 feet of water and 4 feet of bicycles. -- PeteCresswell |
#38
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
On Thu, 08 Sep 2005 22:45:33 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote: Per Phil, Squid-in-Training: That's not the problem. Bicycles are still thought of as children's toys in America. A large percentage of the population only know what Huffys are, and have only heard of those $5000 bikes... To the average joe, bicycle theft is hardly a problem, so no solution needs to be formed. Somebody I know who came back from the Netherlands said bike theft there was even worse than anyplace he'd heard about here. Well, I dunno. Amsterdam is pretty bad, and the other 3 big cities are close behind, but rural theft is fairly low. I live in one of those other 3 big cities, and I've had my bike stolen, what, 3, 4 times? Mostly at times when I left the keys in, so it was my own damn fault. He says there's a saying in Amsterdam that the canals are 8 feet deep: 2 feet of water and 4 feet of bicycles. Heh. When I fished in the Delft canals once, I got about 8 or 10 bikes in one place and very nearly one with every throw. But that's more vandalism than actual *theft* (although you can't tell the difference as a victim, of course). Jasper |
#39
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
On 8 Sep 2005 17:47:48 -0700, "Someone" wrote:
I guess my bike, http://www.ihpva.org/incoming/2002/sunset/Sunset001.jpg, should be pretty theft-proof, then. Probably. 'bents, I'd imagine, are fairly unsaleable since so few people know what to do with them. I still wouldn't leave it completely unlocked. Jasper |
#40
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Making a College bike Inconspicuous?
On Fri, 09 Sep 2005 11:54:06 +0000, Jasper Janssen wrote:
On 8 Sep 2005 17:47:48 -0700, "Someone" wrote: I guess my bike, http://www.ihpva.org/incoming/2002/sunset/Sunset001.jpg, should be pretty theft-proof, then. Probably. 'bents, I'd imagine, are fairly unsaleable since so few people know what to do with them. I still wouldn't leave it completely unlocked. Jasper Yeah, a friend of mine just had his 'bent stolen. He had insurance on it and they paid. Sadly the cops really can't be bothered to look for his bike. Mike -- remove NOSPAM to respond but I prefer followups in the NG |
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