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Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a cu

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unfortunately. It's really quite ingenious from a technical point of view. It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle.

executesorder66 5y ago
> cordless screwdrivers Do screwdrivers typically have cords? And if so, what for?
- xenonite 5y ago
  I guess a cord protects a screwdriver from being stolen.
- namdnay 5y ago
  Probably not a native English speaker. They mean a cordless driver/drill
  - nathanm412 5y ago
    Electric screwdrivers with not much more torque than a human hand can apply are pretty common and small. They spin much faster than I can turn a screwdriver and stop before they can strip any screw. With the right gearing and modification, I can see one easily cut through a bike lock. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=cordless+screwdriver&iax=shopping&ia=shopping https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=cordless+screwdriver&iax=sh...
aigo 5y ago
We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably be alright.
- zimpenfish 5y ago
  Yeah, if I lock mine up anywhere in London (even in workplace bike stores), I always use three (different) locks. Faff and heavy to carry but, touch wood, no-one has stolen a bike of mine yet in 20 years.
- pmontra 5y ago
  Another tip: lock your bike close to more expensive ones.
  - techdragon 5y ago
    This is the bike theft version of “I don’t have to outrun the bear/tiger, i just have to outrun the slowest other person.”
- fy20 5y ago
  I had a bike stolen 10 years ago from an underground garage, they just ignored the locks and cut through the rack
  - spicybright 5y ago
    Had 2 stolen so far, cut the bike lock off. I buy my bikes around $50 each or fix up side of the road ones. Basically disposable, given that I enjoy the process of fixing.
- mcv 5y ago
  Professionalism in bike theft isn't so much about tools, but about organisation. Professional bike thieves will have a van, load it up with exactly the bikes they already know they can sell, and drive their load to the other side of the country (if your country is small like Netherland, that is), and sell them there. Or maybe sell them in a different country. I've noticed that sometimes more expensive bikes simply don't get stolen while cheap ones do. I assume that's because of an easier market to sell them. There was a period when my son's children's bikes got stolen all the time, while my far more expensive cargo bike wasn't, despite it being only locked with a ring lock, and no chain. But of course a kid's bike is also much easier to pick up, and it had a very light lock.
maeln 5y ago
With e-bike costing over thousand euros, bike stealing has become way more lucrative, attracting more and better thief ...
- globular-toast 5y ago
  Erm.. my non-e-bike costs well over a thousand euros! But I guess e-bikes have made "normal" people consider spending that much money on a bike. People into biking have always been spending this much money on bikes although oddly it seems to surprise many people, even though they'll happily pay 10x that for a car that requires fossil fuel to do anything.
  - kuschku 5y ago
    As someone who never owned a car or drivers license, and who has been cycling for her whole life: no, thousands of euros for a regular bicycle is not normal.
    - globular-toast 5y ago
      I didn't say thousands actually (also specifically said it wasn't normal). It's just that I own a fairly mid-high end road bike (that I bought 10 years ago) that cost more than €1000. I used to ride a road bike that cost around €800 as my commuter bike until it got stolen. The quality at this price point is definitely worth it, with diminishing returns above it. I would strongly recommend upgrading to a road or town bike at this price point as it's such a huge improvement and will last you decades.
      - kuschku 5y ago
        I’d honestly consider 800€ already enthusiast grade, but I’m interested. What does your 800€ bicycle have that mine doesn’t have? For reference, I’m currently using https://www.boc24.de/p/bocas-bari-trapez/217333/ https://www.boc24.de/p/bocas-bari-trapez/217333/ (which I bought at 320€ on sale) with some changes (B&M 100 lux front light, seat post with suspension), and I don’t think I’d get any major improvements with other changes. Due to cycling in city traffic, I need to be able to instantly switch gears at standstill, so a derailleur would be a downgrade compared to the hub gearing I’ve got, and upgraded hub dynamos would bring me just 2-5% more performance, which isn’t really useful.
Freak_NL 5y ago
These days not having an e-bike is probably one of the easiest deterrents. Next step seems to be to avoid design bikes like Van Moof. And finally, have your bike look used. Then again, my bike is probably not the first one they'll consider, given that it has a 70cm frame making it all but impossible to ride for anyone under 195cm (being 200cm myself). If you steal a bicycle you have to be able to sell it, and given that a lot of professionally stolen bicycles are exported to countries with lower GDP's and that there aren't that many (if any) countries where tall people are as relatively common as in the Netherlands that match that criterium, I am relatively safe I suppose (as long as I lock it to a barrier or bicycle stand).
- mrsuprawsm 5y ago
  I do wonder how often Van Moof bikes get stolen, despite their tracking features. Fear of theft is the one thing that puts me off buying one.
  - owenwil 5y ago
    I had two stolen over the years I owned one in Amsterdam. The first one was recovered in about a week. The second was never found, but they replace it when they don’t find it as a part of that guarantee–which is why it’s actually a really great deal.
    - mrsuprawsm 5y ago
      It seems like they now only offer this for 3 years, which isn't great, since hopefully you'd own the bike for a lot longer than 3 years. https://support.vanmoof.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44001778625--what-s-included-in-peace-of-mind-theft- https://support.vanmoof.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44...
- owenwil 5y ago
  It’s interesting because in my 5 years in the Netherlands, the general opinion was the opposite of this: bike theft is such a common occurrence because everyone rides the same, probably stolen and resold, black bike that you should ride a new, design bike that stands out, like a VanMoof–because no thief would be dumb enough to go for it since it would be obvious where you got it (and more importantly, almost certainly registered/traceable vs an old clunker).
healeycodes 5y ago
> It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle. I like this blog on that topic: https://calpaterson.com/bicycle-threat-model.html https://calpaterson.com/bicycle-threat-model.html > One father I know had his primary-school-age daughter "decorate" his commuting bicycle with girly stickers and pink glitter. If anyone examines his bicycle closely he looks like a complete loon but I think his motivation is right: it's going to be much less appealing to steal when it's covered in Miffy stickers.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  I knew a guy with a similar philosophy. He spray painted his bike ugly color.
  - jspash 5y ago
    Something like this? https://iamspecialized.medium.com/very-special-things-rust-venge-76e9396b2904 https://iamspecialized.medium.com/very-special-things-rust-v...
    - JaggerFoo 5y ago
      This is brilliant. I also like that it's powered by a "Meat Motor". Cheers.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    If you want something less permanent, you can use some strategically placed duck tape and make it look like a beater.
- spicybright 5y ago
  Bonus points, he'll get to embarrass her when she gets a bit older with it! This is a good idea though. Anything that makes your bike identifiable is a good deterrent.
phreeza 5y ago
Something like this i guess? https://youtu.be/BXY_fqDBg5E https://youtu.be/BXY_fqDBg5E
- adrianN 5y ago
  At least some bike locks are resistant to this attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXoS_HB1I3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXoS_HB1I3o
im3w1l 5y ago
My bike was stolen enough times that I gave up. I don't own one anymore.
- verbify 5y ago
  I bought a folding bike, never bought a lock and that worked for me.
hutzlibu 5y ago
"It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle." Or move to the countryside, where you can usually leave your bike unlocked outside of the supermarket ... And reading all the bike theft horror stories here, I was wondering, why GPS tracking is not more of a thing? It seems to exist, but might be hard to make use of in reality? (because professionals jam them or remove them and the police is not too eager to do something about a stolen bike?)
- 1-more 5y ago
  In a city it won’t tell you which apartment the bike is in. You need to remember to charge it up: the solutions I’ve seen don’t have super long battery lives. And you need to pay monthly for the data connection. It would be cool if you could combine that tracking with an insurance policy that bundled everything together especially talking to the reticent-to-help police.
- dkdk8283 5y ago
  If you’re in the country just drive
- hexedpackets 5y ago
  There's a complete lack of enforcement for bike thefts (at least in the US cities I've lived in). Even if you have GPS coordinates that unequivocally lead to the thief, the police won't take any action. Maybe this is different in other countries.
1-more 5y ago
In NYC you can occasionally see a nice Kryptonite lock hanging on a bike rack with one neat cut through it from a battery powered angle grinder. Nothing can stand up to those unfortunately. It really is just a matter of not leaving it alone for long enough that a well equipped thief can spot it.
- dr-detroit 5y ago
  Youre telling stories. U-locks pop right off using a spare tire jack from any car ever. Even little kids know this.
mrsuprawsm 5y ago
Rental bikes such as "Swapfiets" (swap bike, https://swapfiets.nl/ https://swapfiets.nl/) are fairly popular in NL these days. Since they're owned by a company, there seems to be less incentive to steal them (since I suppose you can't sell them to unsuspecting buyers in the service area), and if you as a renter get the bike nicked, then you only pay a token sum (€40-60) for a replacement. They also fix your bike for you when it breaks or you get a flat tyre. The economics seem to work out fairly well, the bikes are good, you always have a solid working bike. If you buy a bike yourself, it might run you 200-300 for an okay one, 500ish for a decent one, but you never know if it will get stolen or not. And obviously the company prints money too.
- nojs 5y ago
  They also have a beautiful logo, and branding in general.
josefresco 5y ago
Two (lame) lock stories below: We inherited a bike with a cable bike lock around the handlebars. The local bike shop was able to cut through it easily with bolt cutters. My truck came with a locking hitch. I recently forgot my keys and a family member pried it off with a crowbar in 10 seconds. Security theater.
- csunbird 5y ago
  expensive locks and complex mechanisms also signal that says "hey, there is something valueable here!"
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  I locked my bike at th eoffice and lost the key. Went to security, they gave me a bolt cutter. That was the first (and only) time in my life I used a bolt cutter and it took me maybe 30 seconds to cut the cable. Now it would have been 10 seconds because I know where to cut. I would not say that thi sis security theater, it is to avoid the passer-by who would steal your bike on a whim. I have no idea what percentage of thiefs this is .
- jmnicolas 5y ago
  > Security theater. I'm always amazed how the Lockpicking Lawyer on YouTube defeats any lock within seconds. I think the hardest one was a couple minutes.
- spicybright 5y ago
  If you want to lose even more faith in security, the Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube has videos of him opening/breaking into almost any kind of lock you can imagine. https://www.youtube.com/c/lockpickinglawyer https://www.youtube.com/c/lockpickinglawyer
analog31 5y ago
My bike is protected by anti-theft aesthetics (tm). Also, parking next to nicer bikes with less secure locks. This really hit me when I got said bike from an auction, it had a cable lock attached to it, and when I got it home, the cable lock was gone in about 15 seconds based on comments I had read in a web forum.
klyrs 5y ago
Couldn't find the exact device, but this matches the general description... https://www.kleintools.com/catalog/7-ton-cutters-crimpers/battery-operated-bolt-cutter-steel-2-ah https://www.kleintools.com/catalog/7-ton-cutters-crimpers/ba...
tjr225 5y ago
Sadly, things have gotten to the point where I would not leave my bicycle unattended outside for any meaningful amount of time in any big city in the world. Lock or not. I even have stories of friends/coworkers having their bikes stolen out of protected storage in their apartment buildings.

executesorder66 5y ago

> cordless screwdrivers Do screwdrivers typically have cords? And if so, what for?

xenonite 5y ago
I guess a cord protects a screwdriver from being stolen.
namdnay 5y ago
Probably not a native English speaker. They mean a cordless driver/drill
- nathanm412 5y ago
  Electric screwdrivers with not much more torque than a human hand can apply are pretty common and small. They spin much faster than I can turn a screwdriver and stop before they can strip any screw. With the right gearing and modification, I can see one easily cut through a bike lock. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=cordless+screwdriver&iax=shopping&ia=shopping https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=cordless+screwdriver&iax=sh...

aigo 5y ago

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably be alright.

zimpenfish 5y ago
Yeah, if I lock mine up anywhere in London (even in workplace bike stores), I always use three (different) locks. Faff and heavy to carry but, touch wood, no-one has stolen a bike of mine yet in 20 years.
pmontra 5y ago
Another tip: lock your bike close to more expensive ones.
- techdragon 5y ago
  This is the bike theft version of “I don’t have to outrun the bear/tiger, i just have to outrun the slowest other person.”
fy20 5y ago
I had a bike stolen 10 years ago from an underground garage, they just ignored the locks and cut through the rack
- spicybright 5y ago
  Had 2 stolen so far, cut the bike lock off. I buy my bikes around $50 each or fix up side of the road ones. Basically disposable, given that I enjoy the process of fixing.
mcv 5y ago
Professionalism in bike theft isn't so much about tools, but about organisation. Professional bike thieves will have a van, load it up with exactly the bikes they already know they can sell, and drive their load to the other side of the country (if your country is small like Netherland, that is), and sell them there. Or maybe sell them in a different country. I've noticed that sometimes more expensive bikes simply don't get stolen while cheap ones do. I assume that's because of an easier market to sell them. There was a period when my son's children's bikes got stolen all the time, while my far more expensive cargo bike wasn't, despite it being only locked with a ring lock, and no chain. But of course a kid's bike is also much easier to pick up, and it had a very light lock.

maeln 5y ago

With e-bike costing over thousand euros, bike stealing has become way more lucrative, attracting more and better thief ...

globular-toast 5y ago
Erm.. my non-e-bike costs well over a thousand euros! But I guess e-bikes have made "normal" people consider spending that much money on a bike. People into biking have always been spending this much money on bikes although oddly it seems to surprise many people, even though they'll happily pay 10x that for a car that requires fossil fuel to do anything.
- kuschku 5y ago
  As someone who never owned a car or drivers license, and who has been cycling for her whole life: no, thousands of euros for a regular bicycle is not normal.
  - globular-toast 5y ago
    I didn't say thousands actually (also specifically said it wasn't normal). It's just that I own a fairly mid-high end road bike (that I bought 10 years ago) that cost more than €1000. I used to ride a road bike that cost around €800 as my commuter bike until it got stolen. The quality at this price point is definitely worth it, with diminishing returns above it. I would strongly recommend upgrading to a road or town bike at this price point as it's such a huge improvement and will last you decades.
    - kuschku 5y ago
      I’d honestly consider 800€ already enthusiast grade, but I’m interested. What does your 800€ bicycle have that mine doesn’t have? For reference, I’m currently using https://www.boc24.de/p/bocas-bari-trapez/217333/ https://www.boc24.de/p/bocas-bari-trapez/217333/ (which I bought at 320€ on sale) with some changes (B&M 100 lux front light, seat post with suspension), and I don’t think I’d get any major improvements with other changes. Due to cycling in city traffic, I need to be able to instantly switch gears at standstill, so a derailleur would be a downgrade compared to the hub gearing I’ve got, and upgraded hub dynamos would bring me just 2-5% more performance, which isn’t really useful.

Freak_NL 5y ago

These days not having an e-bike is probably one of the easiest deterrents. Next step seems to be to avoid design bikes like Van Moof. And finally, have your bike look used. Then again, my bike is probably not the first one they'll consider, given that it has a 70cm frame making it all but impossible to ride for anyone under 195cm (being 200cm myself). If you steal a bicycle you have to be able to sell it, and given that a lot of professionally stolen bicycles are exported to countries with lower GDP's and that there aren't that many (if any) countries where tall people are as relatively common as in the Netherlands that match that criterium, I am relatively safe I suppose (as long as I lock it to a barrier or bicycle stand).

mrsuprawsm 5y ago
I do wonder how often Van Moof bikes get stolen, despite their tracking features. Fear of theft is the one thing that puts me off buying one.
- owenwil 5y ago
  I had two stolen over the years I owned one in Amsterdam. The first one was recovered in about a week. The second was never found, but they replace it when they don’t find it as a part of that guarantee–which is why it’s actually a really great deal.
  - mrsuprawsm 5y ago
    It seems like they now only offer this for 3 years, which isn't great, since hopefully you'd own the bike for a lot longer than 3 years. https://support.vanmoof.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44001778625--what-s-included-in-peace-of-mind-theft- https://support.vanmoof.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44...
owenwil 5y ago
It’s interesting because in my 5 years in the Netherlands, the general opinion was the opposite of this: bike theft is such a common occurrence because everyone rides the same, probably stolen and resold, black bike that you should ride a new, design bike that stands out, like a VanMoof–because no thief would be dumb enough to go for it since it would be obvious where you got it (and more importantly, almost certainly registered/traceable vs an old clunker).

healeycodes 5y ago

> It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle. I like this blog on that topic: https://calpaterson.com/bicycle-threat-model.html https://calpaterson.com/bicycle-threat-model.html > One father I know had his primary-school-age daughter "decorate" his commuting bicycle with girly stickers and pink glitter. If anyone examines his bicycle closely he looks like a complete loon but I think his motivation is right: it's going to be much less appealing to steal when it's covered in Miffy stickers.

devoutsalsa 5y ago
I knew a guy with a similar philosophy. He spray painted his bike ugly color.
- jspash 5y ago
  Something like this? https://iamspecialized.medium.com/very-special-things-rust-venge-76e9396b2904 https://iamspecialized.medium.com/very-special-things-rust-v...
  - JaggerFoo 5y ago
    This is brilliant. I also like that it's powered by a "Meat Motor". Cheers.
- kadoban 5y ago
  If you want something less permanent, you can use some strategically placed duck tape and make it look like a beater.
spicybright 5y ago
Bonus points, he'll get to embarrass her when she gets a bit older with it! This is a good idea though. Anything that makes your bike identifiable is a good deterrent.

phreeza 5y ago

Something like this i guess? https://youtu.be/BXY_fqDBg5E https://youtu.be/BXY_fqDBg5E

adrianN 5y ago
At least some bike locks are resistant to this attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXoS_HB1I3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXoS_HB1I3o

im3w1l 5y ago

My bike was stolen enough times that I gave up. I don't own one anymore.

verbify 5y ago
I bought a folding bike, never bought a lock and that worked for me.

hutzlibu 5y ago

"It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle." Or move to the countryside, where you can usually leave your bike unlocked outside of the supermarket ... And reading all the bike theft horror stories here, I was wondering, why GPS tracking is not more of a thing? It seems to exist, but might be hard to make use of in reality? (because professionals jam them or remove them and the police is not too eager to do something about a stolen bike?)

1-more 5y ago
In a city it won’t tell you which apartment the bike is in. You need to remember to charge it up: the solutions I’ve seen don’t have super long battery lives. And you need to pay monthly for the data connection. It would be cool if you could combine that tracking with an insurance policy that bundled everything together especially talking to the reticent-to-help police.
dkdk8283 5y ago
If you’re in the country just drive
hexedpackets 5y ago
There's a complete lack of enforcement for bike thefts (at least in the US cities I've lived in). Even if you have GPS coordinates that unequivocally lead to the thief, the police won't take any action. Maybe this is different in other countries.

1-more 5y ago

In NYC you can occasionally see a nice Kryptonite lock hanging on a bike rack with one neat cut through it from a battery powered angle grinder. Nothing can stand up to those unfortunately. It really is just a matter of not leaving it alone for long enough that a well equipped thief can spot it.

dr-detroit 5y ago
Youre telling stories. U-locks pop right off using a spare tire jack from any car ever. Even little kids know this.

mrsuprawsm 5y ago

Rental bikes such as "Swapfiets" (swap bike, https://swapfiets.nl/ https://swapfiets.nl/) are fairly popular in NL these days. Since they're owned by a company, there seems to be less incentive to steal them (since I suppose you can't sell them to unsuspecting buyers in the service area), and if you as a renter get the bike nicked, then you only pay a token sum (€40-60) for a replacement. They also fix your bike for you when it breaks or you get a flat tyre. The economics seem to work out fairly well, the bikes are good, you always have a solid working bike. If you buy a bike yourself, it might run you 200-300 for an okay one, 500ish for a decent one, but you never know if it will get stolen or not. And obviously the company prints money too.

nojs 5y ago
They also have a beautiful logo, and branding in general.

josefresco 5y ago

Two (lame) lock stories below: We inherited a bike with a cable bike lock around the handlebars. The local bike shop was able to cut through it easily with bolt cutters. My truck came with a locking hitch. I recently forgot my keys and a family member pried it off with a crowbar in 10 seconds. Security theater.

csunbird 5y ago
expensive locks and complex mechanisms also signal that says "hey, there is something valueable here!"
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
I locked my bike at th eoffice and lost the key. Went to security, they gave me a bolt cutter. That was the first (and only) time in my life I used a bolt cutter and it took me maybe 30 seconds to cut the cable. Now it would have been 10 seconds because I know where to cut. I would not say that thi sis security theater, it is to avoid the passer-by who would steal your bike on a whim. I have no idea what percentage of thiefs this is .
jmnicolas 5y ago
> Security theater. I'm always amazed how the Lockpicking Lawyer on YouTube defeats any lock within seconds. I think the hardest one was a couple minutes.
spicybright 5y ago
If you want to lose even more faith in security, the Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube has videos of him opening/breaking into almost any kind of lock you can imagine. https://www.youtube.com/c/lockpickinglawyer https://www.youtube.com/c/lockpickinglawyer

analog31 5y ago

My bike is protected by anti-theft aesthetics (tm). Also, parking next to nicer bikes with less secure locks. This really hit me when I got said bike from an auction, it had a cable lock attached to it, and when I got it home, the cable lock was gone in about 15 seconds based on comments I had read in a web forum.

klyrs 5y ago

Couldn't find the exact device, but this matches the general description... https://www.kleintools.com/catalog/7-ton-cutters-crimpers/battery-operated-bolt-cutter-steel-2-ah https://www.kleintools.com/catalog/7-ton-cutters-crimpers/ba...

tjr225 5y ago

Sadly, things have gotten to the point where I would not leave my bicycle unattended outside for any meaningful amount of time in any big city in the world. Lock or not. I even have stories of friends/coworkers having their bikes stolen out of protected storage in their apartment buildings.