I’m surprised he’s not using a cheap lock and a cheap insurance policy instead. Chain or no, any bike can be stolen. Why drop money on the kryptonite chain when thieves still can angle grind through it like any other lock?
This is kind of my approach. I figure, nothing will defeat an angle grinder, but a piece of chain will defeat a wire cutters if there's a nicer bike parked nearby. Riding a sub-$100 jalopy completes the picture.
dudes did try social response toward bike theft in plain NYC, the heavier the grinder the less people assume it's theft. 'nobody would try something that obvious' reasoning.
I wonder if you're thinking of an old Casey Neistat video. And another explanation for people's behavior is that they don't want to get stabbed defending some strangers bike.
Hmm no I don't think it was him, also there was a few other dudes that did the same. The point you noted is valid though. It's tough to intervene, and in one case, a black guy pretending to operate a bike in a park, people did come to tell him to stop, although it was probably .. not morally motivated :)
Over the 30 years I've been commuting by bicycle, I get a bike stolen once every 3 years or so. My bikes cost in the neighbourhood of $1k each. It costs me about a buck a day to travel by bike, which is really cheap relative to other transportation options. The cost of replacing a stolen bike seems to be less of a concern for people than the feeling of having been violated and taken advantage of.
That's certainly the case for me. I think I value my bikes more than my car, though most of my bikes were assembled from piles of old parts. But a bike is a bike, and a car is just an appliance. ;-)