Is it risky?

rinleez

Hello everyone, i am new to the boards and id like to as ka question.

Im riding a nice kelly's magic xc bike for approx 600euro and im still in secondary school and this is the case. Do you think it would be safe to lock the bike in front of the school everyday? It would cut my 30 minutes walking time to 5 minutes cycling time but i am not sure if its safe to leave such nice looking bike just outside the school. Have you ever got your bike stolen? Should i walk or should i lock?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Buy 2 or 3 decent locks.

Back when I was in school, a mate had a lock done over with a cutting torch. Obviously it's never going to be 100% safe.

Lumen

Depends on the area. MTBs are thief magnets (should have bought a road bike ). Make sure your parents have the bike covered on the house insurance.

Then use a very decent u-lock and a cable lock for the wheels & saddle. Learn to lock it properly.

Or buy a crappy second hand road bike/hybrid and uglify the hell out of it.

Life's too short to walk.

McTigs

Can you not lock it in the school grounds?

Dr.Millah

I cycled to school most of primary and secondary. In my primary school they banned locking bikes inside the grounds (some insurence reasons) we used to do it all the time anyway.
In secondary school there was no problem locking in the bike racks and never had any troble or knew of anyone who had. (except for some issues where people had grudges agenst others, which usualy amounted to a broken/robbed mud guard)

In the end, that trusty mtb was robbed from my garden, but house insurence covered it.

Always try to lock it in view of class room windows aswell. If you can that is.

keenan110

Are there no bike sheds in your school?

rinleez

nope, no sheds. I would maybe ride some crap bike to school but it would be hard to sit on it when u see ur precious bike so i rather walking

Dr.Millah

Better than seeing no precious bike :P

biomed32

i used to cycle to school myself, there was a bike area to lock up, you might want to get a petition for one of them, other then that i would get a heav chain lock to tie the wheels to the frame then a U lock to tie that up

niceonetom

There is no risk-free way of leaving a bike in a public place.

You can lower the risk by using bigger locks and a crappier (or at least crappier looking) bike. Resale value is diminished by judicious use of paint-stripper - do a quick site search for uglification .

If you're locking the bike up in the same place day after day, your routine becomes obvious and risk rises - on the other hand you can use a monster lock (or several) and leave them locked to the railing so you're not carrying 10kg of hardened steel with you at all times. Spend money on locks - they might seem expensive but, compared to bikes, they're not.

Ask your school to help you - or a local TD/councillor if the school initially says there's nothing they can do. The greens are very keen on this kind of thing, bless 'em.

Blowfish

Find out where others who cycle to your school park there bike and put yours alongside it. Then, once you have a better lock than the bikes beside/around yours, you should be fine.

I'd definitely check with the school to see if they are willing to put up a bike rack. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just one of the standard uncovered metal ones would do.

If not, check with the school anyway about whether they'd let you lock it to some railings or a pole on the school grounds. Shifty people carrying a hacksaw/bolt cutters do tend to pick up a fair amount of suspicion when wandering around a school.