I know that if someone really wants to steal my bike, and has some cutting tools, they will. I’m not thinking of leaving it on the car rack all day on the street or anything. But today, for instance, I was bringing the bike home from the bike shop where it had a little work done, and I wanted to stop at the grocery store for a few minutes. Didn’t want to chance it.
So in general, have any biking Dopers figured out a way to lock your bike TO the car frame while it’s on the bike rack to at least deter crimes of opportunity? Older cars had bumpers you could wrap something around but now bumpers are all in one piece. I have an SUV–would it be possible to pass some sort of flat strap around the hatch door and close the door on it and lock the bike to that?
I did some searching on this, but figured if there was a good solution, someone here would have come up with it.
Get a heavy chain and a bicycle tube. Cut the tube. Pass the chain through the tube. This will prevent scratches to the bike and the car. You can use 2 tubes if necessary.
Pass the chain through the bike and if you want, also the rack, then through the towing loop. I assume all cars have this. My honda does. If you don’t have a loop, there should be some sort of hole on the under body you can pass the shank of a lock through.
There are locks that have a variety of shank lengths so this should also be an option.
edit: any hardware store, Lowe’s or Home Depot will cut any gauge chain to any length you want. The only difference between gauges of course will be weight, material and expense.
My Yakima rack came with a cable lock that allows me to lock the bikes to the rack. The rack is mounted on the hitch. Could someone get the bikes while they were locked to the rack? Yup, if they really wanted to. I don’t know where you live, but for me, I’m pretty sure nobody is going to try to remove the hitch/cut the cable lock during the day while I run into the grocery store.
And if they do, great. I’ll get a new bike. That’s what insurance is for.
Buy a fork mount roof rack.
Ride a bike with clipless pedals
Lock bike rack.
If they can’t ride it away, it is much less attractive. If they can’t figure out how to pedal it, it is much less attractive. If the rack is locked, it is much less attractive.
Or if you have an SUV fold the back seat and put it inside. both my road and mountain bike will fit inside my Volvo wagon.
If you are using a trunk mount with nylon straps securing the rack to the car, it won’t matter if you chain the bike to the rack as the rack (with the bike) can be easily removed with nothing more than a box cutter. While the thief would find it difficult to ride the bike away, they could still throw it in the back of a pickup to deal with separating the bike from the rack later.
A more secure means of locking a bike to a car would be a trunk rack with steel cables instead of nylon straps, a locking hitch rack, or a locking roof rack. Since locking things up is only a means of deterrence, not prevention, of theft, you want to find as many ways to make it harder for thieves to carry out their thievery, so it’s not worth it to them to take your stuff. Multiple locks, more theft-resistant locks, removing tires, clipless pedals, etc. are definitely useful to make the theft of your bike appear to be more trouble than it’s worth, although, of course, there are no guarantees.
When considering how much effort and expense you want to go through to deter theft, you should factor in the cost of replacing your bike if stolen, the rate of petty theft in your area, and how long you intend to leave your bike in public. Also, park in conspicuous places, near the front of stores, not far away or behind the building. Make stealing your bike require bigger, heavier and more conspicuous tools, take longer, be less convenient, and more likely to result in arrest.
This is the whole point of my thread… how to attach bike and/or rack TO THE CAR. I realize that locking the bike to the rack is pointless in my case, since the rack is not permanently attached to the car.
The $500 bike will be covered by my renter’s insurance, which has no deductible.
With a trunk rack I’ll just put the cable through the frame and front wheel. If the cable is long enough, I’ll put it through the rear wheel also. If it’s really long, or I have two, I’ll try to put it through the towing point that’s usually under the bumper. Just having the cable tying up the bike is enough to discourage most people.
I have a hitch rack now and there’s a place to run the locking cable to a metal loop on hitch that’s bolted to the car.
However most often I just put the bike in the back of the car. I have a little KIA station wagon that I ‘test drove’ to make sure that my bike would fit with only taking the front wheel off at the most. Of course the back seats have to be down.
But that didn’t even help when someone broke into my locker while I was working out at the gym and stole my wallet, keys, then the car! Fortunately they found the car and my nice carbon fiber Giant bike in good shape a couple of days later. I was out a couple hundred $ that I had in the wallet plus had to spend about $700 to get all new locks as they kept the keys.
If you have the money I’d recommend a trailer hitch and hitch rack. I spent the money and got a Yakima. The rack locks to the hitch but I got a long heavy cable from Lowes and a solid lock and lock the bike, through the frame and both wheels, to the hitch, not the rack.
Yes, the current one has been updated and improved over mine, which is about two years old. The attachment of the rack to the hitch looks easier and hopefully, more secure.
I’m not sure what the rolleyes was for. You asked about how to secure a bike to a car to deter theft. I briefly explained several ways to do so, addressing levels of theft deterrence or security of different methods. I specifically noted the deficiency inherent of most trunk mounted carriers because that is what you are using and many people who do don’t consider the ease with which trunk carriers can be removed. However, since you’ve identified the value of your bike, you should have a much better idea of the amount of effort and expense you want to put toward deterring its theft. Did I miss something?
ETA: FWIW, I used to use a trunk mount with nylon straps, but switched to a steel hitch mounted carrier with a locking core and integrated steel cable because my multiple bikes are expensive and at least one is now irreplaceable.
The rolleyes were because the whole reason I started the thread was to ask how to secure the bike TO THE CAR as I was fully aware that securing the bike to a rack that was itself not attached to the car would be insufficient to protect the bike from theft.
You proceeded to point out to me that securing the bike TO a rack that was not itself attached to the car was insufficient to protect the bike from theft.
Which I already knew… which is why I posted in the first place…
Ah, I see that now. I was thrown off by your title which indicated you wanted to secure the bike to the rack and “thusly” to the car which is usually how it’s done: bike to rack, rack to car.
It seems like you might be trying to reinvent the wheel. There already exists on the market much better ways to secure the bike to the vehicle. In which case, the advice has already been provided. Get a hitch or roof mounted rack that can be locked to the vehicle. Or buy a cable long enough so that you can crouch down under the rear bumper of your car and loop it on its frame. Seems kind of inconvenient though.
The one linked above does not have an integrated cable to secure the bikes to the rack, but there are plenty that do. However, it’s easy enough to get your own steel cable and wrap it around the bike rack and through the frame of the bike. In any case, if you prefer to stick with a trunk rack*, the Thule Racewayis the one with steel cables. And it’s only half the value of your bike, but since you’re certain the insurance company will replace your bike, you may not care to spend that much for better theft deterrence. But since you asked…
BTW: Though I work at REI, my opinions are my own.
There are perfectly valid reasons for choosing a trunk mounted rack including ease of installation and storage when not in use, portability, and lower initial cost. It’s hard to get around the downside of reduced security, though.
Ok, we’re on the same page now. I can see why my title was misleading.
I did notify my insurance company of the purchase and sent them a picture. The deductible is $100.
I mostly just ride around the neighborhood, and I guess if I wanted to take the bike somewhere on the rack and then leave it, I could take it off the rack and chain it to something, then put it back on the rack when I’m ready to leave.
Chaining it to the body works. That’s what I’ve done and I’ve left my bike on city streets for hours at a time. Plus, a high security pad lock and heavy chain can be more intimidating to a would be thief than any cheap bike lock, especially if you combine the two.
You could just make your bike a less attractive target. Smear something nasty like feces (or something that looks like it could be feces) on it and no one is going to go near it.
