Playa Bike Locks (Is there a better solution?)

[Token]

I personally would go with emerging tech.

Bluetooth beacons are a hot thing. The whole proximity gizmo du jour.

You carry a couple beacons on your person that have ~ 15ft range.

The trike has a couple beacons on an Arduino board or similar, maybe a 3-board cluster for fail-safe.

And the final piece is the Trike Seat Taser. The real deal, 950KV jabber.

Rig it so that once the wheels are spinning and no beacons detected it alarms for 15 seconds with a real loud obnoxious piezo horn (smoke alarm), then applies a jolt of 950KV to the seat for 2 seconds, resets and repeats the cycle.

That would be a massive cool honeypot.

[melodiousdirge]

Does your bike have a hand break? If so squeeze the break and put a pin in a pre-drilled hole to keep it in that position. They'll probably just think it seized up.

Or put a padlock over the handgrip and the lever, locking it in the applied position. I like this idea; nice and simple. The only thing I can think is that the cable might stretch a bit over the course of the week, but it wouldn't need to fully lock the wheel, just make it hard to move. The new trike I'm working on has a front disc too, so this would be a good solid grab.

[melodiousdirge]

That would be a massive cool honeypot.

Dangerously close to soda snorted out my nose.

Thing is, at BM there's a better than normal chance that whoever got on would quite thoroughly enjoy getting cornholed with nigh a million volts. It'd be kind of like replacing the seat with a dildo every time you walk away: default world - nobody would touch it. BM - it would be the first bike to disappear.

Also you know... I've never had much luck with bluetooth reliability. Would really hate to be riding merrily down esplanade when something goes sideways and Nicola Tesla's ghost decides to sneak up and double fist me.

[melodiousdirge]

be riding merrily down esplanade

If it happened on 7:30 it would be less of a big deal/surprise.

[Ratty]

Yea. Ask vulture chow. She had em out in front of her camp sticking their wee-wee into an electrocuted hole.

[melodiousdirge]

electrocuted hole.

A hole with electrodes in it I assume... not a hole belonging to someone who was presently being electrocuted, right? It really could be either but the former seems most likely.

[FIGJAM]

Had to find something to do with that bug zapper.

[Captain Goddammit]

I gotta say, I can't stop thinking about the lag bolt on a driver wired to a remote idea.
It's ridiculous overkill but I absolutely love it. It'd take some engineering to make it a functioning reality, sure...
But I find that the coolest bike securing idea ever!

Arranging for 12-16 inches of travel on the driver seems to be the tricky part. I'm thinking about the driver turning a long screw-jack setup with a lag on the bottom, that pushes it down as it turns it one way and pulls it up when reversed.
I think I could build this...

[Ratty]

Capt, sometimes I think you're

a driver wired to a remote idea.

Melodiousdirge, they had this wonderful 'Game' set up in front of their monkey hut. You grab the spike in one hand. With the other hand you free your junk and slide it into the hole. Everyone knew ahead of time that a shock was coming but they did it anyway. Sometimes more than once.

[maladroit]

I gotta say, I can't stop thinking about the lag bolt on a driver wired to a remote idea.
It's ridiculous overkill but I absolutely love it. It'd take some engineering to make it a functioning reality, sure...
But I find that the coolest bike securing idea ever!

Arranging for 12-16 inches of travel on the driver seems to be the tricky part. I'm thinking about the driver turning a long screw-jack setup with a lag on the bottom, that pushes it down as it turns it one way and pulls it up when reversed.
I think I could build this...

A simple locking lever, 4 bar linkage with a bit more travel than the lag screw could work. Push it down and lock it, maybe it jacks the front of the trike up a bit until the screw bites in...but that just means the trike's weight is helping the process. In the reverse process, the lag will spin freely after coming up a few inches. Pull the lever back up to the top position, pulling the anchor up out of the playa and out of the way.

Of course, this could also be done with a stepper motor linear stage and ballscrew, with a programmable speed curve for optimal playa penetration.

More realistically, a variant of this approach would be pretty handy for fold-down stabilizers on large mobile objects that need to park in one spot and be immobile.

[Captain Goddammit]

Capt, sometimes I think you're

a driver wired to a remote idea.

Melodiousdirge, they had this wonderful 'Game' set up in front of their monkey hut. You grab the spike in one hand. With the other hand you free your junk and slide it into the hole. Everyone knew ahead of time that a shock was coming but they did it anyway. Sometimes more than once.

Hats off.... most brilliant wisecrack ever...

[BBadger]

What I found saved me a lot of hassle was to leave the bike lock unlocked, but just partially coiled, when I was riding it. Then whenever I wanted to stop, I just stretched out the coil, clicked the lock into place and went on my way. Sure I had to unlock it when I came back, but usually that's less of a pain than fumbling around with the lock when you want to get off the bike to look at stuff.

[skippy3k]

I'll go one step further...I ditched coiled locks entirely. I found them annoying and downright dangerous to use. As you tried to pull them through (and especially out of) your bike frame and/or wheel, they have a habit of recoiling back and and whacking you in the arm or even worse, the face. I use a thin cable, non-coiled lock. It's easy to pull through the frame or wheel without it snapping back on you. I'm sure someone could gnaw away at it with a good pair of cutters and break the cable if they wanted to, but hey, if they want my crappy bike that bad they can have it.

[melodiousdirge]

I'll go one step further...I ditched coiled locks entirely. I found them annoying and downright dangerous to use. As you tried to pull them through (and especially out of) your bike frame and/or wheel, they have a habit of recoiling back and and whacking you in the arm or even worse, the face. I use a thin cable, non-coiled lock. It's easy to pull through the frame or wheel without it snapping back on you. I'm sure someone could gnaw away at it with a good pair of cutters and break the cable if they wanted to, but hey, if they want my crappy bike that bad they can have it.

A decent solution with a cable lock might be to shorten it up so it's just long enough to loop through the frame and the wheel, then affix the female end to the frame somehow and just let the male end dangle (I'm well aware of the innuendo I'm leaving open here regarding BOTH genders, but it's just a happy accident) while riding. When stopping simply put the cable through the tire and into the reciever. Only a few inches of slack to deal with, can probably be managed one handed, and would work with either a keyed or a combo lock. Might take some thinking to mount the combo version without making it difficult to see/operate the combination wheels but it could be done.

I still like the deadbolt in the trike basket the best tbh. I don't mind dealing with keys, especially if they are of a variety that can be copied so I have spares.

[BBadger]

I dunno, I saw someone drive off with their thin cable lock attached and it just snapped right off. I was thinking a retractable cable would be nice too, but they're just as thin. The thin cables might not be very noticeable either. Having a visible lock is mostly useful to deter people from even trying to steal the bike. An unnoticed thin cable might just snap off as the person rides off like above.

A coiled up lock might snap back on you, but it depends on how much you're stretching it. I had mine pretty loose, so it didn't have enough tension to snap my hand.

Perhaps the solution is the best of both worlds, and have a retraction mechanism attached to the head of a larger bike-lock.

[Elliot]

Those European frame locks that have been presented here several times are indeed common in Europe. But the current crop all have a key. When I grew up over there, we had such locks with a type of combination release that I have never since seen: There was one knob, which could be moved side to side. The combination would be something like...
3 times to the right,
twice to the left,
4 times to the right.
Then you released it by moving the knob upward.

On my last visit to Norway I tried to find one, but not even a scrap yard had one.

I bought a new one with a key, just like a couple presented here, and it will not fit over Playa-worthy tires.

[Ratty]

Elliott, Those type of locks are for sale now. One of my sons works in a hardware store and told me they get returned a lot. Personally, I'm intrigued by them.

[Elliot]

Any clue as to where I might find these?

[Ratty]

They are padlocks. Just so we're clear. Walmart, Ace hardware both had them. $10 Oh, and office depot had them too.

[graidawg]

Capt, sometimes I think you're

a driver wired to a remote idea.

Melodiousdirge, they had this wonderful 'Game' set up in front of their monkey hut. You grab the spike in one hand. With the other hand you free your junk and slide it into the hole. Everyone knew ahead of time that a shock was coming but they did it anyway. Sometimes more than once.

Bug Zapper Glory Hole.
Best part is on Friday it was broken, I like to think someone fucked it to death.
Or the guy we asked "is it broken?"
Nope it's working, he replied.

[rmc50]

I use a cable lock, with a combination lock that I can set. Master sells them and they are cheap.

I figure that I don't need a high degree of security. I doubt that anyone is stealing bikes for profit, they take them because they are too lazy to walk, so if I make my bike inconvenient they will go to the next one down the line.

I go for combination so I can't lose the key or end up without it. I go for the "set your own" combination so that I can set it the same for all the bikes, and set it to something easy to remember (house number, or last 4 digits of phone number, or 1-2-3-4)

I keep the cable wrapped around the seat post on my bike, or the steering post on the trike and pedicab, and then "locked" by just one digit moved one position. So it is a trivial effort to lock the bike: One digit has to move one position, open the lock, thread it through a wheel, move digit at least one position.

Simple, cheap, easy.

[unjonharley]

Church keys were use before tab cans .. They were steel cans..

Also make a great fishing lure for bass by adding two cluster hooks..

[bluemiragemi]

First year, I had a u-lock with a key. I was deathly afraid of LOSING that key.

Second year, I bought a word lock, and made it an easy to remember word. I liked the ease of a 4 letter combination. I hated the coiled lock and snap back and having to do it ever $%^ing time. I think folks are right, if you just make it look like it's locked, no one's gonna try to walk off with it. At the same time, every time I didn't lock it, I had this irrational fear someone would walk off with it...so...I locked it. Yargh.

This year, I'll probably just use the word lock again. But, I am thinking some large, strategically placed caribeaners might work.

[The Rod]

I personally would go with emerging tech.

Bluetooth beacons are a hot thing. The whole proximity gizmo du jour.

You carry a couple beacons on your person that have ~ 15ft range.

The trike has a couple beacons on an Arduino board or similar, maybe a 3-board cluster for fail-safe.

And the final piece is the Trike Seat Taser. The real deal, 950KV jabber.

Rig it so that once the wheels are spinning and no beacons detected it alarms for 15 seconds with a real loud obnoxious piezo horn (smoke alarm), then applies a jolt of 950KV to the seat for 2 seconds, resets and repeats the cycle.

That would be a massive cool honeypot.

And then there's this...

[Savannah]

I'm fond of my key-free number lock. I chose a 4 digit number I wouldn't forget (it's not 1-2-3-4!)

The coiled cable rides on my handlebars while I'm biking. Locking and unlocking takes 30 to 60 seconds.

[DoctorIknow]

. I think folks are right, if you just make it look like it's locked, no one's gonna try to walk off with it. At the same time, every time I didn't lock it, I had this irrational fear someone would walk off with it...so...I locked it. Yargh.

I understand the feeling, especially as when wandering around the playa, one must sometimes get off their bike IMMEDIATELY and join an activity that for sure will not be the same if one takes 30 seconds to mess with their lock.

It was at one of these moments when I thought "There are hundreds of bikes crammed together here. I can save time by just looping the cable thru the wheel, with the padlock not engaged as a lock, but "looking" like it's locked to any thief scanning all those bikes for a theft candidate."

This was the only time I lost a bike at BM.
My bike was stolen and I was an idiot....

[Meat Hunter]

I have a little and inexpensive ($10.00) Bell 4 digit combo lock cable and the 4 digits can be set to any desired number sequence. Most probably for a child's bike,

It is much shorter than most of the heavier combo lock cables, it is very flexible, does not coil and it takes only a second to flip one number to lock and unlock on a wheel/frame.

I am of the opinion that a bike lock at BM does not have to be super robust -- Just easy for one to use and secure enough to prevent opportunistic "borrowing".

I selected my cable lock in bright pink so that it is visible and one can see that my bike is locked. Let them move over to the next bike that is unlocked and leave mine alone.



Someone might steal my Honda generator and I would survive. But, if someone were to take my trike, now that would really ruin my Burn.

[BBadger]

Yeah, those ones are nice, especially if you can get a short one that is just long enough to connect to your front wheel so it doesn't dangle.

[Meat Hunter]

Short.... Functional and inexpensive. I am always apt to loose a key. But, I am not apt to forget my birthday.

That is the primary reason that I like this particular combination cable lock. It is easy to use, long enough to get the job securely done and not so long as to get in the way.

I am of the opinion that the hot-pink color is easy to see and gives early notice that my trike is locked so that they can move on to the unlocked bike sitting next to mine.

[Captain Goddammit]

It's like the two hikers in the woods who heard a bear... one opens his backpack and pulls out a pair of sneakers. The other says "You don't think you can outrun a bear do you?" and the other says "No. I just have to outrun you!"