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Comment by theobeers | Hacker News Reader

Those frame/ring locks are no joke. We had to have one cut off of one of our bikes after losing the keys.[0] It took the guy longer than I expected with an angle grinder, made a lot of noise, sparks flying, etc.

Swapfiets rental bikes have become popular in Berlin. They have a frame lock with an integrated chain. But even if you don't use the chain, what exactly is the theft scenario? The bikes are rather heavy—which I guess is intentional. Someone highly motivated could lift the bike into a van, drive home, and then worry about cutting off the lock. It just seems a bit far-fetched.

[0]: It was an ABUS like this: https://i.imgur.com/ytfVtex.jpeg

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> It took the guy longer than I expected with an angle grinder, made a lot of noise, sparks flying, etc.

Your guy was probably being very careful not to damage your bike. With the right tool, even top-quality locks with hardened boron-carbide shackles can be cut in seconds: https://youtu.be/cbYVmRNzGLc?t=368

> Someone highly motivated could lift the bike into a van, drive home, and then worry about cutting off the lock. It just seems a bit far-fetched.

One mode of bike theft in the UK is: A white van pulls up to the university/train station cycle racks, men with bolt cutters grab as many as they can in 3 minutes or so, then drive off.

As they're going for volume rather than quality, the bikes with the worst locks are the first to go.

I got my keys stuck in the lock of an old bike and had to angle grind a similar lock off too - massive pain indeed!

>Swapfiets rental bikes have become popular in Berlin Same here in NL where they originated, in many cities a good 1/3rd if all the bikes you see (and that’s a lot of bikes) are a Swapfiets. Not too expensive, reliable, and less likely to get stolen than an average bike (good luck selling a Swapfiets inside NL, whereas other stolen bikes are much easier to offload for a few euros to drunk people late at night)

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