How do YOU keep your bike safe??

Chippy01

Hello all and sundry. New guy. First post.
I have read these forums with interest for a few weeks now and have decided to join this merry throng of bikers. If I'm allowed, that is.
My first poser is one that will touch all of you without a garage. How to keep your pride and joy safe.
I would like to be able to lock my bike away safe and sound, when it is not in use, but the only things I have found are too impracticle or too damned expensive.:eek:
For example,
http://www.cycleshell.com/index.html
http://www.thebikebarn.net/index_uk.htm
http://www.site-safe.co.uk/bikesafe.htm
http://www.securit.gb.com/motorbikes.htm
http://www.airflow-group.com/category.do?category=74
There is another one which is priced at about £2,000 Sterling. The dogs gonads, I do admit, but way over the top.
Does anyone know of a supplier of similar items here in Dublin, or anywhere in Ireland for that matter, that can supply a lockable bunker, only just big enough to push the bike into, and not look too gaudy plonked in the front garden???
I have searched for weeks and am now at a loss. There HAS to be something, somewhere!

Idleater

Hi and you are more than welcome to join in the general banter here

As regards your "predicament", I too have looked with some interest for a "garage" of sorts like you describe. I have seen some at the bike shows in the RDS and NEC, but I agree, that they are not the most pretty of structures.

If you have a side passage on your house, and you can get the bike around, I would recommend that.

A much simpler solution, is to fit a ground anhor or two, and throw a bike cover over it. I have gone for this option.

Are you having a problem with people "looking" at your bike? If so, I don't know if a metal box is a help or just a thing to prove you can open...

L.

Thinkingaboutit

Ground anchor, cover, and perhaps behind a tree to obscure view of it from the road, is fine for me. Actually I use two chains of toughened steel, one around the porch pillar tread into another which in turn is attached to the frame of the machine. The front wheel has a disk lock. I also have a motorbike alarm. Placing the bike in the back is best, though as mine is too wide, the above is what I do.

Chippy01

nereid wrote:

Hi and you are more than welcome to join in the general banter here

As regards your "predicament", I too have looked with some interest for a "garage" of sorts like you describe. I have seen some at the bike shows in the RDS and NEC, but I agree, that they are not the most pretty of structures.

If you have a side passage on your house, and you can get the bike around, I would recommend that.

A much simpler solution, is to fit a ground anhor or two, and throw a bike cover over it. I have gone for this option.

Are you having a problem with people "looking" at your bike? If so, I don't know if a metal box is a help or just a thing to prove you can open...

L.

There are pros and cons for every situation, I guess.
I can get the bike around the back via the side alley, but that entains lifting the rear end around. Tight corners and narrow passages don't help none. I'm getting too old for that kind of palava.
The bike does sport an alarm, disc lock, and a good chain and lock through an anchor on the side wall. And I do have a cover.
I was looking for the 'box' mainly for the summer months, when the good weather suddenly appears, and a quick spin out beckons. Winter time is when it will be in the back shed, jacked up, stripped down, and generally overhauled ready for the next 'riding season'.
'Her Indoors' mentioned the 'attractivness' of such a structure to those of a questionable nature, and she could be right. .....But,,,, if the bike could just squeeze into the box, really tight fit, it might be small enough to go un-noticed .........maybe.
More thought needed, I think.

madrab

luckily i have now managed to get a garage (yippee!) but for the 5 years before that i had a link off a ships anchor embedded in concrete, bike chain, disc locks, cover & a car in front i only had 1 bike robbed, but i had a crappier chain at the time & i got the bike back a week later

Steffano2002

I live in the city centre in a flat (in a converted house) so had no garage option... I asked around and the owner of my local laundry shop asked a friend of his who owns a house accross the street from me if I could park my bike inside one of his houses (there's a little landing off the street before actually going into the house so it was handy for me and the tenants). The owner of the house agreed for €40 EUR a month (a business man as you can see) so now my bike is always off the streets!
To add to this, I have a disc lock for the front wheel, a proper chain & lock for back wheel and an alarm with beeper. So if anybody even tries to steal it they'll have to deal with me, my anger and my baseball bat before getting away

Odysseus

I use a ground anchor, lock and chain, as well as a cover and a alarm.

faceman

an alarm with motion sensor is well worth the money.

Paparazzo

Mine is garaged, but almost no new houses have garages these days. Any Abus Granit lock is good

faceman

Good point paparazzo.

As with the lock, its fair to say the more you pay the better protection you get.

Owen

Datatool Veto Alarm, Disclock, another lock that squeezes the front brake close to the throttle, steering lock, garage. If I didn't have a garage, it would be an anonymous cover, ground anchor, and a mountain bike u lock in the spokes front and rear.

Interceptor

I live in the back of beyond and keep my bike unlocked in a wooden garden shed. My dog also lives in the shed and if anyone goes near it she will chew their legs off.

When I lived in Dublin I convinced a mate that an RGV250 would look good in his sitting room - it worked for a couple of months but eventually the smell of petrol got to his girlfriend and he made me move it.

'cptr

madrab

Interceptor wrote:

I live in the back of beyond and keep my bike unlocked in a wooden garden shed. My dog also lives in the shed and if anyone goes near it she will chew their legs off.

When I lived in Dublin I convinced a mate that an RGV250 would look good in his sitting room - it worked for a couple of months but eventually the smell of petrol got to his girlfriend and he made me move it.

'cptr

classic

Chippy01

Thanks to everyone that has replied.
As I said before, more thought needed.
I have most of the security options mentioned, I guess I just wanted to be lazy and not haul the bike round the back every time I get home.
Damn it, I hate getting old.

subway

go the scrapyard,
buy a non running transit/hiace etc for about 300eu,
tow it home and stick it up on bricks.

secure, un-robbable shed.

Wossack

only problem about the physical move around back is you increase your chances of accidentally scratchin it up

Interceptor

subway wrote:

go the scrapyard,
buy a non running transit/hiace etc for about 300eu,
tow it home and stick it up on bricks.

secure, un-robbable shed.

This is a good suggestion - I tried it once but my wife threatened to move out if I didn't get the algae covered L200 out of the driveway. I couldn't lock the back door on it and was parking a rusty Micra against it to secure it. She's a very patient woman my wife.

'cptr

subway

i have a 93 non running vectra that i use as extra storage.
its a 1.6 litre diesel and built like a tank.
in winter i stick the bike between it and the wall and wrap a duvet round the engine.
starts every time, bike is also completely hidden.
if im going away i usually lock the bike to the wheel of the car.
awkward to get at if your planning on cutting anything and no room to jack up the car

as an added touch the vecrta is navy so looks like a garda car from that era.

saobh_ie

The Bandit used to be alarmed, chain on rear wheel to cubic meter of concrete, chain on front wheel through engine bars to ground anchor. It was alarmed and when parked up long term an alarmed disk lock was hidden in where it couldn't be seen on the front wheel. Add a dog and thats yer lot. Now its in a steel shed under a pile of crap.

My other bike just sits around with a chain and disklock, occasionally chained to something solid in a place people don't really go. Or sometimes it gets hidden in an abandoned warehouse in North Dublin. =] Behind big assed steel doors and a six foot razor wire topped fence.

Place is infested with fecking birds though...

Gumbo

i need help with this question too guys,

i am getting a bandit 600N in the next week or two and as i live in a town house, i have no front garden or back garden :mad:

anyhow, straight facing me (approx 10 metres) is a set of those steel bars that are used as cycle racks in my estate, you know like the standard steel bars you would see in town somewhere, anchored to the ground.

what i was gona do is, i have an abus granite chain and lock i was gone wrap around the rear wheel and frame and to the cycle rack some how, then a disc lock on the front wheel, and it will be alarmed with a datatool alarm and immobiliser with motion detector then i will cover it to protect it from the elements mainly.

what you think, should that be enough?

cheers,
keith.

Idleater

kceire wrote:

what you think, should that be enough?

Should be ok.

Is the metal frame "movable"? I picked a lamp post as my immovable object.

L.

ps, welcome to the site.

Gumbo

nereid wrote:

Should be ok.

Is the metal frame "movable"? I picked a lamp post as my immovable object.

L.

ps, welcome to the site.

no, im sure its concreted into the ground, but i must double check,if its not then i will get ground anchor!

thanks for the welcome.

j@utis

:d

galwaytt

kceire wrote:

what you think, should that be enough?

...if it's just standard, galvanised, bike rack, maybe not. The tube of that device is as secure as a chain made of cheese strings. You'd cut it with a.....spoon? They won't need to touch your high-tech lock........

OK, so they won't ride you're bike off, but if it's being lifted into van, that's a moot point...........they're not trying to ride it off..........

Gumbo

galwaytt wrote:

...if it's just standard, galvanised, bike rack, maybe not. The tube of that device is as secure as a chain made of cheese strings. You'd cut it with a.....spoon? They won't need to touch your high-tech lock........

OK, so they won't ride you're bike off, but if it's being lifted into van, that's a moot point...........they're not trying to ride it off..........

yeah totally agree mate, i think the only option is to get a ground anchor fitted.

cheers,
keith.

electricheadx

I've mine round the back of the house with locked gates to the side entrance(If your lucky enought to be able to do that)
Have a disc lock and a Y-Anchor.
Let me sleep bettre at night.

wb

galwaytt wrote:

...if it's just standard, galvanised, bike rack, maybe not. The tube of that device is as secure as a chain made of cheese strings. You'd cut it with a.....spoon? They won't need to touch your high-tech lock........

OK, so they won't ride you're bike off, but if it's being lifted into van, that's a moot point...........they're not trying to ride it off..........

Is lifiting into a van really all that common?

My bike is locked with a good chain on the back, and disk on the front, but I thought that was enough. Maybe not??

Idleater

wbailey wrote:

Is lifiting into a van really all that common?

Yes very.

Any bike is liftable by "enough" lads. A sports bike at 170kg for example, two lads drive up in a van, open the back doors. Grab the bike, and haul it up a bike ramp into the van. Gone in 60 seconds.

Lock your bike to something immovable. At the very least, it extends the 60 seconds by however many x seconds it takes to break the locks.

L.