Building a better bike lock

Thoughts excerpted from an email exchange:

> what is your suggestion to minimize theft or vandalism? Whats the best lock
> or cover? what is the average (thief) profile?

Actually, I've been thinking about locks a lot lately...

Around here (I'm now in Portland, Oregon, USA) almost everybody uses "U locks" that look like this: http://www.jayscycles.com/ali%20baba%20u-lock.jpg

These locks are pretty hard to break, but even these have problems, mostly because a biker has to carry this extra heavy lock around with them, use special keys, they can only lock 1 wheel unless they buy 2 of these locks, etc. (And road bikers, of course don't like carrying anything heavy when they're biking)

What ends up happening:

1) A lot of people don't use them when they think their bike is located somewhere 'safe', which makes theft really easy. Lots of bikes get stolen from garages, from inside cars, apartments, offices, etc.

2) People lock the front tire with a U-lock, which is good -- but then the back tire gets stolen.

3) People use 2 of these locks - one for the front, one for the back - which ends up being a hassle, extra weight, 2 sets of keys, etc.

> or cover? what is the average thief profile?

Lots of them are petty thieves - many of them are drug users looking for things they can sell quickly. Around here, crack cocaine and crystal meth use drives a *lot* of theft - things like bikes, car radios, cellphones, laptop computers - anything small and easy to steal and sell real fast.

Some thieves are more professional, and steal bikes (or buy them cheap from the drug users) and then "chop them" and sell their different parts, usually online. *TONS* of stolen bikes here end up getting sold online, or trucked to the next city and sold there to keep them from being identified. (This is why I'm focusing on serial numbers with the SBR)

But most of them are just opportunistic idiots - people who brute-force locks off with pliers or cut cables, or drive around in trucks looking for 'easy' bikes to steal.

I've been thinking a lot about something that would be simple, strong, but integrated into the bike itself to help combat bike theft.

Basically if something could be built into the bike to make it more difficult to move, use, or disassemble, then people would use it more -- either on its own or in combination with a traditional lock.

Think of a motorcycle's steering lock - it's an extra (relatively) cheap lock than prevents the motorcycle from being driven by locking the whole steering assembly into position. Something like that, but for a bike, would go a long way.

The best things I have seen so far that speak to this kind of thing are:

1) This AXA integrated rear wheel lock: http://austinbikeblog.org/?p=139

2) This genius integration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/2252610299/in/set-72157603871477660/

The second link makes security part of the bike itself - since it makes it hard to remove the lock without destroying or mangling the bike. I like this because it follows a nice philosophy - security shouldn't be something you have to add as an extra, it should be worked into the concept of the thing itself.

If you've ever read or heard of security researcher Bruce Schneier (see: schneier.com), this is something he writes about extensively - how often the best security solution isn't the expensive or complex one, but one that is so deceptively simple and central that it atacks the *reason* someone wants to steal something, instead of their *ability* to steal it.

In this case, the reason they want to steal a bike is for profit. But if the act of theft damages the bike to the point that the effort outweights the profit, there is no incentive to steal that particular bike.

Personally, I've been thinking along these lines:

Would it be easy to add something to a bike that would make it so annoying and difficult to disable or remove that the cost would outweight the benefit?

Think: somehow working a key lock into the crankshaft. If a rider could reach down and lock a bike's crankshaft as well as lock it to something safe, then a thief couldn't actually pedal away. They would have to move the bike by hand, which is more difficult.

Think: somehow working a lock into the back hub, which would lock the gears and prevent the back wheel from spinning. If disabling this lock also somehow disabled or broke the gears, then thieves would get less economic benefit from a stolen bike because they would have to fix the damage.

Think: could a lock be integrated into the frame itself? Something that could fold out of a downtube, on a hinge or swivel, and be folded back into the frame when it isn't in use?

Think: what if there were a key-like metal insert that has to physically be inserted into the back hub for the gears to engage? And a biker could pull this out and take it with them when they locked their bike.

-bhance, SBR