I’m planning on buying my first motorcycle and I just realized that there really isn’t anything preventing three guys from picking a motorcycle up and throwing it in the back of a pickup truck while the owner is inside the mall.
What are some methods used to secure a motorcycle in public?
An alarm? I dunno, does anyone even turn their head anymore when one of these things goes off?
Lock and chain? Doesn’t sound too great. If I was hunting $15,000 motorcycles I’d be sure to have a big pair of bolt cutters.
Is GPS tracking available? If it was obvious to a thief that such a system was in place, it might act as a deterrent.
Any other ideas?
Thanks
It’s just a risk you assume. Yeah, some huge burly guys could pick up a bike and put it in a truck, sure. Is it likely to happen? NO. It is not likely to happen at all. Don’t worry about it.
Whew, good luck picking up my bike, I’m sure it’d take at least 4 guys, if not more. If they were going to use some type of equipment to help them, they’d be able to steal cars the same way, so I don’t see it as a very big risk.
They do, however, make disk brake locks that clamp onto the disk to keep it from being able to be rolled onto a Tommy Lift, for example. There’s a company called RoadLok that makes one that mounts to your rear swingarm so that you don’t have to store it when you’re riding. Here’s aKryptonite, which is a brand I trust and the lock I have for my bike.
Here in Aus, despite the size of the bike, chains and locks are regularly used to secure the buggers. The greater the CC capacity of the bike, the meaner the chain, and (it’s popularly considered) the more vicious the owner upon finding their bike gone. Great deterent!
Oh, it’s best that you lock it to a permanently fixed structure…any signpost will do. Almost guaranteed to be theft-proof then.
Disc locks can be circumvented fast. If it cant just be kicked or pride off, the disc can be screwed off and taped to the fork leg or a skateboard is just thrown under the wheel.
Assume noone but yourself reacts to an alarm and lock the bike to something solid with a good chain.
Also try to park next to a bike that is less protected than yours 
Any bike can be stolen pretty easy. If it’s not secured to something permanent then they can just get 2-3 guys to lift any motorcycle. I was in Serbia once and parked right in front of the hotel. I had a Kawasaki concours, weights a good 600 pounds. They were working on the street, the next morning I found it moved a couple of hundred feet so they could work. I had it chained through the wheels with a large, inch plus, thick chain.
I’ve also heard of people getting bikes stolen from inside the house.
What you want to do is not buy a bike that people are going to want to steal. Even then you might still get unlucky.
Lojack systems are available for motorcycles now, but they are hidden inside the bike, not visible at all. And they aren’t cheap, either ($550 plus $150 - $300 installation).
Hang your colors over the front. I have never lost a bike and mine don’t even need keys.