This is also a big problem for multi-modal commuting. Do I really want to lock up my bike in a location that screams 'the owner won't be back for 9 hours', knowing police won't investigate bike theft?
I know this is not a very helpful w.r.t. protection, however there is https://bikeindex.org/ - recently I was listening to a Darknet diaries podcast https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/153/ which has a nice story about stolen bikes and what to do about it.
If all those e-scooter rental startups can have remote GPS tracking and theft alarms then it really shouldn't take much to implement that into personal ones too. I mean people leave those things absolutely everywhere and they never get rightfully stolen.
A 4G modem would probably be overkill, but one might be able to do it for free with lorawan. Or alternatively a big label saying "this bike is GPS tracked" with absolutely no extra hardware at all and hope that bike thieves are dumb fucks.
Time to start using bikes made out of heavy incompatible parts and welding on the tracker then?
But yes I do partially agree that it probably wouldn't help much, since it's more about the thieves not wanting to mess with a company with funding and a legal department behind it vs. some random bloke who they can rob with impunity. Private bike security firms might be an answer to the issue, you pay a monthly subscription, they put their own trackers on your bike, employ licensed people who retrieve stolen ones at gunpoint and guarantee protection up to some total cost. Probably not cost effective though I guess, given that the police themselves have given up.
It doesn’t have to be drunks. I know plenty of people who, if they’re forced to move hire bikes left blocking the pavement, will do so carelessly as a matter of principle.
I got a cargo e-bike (Aventon Abound) and I have a cafe lock and a chain lock. Luckily the bike doesn't look "cool" so I am less worried about thieves. It's also quite heavy so the cafe lock is almost always enough. If I am leaving it downtown for hours then I also use the heavy duty chain.
I get around on an acoustic bike, but have a lot of friends with e-bikes. I believe this is extremely locale-dependent. For instance there's relatively little bike theft in my locale, except around the university where it's just really easy pickings.
I think you can learn a lot by looking at how bikes -- acoustic and electric -- are already being parked and locked in your district. For instance my daughter is attending grad school in a big city, and while we were walking around, I noticed that the most decrepit old bikes were secured with giant U-locks plus chains. Hmmm. So my daughter rides a bike of similar ilk, and secures it in a similar fashion.
And I noticed the most beastly of chains and locks in New York City.
Plus, people generally seem to prefer e-bikes where they can take the battery pack with them.
Not even an insider joke, everyone knows what an acoustic and electric guitar is. and funny is subjective, I had a good chuckle and will use the terminology now
I've been getting around on acoustic bikes for 35 years. 7 of them have been stolen in that time, yet still I've saved tens of thousands of dollars relative to the cost of relying on public transit, and hundreds of thousands of dollars relative to the cost of buying and operating a motor vehicle.
I typically use a heavy cargo bike. I only use its built in front wheel lock, it's so heavy, it can't be easily stolen, so I never lock it against posts and such.
I always lock and secure my road bike against street furniture, though.
Yeah, a lot of the cargo e-bikes are closer in size to a moped than to an acoustic bike, which makes them much more difficult to steal. A heavy-duty chain and a keyed ignition are typically an effective deterrent.
I don't. Theft risk and storage is definitely a challenge. A lot of commuters find somewhere to stash them at work. The problem might get better as ebikes become more common and lower in price.
Yes, but 10-15 kg is still comparable to a regular bike or a heavy bag of groceries. I rode a 19 kg one (50 km range, street legal), carrying it up to the third floor at work wasn't a problem.
True if it's just point to point commuting to a place with safe storage. But then I can't take it by strapping it on my backpack and going to shops, etc where a bike would get stolen.
Consider an electric unicycle (EUC). It's much more compact, so you can easily bring it into shops and other buildings, as well as it's much less troublesome when you use public transport (most models can be easily kept between your legs).
From the safety point of view it's not as bad as it seems on the first glance, especially if you don't plan riding on it faster than 20-30 km/h.
