BIKE: Bike Stolen at UT

[Patrick Goetz]

John SomdeCerff wrote:
> I locked my bike at 24th and San Jacinto at the rack under the parking 
> garage ramp about 7:30 Wednesday morning.  By Thursday, a bit after 
> five, it was gone.
> 

The bottom line is do not leave your bike locked up outside overnight 
with anything less than a Kryptonite New Yorker lock, especially on UT 
campus.  As someone mentioned, the UT campus has one of the highest bike 
theft rates in the country.  I don't know anyone who has left their bike 
locked up outside on campus with an inadequate lock who still had a bike 
the following morning!  It probably happens, but everyone I know who has 
done this has had their bike stolen.

Most any lock will do for daytime use, but overnight is a different 
matter.  It's not just UT, either.  I've heard numerous reports of bikes 
being stolen from the bike rack at the One Texas Center when left locked 
up overnight.

It takes a skilled bicycle thief less than 15 seconds to get through a 
standard generic U-lock, and around 40 seconds to get through the lock I 
use, a Specialized Hard Lock Wrapper.  Given a good bolt cutter, a cable 
lock will protect your bike for slightly less than one second.  These 
things are daytime deterrents preventing the opportunistic thief from 
walking off with your vehicle only.  Real bike thieves work at night, 
and anything less than a New Yorker (or similar device -- I haven't seen 
anything else) is more or less equivalent to not even bothering to lock 
the bike up at all.