How To Keep Your Mountain Bike Safe From Theft In Town

Leaving your bike unlocked and unattended in an urban environment puts it at high risk of being stolen. Owen Coutts shares his tips on how and where you can to lock up your MTB to limit the risk of it being stolen as much as possible.

⏱️ Timestamps ⏱️
00:00 - Intro
01:27 - Lock Ratings
02:53 - Lock Pricing
03:49 - Types Of Lock
07:31 - Location
08:53 - How To Lock Your Bike?
10:39 - Anti Theft Tips
12:50 - Smart Locks & Tracking

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Do you have any tips to help people look after their bike? Do you unfortunately have any horror stories to share to help inspire people to take bike security more seriously?

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[gmbntech]

Do you have any tips to help people look after their bike? Do you unfortunately have any horror stories to share to help inspire people to take bike security more seriously?

[Blaake]

I have never had a bike stolen thankfully but the biggest reason is I simply will not leave my bike unattended in public and that is far more effective than any lock will be.
If you need to commute then buy a £100 burner bike off marketplace and keep your baby at home 💯

[liverpoolman]

ive heard of stories where people have had big locks too big to cut through and the thieves just cut through railings/ object it was locked to

[timfish]

Considering almost every town/city in the UK is full of empty shops, Some of these could be converted into indoor secure cycle parking, Maybe one of the insurance companies could take these on and offer "free" parking included for the price of your annual insurance premium? We can only dream of the free municipal bike parking lots like in the Netherlands where you get given a ticket as you park your bike and have to produce it to get your bike back.

[danlisowski]

The problem is now thieves will cut through whatever the bike is chained to. Most videos online show thieves cutting through railings etc. presumably they can then deal with the lock later on. F-ing hate thieves.

[FrauHaferniehl]

_i whould never leave a high valuable bike in a urban, if I need a bike in a city than i would have an old used bike for this .... and nice Mountainbike is only used in free time and stored in a close room._

[Fernweh]

I saw a YouTube clip made in Berlin where thieves cut the hoops for locking bikes to then cover the cut with stickers. When a bike is secured to it they just twist the previously cut hoop and slide the lock off....gone in seconds with zero noise

[tallulahbeaverhausen]

Many thieves no longer bother cutting locks : they grind the barrier/rack/rail/bar the bike is attached to, remove the bike and work on the various locks later, far from anybody's eyes.

[im]

Spend an extra £3000 to get a bike that's 1.5 kilo lighter then carry 2 kilo of locks to protect it. Only to find they bent your frame trying to yank at your bike to break the lock.

[kristiemclennan]

In Australia people don’t realise that poles that have parking sins attached to them can easily be removed. The poles are the thickness of the black railing in this vid and they are held in by pins. The pins are shaped like a capital L and are 15mm wide and 8mm thick the last 20mm at the top is cut at an angle (through 8mm side) to form a wedge. That wedge is what is hammered into the hole next to the post to hold it in. So a hammer or another heavy object can be used to remove it. The other way it can be installed is by 4 bolts into a plate into concrete, the bolts are about 19 or 20mm. The other way I have seen them mounted is directly into the ground when it is a grassed area. Those poles can be very easily move by pushing and pulling it until it’s removable. This is very easy to do if there has been recent rain.

Every car carries a poke removal kit 😂 kinda… car tool tool kits for changing wheels all have a leverage tool and a socket for taking off wheel nuts that are often the same size depending on the wheel…

[rorto]

As for the bike hoops, they are inadequate. There is a new silent way to steal your bike if you've stupidly locked the frame to them. They use an industrial manual pipe cutter. Two cuts takes a mere 2 minutes as often they are made of cheap thin walled tubing. Out comes the 10" section and away goes your bike.
Now, if they made them with thicker walled tubing or filled them with concrete and certainly didn't bolt them to the ground, better BUT an even better way would be thick walled concrete filled square tubing so pipe cutters can't work on them.
Whatever the design, something has to be done if we are to take up cycling as they seem to be pushing for more and more.
Maybe those Japanese subterranean auto parking units that can accommodate 200 bikes would be a good idea. £1 per day to securely park it underground and NEVER increase the price.

[marcopaganotto]

You can't leave your bike locked ANYWHERE, in the vast majority of UK towns and cities.
Take them into whatever shop you're going to, and if they complain, leave!

[Daivd]

Never lock a bike you can't afford to lose, no matter how good your lock is, thief will steal it if it is good enough. Ride a bike not worth stealing is the best bet when it comes to commuting.

[kermit]

Urban riding is more risky today than its ever been with not knowing if your gonna get jumped, always be aware of people in your direct vicinity and your surroundings, if your running tubeless fit an gps/air tag inside your tire & in your frame. stay safe. happy trails.

[RoySki]

You can have the most expensive lock you want. They will grind off the post instead.

[TheGreenhillsCyclistInRagOrder]

For context I'm a 53 year old female. Went back to cycling in February 2020 after quite a few years away. Caught a bloke in the act of stealing my bicycle outside a shop. Had it locked up using the highest standard locks. He thought that, as a female, I was going to step back & let him work away. He was wrong. Never laid a hand on him, but, I do carry a very loud bike horn on my person, which he got sounded right into his ear for a few seconds. He bolted.

[wonderwatch]

UK really delivers when it comes to daylight stealing, in the middle of a crowded city, it baffles me, how it’s possible😳🤷‍♂️

[TestaRidesMTB]

Finally! A Well-needed educational video on bike security. Well done GMBN Tech 👏

[Blowfeldk]

OWEN
I see Owen on the thumbnail my hands just click without my conscious volition :P

[better.better]

as always on these videos, if someone is going out planning to steal bikes, they're going to have the equipment they need to do it, such as grinders and cable cutters capable of cutting the really thick cables, so don't bother with a thick one, you may as well carry a smaller one instead... it'll be lighter to carry and you can bring a much longer one for the same weight allowing you to secure your wheels and saddle to the frame, and your bike will still be safe from opportunistic thieves who won't have any equipment, which probably represents 90% of the threat depending on where we're talking about.

with regards to making sure you put it in a public space, most regular people would be uncomfortable trying something in that situation, but also most regular people are not going to do anything at all to deter a thief that they see doing something. throw on a hi-vis vest, safety glasses, and a hard hat, and walk up to it like you're somebody from the city and nobody will even question it. the thief has as long as they want to work on it. in fact I've seen videos of people that were testing these products, not even trying the social engineering trick, just blatantly trying to steal their own bikes, and not a single person called the police, even though it was clear from the look on their face that they recognized the bike was being stolen. the caveat here is that I have no idea how well the camera was hidden: if it looks like a video shoot, they might not have thought it was for real to begin with