Hi everyone,
Hope you are keeping well.
I am about to buy my first bike however I am a bit concerned about my bike getting stolen. how do people keep their voice safe if they park somewhere?
Thanks
It depends. A combination of the below
A garage
A Chain tied to something
A Chain tied to nothing
A disc lock or multiple ones, alarmed or not
A cover to hide it, sometimes chained into the bike
A tracker to try and find it
An alarm to scare people off
CCTV
Ultimately if someone wants it, none of the above will work. Consider the following:
Where you live
The type of property you live in
Where you can keep it
Where you work and the parking there
And lastly, what type of bike you want. Whilst there’s no guarantee, a beaten up deauville will likely be less attractive than a shiny new Ducati…
What you’re trying to do is stop the chance thief, rather than the pro who’s stealing to order…
Edit the above is not just about out and about but generally although rereading your question it seems it was more about out and about.
If you live in Central London and you don’t have secure parking buy a CB500 (or something undesirable to thieves), or an older Fazer and just ride that around. If you’ve anything even remotely nice the thieving element will have it. We’ve had heavily crash damaged bikes held together with cable ties stolen from here. They’ll take anything. The bastards.
Something that is undesirable for the thieving scrotes is the best option. I rode an old Jap cruiser round London, chained in a bay by work and chained to a lamp post at home, with a couple of disk locks and a cover that the chains passed through.
If it were desirable I’m sure it would have gone, but it wasn’t so was left alone.
There is also a lot to be said for riding a bike you don’t care about that much. I had a riot on my old 500.
The best defence is secrecy. If they don’t know you have it, it is unlikely to be stolen.
The moment they know there is a bike there, it doesn’t matter what security you have, if they want it they will take it.
If you have to lock it on the street, then it has to be undesirable. My daily driver is a 15 year old scooter, it is old enough that I’m starting to struggle to find parts for it. It is battle-scarred after 15 years being parked in London motorcycle bays, and my partner dropping it a few times. I think it has survived on the street because it looks very feminine in its cream paintwork, it is low performance, neither of which appeal to the scrotes who are looking for a runabout - they don’t want to be seen on a ‘girls bike’.