Parked in an 8 bike bay this morning.
Quite mews ‘alley’ in Mayfair - perfect ground for Mr Transit Man Scrote and his mate to do some bike ‘shopping’ 
No peds about
Close to Park Lane for a quick getaway
what do I see?
3 other bikes;
55 reg Blade ( v. nice btw) , 56 reg Bonnie, 12 reg Diversion.
No chains, no disc locks, no Tracker tabs… feck all
We shouldn’t HAVE to lock our bikes but feck me - talk about making it easy for the scrotes :crazy:
All of mine have Almax and and trackers.
SIMPLEZ
I see the same around where I work in WC1 and wonder what the hell people are thinking! There are a couple of “desirable” bikes around here that the choice of security is highly questionable - Street Triple R with what looks like a Tesco’s u lock through the wheel spokes as an example. The vespa/ped riders are better secured, even seen a chain through a drain cover last week!!
Well, what they say Ross, stupid always have a luck.
I believe in bike security, I don’t believe that it will help a lot but you limiting the people who can nick it to the very minimum. Besides, my insurance quote with tracker was far more expensive than with alarm.
I have to agree, leaving blade without any lock is a bit stupid tho…
R
datatag did a survey in central london, they found that only 1in 3 had any kind of physical security fitted. bonkers!
almax and a disc lock at the very least, alarm and tracker as well even better.
Surely a massive heavy 16mm chain is no use with nothing to lock it to (which was the situation almost everywhere in westminster when I used to work there)?
Might as well just use a disc lock or two.
i never leave my bike unlocked anywhere, even popping into a shop for 10 minutes - it’s easy to carry a disc lock and takes seconds to attach/detach
I don’t use chains or locks as I don’t want a damaged Bike from a half arses attempt at theft. I don’t use a tracker cos I don’t want a Bike back after the scrotes have had it. I don’t use an alarm as they are a pain to use.
Does this not have a significant impact on your insurance premium?
Perhaps as you live outside of London and I don’t think your job involves you commuting in to town on a bike, it might not be so bad, but for those of us living and working here, I doubt many of us would get insurance without at least saying we use locks. I read somewhere that 50% of all bike thefts in the UK occur in London. 
To add to KTMD’s comments re datatag survey. Of course being presented with a survey, commisioned by a company selling a security system, is always open to questioning.
That said, I do have mine datatagged & rarely leave it out of sight, even with disclocks etc.
It made less than the price of a decent padlocks difference to my insurance even when I lived in London and commuted everyday. And if you state it you must use it so I never bothered… And at less than 200 quid a year fully comp on a superduke… Feck it my lazyness has been quoted out of competitive actions.
Bloody hell I dunno how you can do it - I’d be sweating from the time I left the bike till the time I picked it up - getting jumpy if I hard a noise or saw a Transit & 2 blokes cruising about.
In fact I still half think I’m gonna return to an empty space, littered with what an angle grinders left of my Almax chain and a crowbars left of my pin lock Disc lock. But it’s that fear that makes me lock it all up properly…
My bike was stolen from moorgate 12:30pm in front of starbucks alarm wailing and under a camera…you can clearly see four guys lifting it into a van in front of about 25 people drinking their lattes…not one person said a thing or even called the police (in case they didnt want to get involved)
Soon after I fond out about London Wall underground car park which is free and about 1,000 times safer! so I left notes on the bike bays letting people know my bike got stolen and location of car park (there is a bike bay literally 20 metres away from it) I still see the same bikes in them every day as I walk from car park…I guess people just dont care.
I see a beautiful RC8 parked up in central London amlost everyday with no locks. How the hell hasn’t that been taken? Unless the scum think that ‘its too good to be true’ that it’s a sting bike?
Not that I leave my bike unlocked when it’s parked in the street but I’m sure insurance companies have only ever been bothered about where I live and where the bike is kept overnight. I have cover for commuting but don’t ever recall being asked where the bike would be parked during the day. I’ve stopped declaring physical security devices (apart from the alarm that is built into the bike) because it doesn’t seem to make any difference to my premium and having them declared would just give the insurance company an excuse to get out of paying if it happens to get nicked when it’s not locked up.
Snap! I told insurance one year that I always park with Almax and disc lock…on the renewal I spoke to them and they said “and you always park with Almax & disc lock yes?”
So I asked them if that made any difference to the premium and the girl at the other end was honest enough to say it didn’t - so I a said I didn’t use them anymore.
As you say I might pop into Sainsburys one day for 5 minutes with just the disc lock on and the insurance won’t pay out if it’s nicked…
My insurance told me that they don’t expect you have chain whole day.
R
Last year when I did insurance comparison, there was a huge list of aftermarket security devices you could declare. Different chains & locks etc.
This year, the only questions regarding security was did it have factory fitted alarm/immobiliser and was it data tagged or have a tracker. That was it! :crazy:
It’s funny how they bang on about alarm / immobiliser - because in my book nobody steals a bike these days by hot wiring it and riding off ( well not a bike built after 1995 unless it’s a Chinese moped) and the alarm can be toasted (literally) very simply by the scrotes before it can issue it’s first ‘beep’ …
Course I’m not going to say how…
Disc locks and chains not bolted to anything - useless where scrotes have a van and can load it quickly.
Which leaves chains bolted to summat - and again they have to be uncroppable like Almax - AND in an area where it’s unlikely the scrotes will use a portable angle grinder
and / or Tracker …which is still a passive device but the combination of the two give you some peace of mind at least.
Mind you even with that we still find ourselves parking up where there is nothing to tie it to - or slip the Disc Lock on just to pop into the bookies or summat…
…which all leads me to think maybe the insurance companys are changing tact on the way they cost up premiums. Maybe they realise that most security devices are a mere inconvenience but wont stop your pride and joy being nicked.
Maybe, rather than messing about with did you or didnt you have such and such fitted, theyve come to the conclusion that its a free for all out there & have gone back to basics. Ie Regardless of what you use, if you get it nicked you will pay significantly more in premiums thereafter?
That’s a bloody good point.
To me the insurance companies are just lazy and just judging bike security in the same way they judge car security.
Of course alarms and immobilisers work for cars because no scrote had worked out how to get a Mercedes or a MINI into the back of a Transit using only 2 beefy blokes…
So they apply it to bikes as well…
**** these aresholes are professionals ffs - they have all the stats and they take a lot of money and they know exactly how bikes are nicked…
But what’s worse are the alarm makers - they make my piss boil - they are selling very expensive systems that are about as effective in their job as a Bacofoil hat to be used instead of a crash helmet.
Useless and can be countered in seconds - they MUST know that - yet they keep advertising and taking our money and the insurance companies help by insisting we fit these pieces of shite…
Ok calm down Ross:)
