My company is moving at the weekend and, for the first time in 5 years, I’m going to have to start parking in public bays again. The last time I did this I had a fazer 600 and it suffered scooter rash down both sides of the tank. Now I’ve got a 1 month old gs adventure and I’d rather avoid similar damage. Does, in your experience, covering the bike make any difference to how it’s treated by other riders or just a wanky waste of time and effort?
Probably best not to advertise where it will be parked 
You’re probably right so have removed the location…although at 5 feet tall and weighing half a tonne it’s hardly hidden from public view when parked up 
In my experience no. You still get scooter guys ramming into bays and also other riders will still try to grab and shuffle your bike around regardless of a cover.
Sometimes they reconsider if an alarm goes off but there are still many who dont care.
I remember when I told a scooter guy not to fk with my bike. He tried to play the whole thing down like it’s perfectly acceptable to move bikes around. Only pist me off more.
Note to all: If you do find a scooter rammed into your bike dont always assume it was the rider who parked like that. Some riders shuffle other peoples bikes into a very tight pile up.
Fook that…If some toff in a suit and bow tie rammed my bike id ram him back…But to be fair if I had to park in a bike bay id buy something big and heavy like an old army bike…Then I wouldn’t care what happend to it…Id lose my rag if I saw someone pushing my bike anywhere…I wouldn’t bovver bagging it up mate…Someone will still hit it…I can imagine what its like up in them bike bays lol…Like a game of ice hockey right? gloves off…Scooter boys Vs The Big Bikes
could you use a ncp , you gotta pay but the cost of damage to your bike must be worth looking into?
i never use on street bays now due the i dont care mob …
I used to park my Thundercat and XB9SX in bays in Westminster and always covered them. I think it made a difference to be honest; the cover gives a bike a larger ‘footprint’ in the bay which put off some people from getting exceptionally close, and protects from rain, light scratching, birds etc.
Of course, some people ‘park’ as close as they want :crazy:
If you do buy a decent heavy duty lined cover, the only thing that might stop parking dinks and scratches, do lock it to the bike.
The street life of an unlocked expensive cover can be short.
Or an unlocked cheap cover… mine lasted 1 week… Someone told me that apparently homeless people nick them to sleep in them. If that is true then I don’t care - I got that cover with my bike so if it’s giving someone warmth for a night sleeping rough, so be it.
Now I have an Oxford Rainex which is locked front and rear… When parked over night, it did make a bit of a difference as others have mentioned it increases the ‘footprint’ of the bike… however on mine it was relatively stretched which meant you had to literally ram another bike next to it to touch paint or do any damage…
I could never be bothered carrying it to work…