I have a bicycle. Bicycles are stolen frequently. For some years mountain bikes have had disk brakes. Road bikes too are now starting to get these. I see no reason why the caliper or brake lever could not have a key operated mechanism to lock the brakes on. This would make it difficult to ride the bike, and similarly difficult to steal the wheels. Adding little extra weight. Also, the bike would be less likely to fall over.-- bs0u0155, Feb 23 2014 Big brake-lever clamp http://www.sip-scoo...s5bwCFRTNOgodjjIAaw [bs0u0155, Feb 24 2014] Tracker For E-Bikes http://electricbike...cover-stolen-bikes/These guys make bicycle tracking devices, but are not planning to sell them as after market add-ons. [skoomphemph, Feb 28 2014] Open the most popular locks with a pen http://www.wired.co.../news/2004/09/64987 [bs0u0155, Feb 28 2014] Or just cut right through in seconds. http://www.amazon.c...rdless+rebar+cutter [bs0u0155, Feb 28 2014] Blister Packaging http://tech.ca.msn....id=23680471&page=10 [bs0u0155, Feb 28 2014] Wouldn't someone just snip the brake cable, and steal the bike brakelessly?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 24 2014 ^ Brake and enter.-- AusCan531, Feb 24 2014 Wheel locks are quite popular in the Netherlands. Amazingly, over there it is usually all you need to stop theft. A Dutch friend of mine came to London and his bike disappeared immediately.
Another friend of mine had his brakes stolen - twice, so maybe there is a market for this. His solution was to "go fixie" so that he "didn't need" brakes. Haven't seen him in a while.-- mitxela, Feb 24 2014 This has been well baked for motorcycles for many years.-- cudgel, Feb 24 2014 ah, so it has, sort of. <link>-- bs0u0155, Feb 24 2014 OK, In which case I am going to pretend that my idea was the embedding of a lock barrel in the caliper... which when turned will increase the fluid pressure so that you can't ride it. It'd be even better if the lock physically pushed the pad against the disk, so that even snipping the brake lines wouldn't help.-- bs0u0155, Feb 24 2014 OK. So I've bought a brake caliper... scratched, but I don't care, it's winging it's way from Oregon. I've spoken to a local engineering company about the possibility of putting a hole in it. A precision hole, with fine thread. They're worried it might be a bit thin.. but hey, let's risk it. Then I suggested they machine a nice 10 mm brass screw-in plug. Because I like brass. Until they told me I was a moron and suggested a cut-down standard aluminium-bronze bolt. Apparently I don't know what galvanic corrosion is. I do know what a mm is though, ahem.
Anyhow, the hope is that the screw in bolt will directly push in the outer pad. In the process, it should displace enough fluid to push in the inner pad. I'll have to remember the number of turns for on/off.-- bs0u0155, Feb 25 2014 Buy a campervan, then you can lock the bicycle inside it.
Next problem please.-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 25 2014 The next problem is how do I transport my shipping container I used to lock my campervan in?-- AusCan531, Feb 25 2014 A ship?-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 25 2014 Bicycle parking: free. Campervan parking: $20/day... er no sorry dude, 30, that's oversized...-- bs0u0155, Feb 25 2014 Trouble here is the cunning professional cycle thief trick of throwing the thing onto the back of a delivery vehicle. Some thieves might even just carry the bike away, too. If you need heroin apparently you become a heroine. Whooosh!! Super-Junkie!!! Whoosh!!! There goes your bike.
One could possibly make some kind of accelerometer and GSM-based electronic device to hide in the frame, which sent you an SMS to say, "I'm on the move", and even to start reporting ... er ... wait ... It has to exist, doesn't it? ...
Yes it does. I'll post a link. Seeing as this is a bit off topic, please feel free to delete. (ie. I won't get all huffy and take it personally - but only this once).
As an unobtrusive lock, though - a brake disk clamp on the disc [1] - would do nicely. Sometimes there just isn't a lamp post available, and all you want is a quick, easy way to "take out short term insurance" against opportunist theft.
[1] Underhand advocacy warning: I believe we need to start to rebel against spelling prescriptions that don't foster clarity of expression. To cut a long story short, I feel it is my duty to try to remember to vary my spellings, consistently with this belief. color colour color should be all the same to me that doesn't mean im in favor of free punctuation tho.-- skoomphemph, Feb 28 2014 I gave up on thief-proofing my bike a while ago. There's little you can do against the professionals, a van a lookout and an electo-hydraulic rebar cutter. Will get you a bike 2-3 seconds. All you can do is hope to make that 6-7 seconds with 2-3 big locks.-- bs0u0155, Feb 28 2014 Make your bike look tatty and lock it with a decent lock in a rack containing better bikes with worse locks.
Make sure the rack is well fixed to the ground though, they sometimes lift the entire rack and chuck it into the van wholesale.-- pocmloc, Feb 28 2014 Steering locks for cars are also no match for a determined criminal. They just saw through the steering wheel, itself, and remove your lock that way.
And locks and keys? No need for finesse; an Allen key ground down to a roughly key-like point on the long end will force most locks.
There's some kind of general principle at work here, to do with how much of a disadvantage those who have to think through every possible weakness in some set of fixed defences are at, in a struggle against those who need only find a single weakness.
The asymmetry is qualitative, too. It's always going to be far, far easier to break anything than it is too build it. If you're on the side of the destroyers (good ones or bad), you've got the upper hand.-- skoomphemph, Feb 28 2014 //It's always going to be far, far easier to break anything than it is too build it.//
The exception being that plastic blister packaging. Put some glass fiber reinforcement in that and you could resist anything.-- bs0u0155, Feb 28 2014 You mean bliss stir packaging, surely? (From the katatonian drift the poppling can induce in susceptible subjects pop pop ... pop) ...
Putting reinforcing in would make a lot of such addicts vaguely sad (where once they had only abject happiness, as Edward Lear would put it.) pop ...
... hmm ...
pop pop Strangely satisfying.-- skoomphemph, Feb 28 2014 no, you're thinking of bubble wrap. I mean this stuff <link>-- bs0u0155, Feb 28 2014 Well, I was just trying to help... you have two options,
1) is buying the ship, meeting exciting people in Columbia and shipping lots of white powder, then going on an extended cruise, fighting off Somalian pirates en route and then running "tractor parts" into obscure countries around the Caspian sea, a lifetimes worth of stories to tell around a campfire...
or
2) A lock for your bicycle.-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 28 2014 A guy with a "tractor component" is a valid way of stopping people stealing your bike.
As an update, the engineering company has said that "there are some thread interface issues... we'll sort it out by monday afternoon though." meaning, they tapped the wring thread.... I think.-- bs0u0155, Feb 28 2014 Thud. The penny drops. Ah ha! Of course bubble<>blister. I suppose that's because the term has somehow never made it through all the cartilage and into my brain cavity. I've always just thought of blister packaging as "unbreakable stuff until it cuts you".
Absolutely! A bicycle wrapped in blister packaging ain't going nowhere anytime soon. .. er ..-- skoomphemph, Mar 01 2014 random, halfbakery