You Don’t Need Fancy Anti-Theft Tech. You Just Need a Big Ol’ Bike Lock.

For the past 18 years, I’ve used the same hefty lock—even when I’m riding cheap clunkers around town. Here’s why.

PHOTO OF ROUND BIKE LOCK FORMING PEACE SIGN

(Photo: Brendan Leonard)

Updated December 2, 2024 07:39AM

I have had this bike lock for 18 years: PHOTO OF MASTER LOCK BIKE CHAIN — (All illustrations: Brendan Leonard)

It weighs 5 pounds, 5 ounces. I paid $30 for it in 2006, to protect a bicycle a friend bought me for $225. I was living in central Denver, a big enough city that you’d want a substantial lock for your bike if you wanted to keep your bike. (but not as big as, say, NYC, where bike theft is so next-level that one company named its toughest bike locks after it)

I’ve never really owned a super-expensive bike, but the bikes I’ve had, I have loved. Even if it was a 20-plus year-old frame I got for $100, the bike lived indoors, even in my smallest studio apartment. I didn’t use a heavy-ass bike lock because I wanted to protect a financial investment—I used it to protect my relationship with the bike.

My friend Gregory had his bike stolen a few years ago. It was a frame he’d built himself, exactly how he’d wanted it. The hardest part, he’d told me, was that the bike was probably sold for $50. Meaning: The thief had no idea what that bike was really worth. [BAR CHART: WHAT MY BIKE IS WORTH TO ME vs. WHAT MY BIKE IS WORTH TO A TOTAL STRANGER]

Gregory built me a bike, and relative to every other bike I’ve ever bought, it was expensive. But more than that, it’s irreplaceable. PHOTO OF GREGORY AND MY BIKE

I live in a much less-populous city now, one that’s like a small town in a lot of ways. Not so long ago, or even now, you might leave your house unlocked when you’re out, or not worry about a delivered package sitting on your doorstep for a few hours. Where I live now, I could probably get away with a smaller, lighter cable lock when I park my bike outside a coffee shop for an hour or two. But I keep using the same big, heavy chain.

There are all sorts of technological inventions you can use to keep your stuff safe—cameras, AirTags, tracking microchips. But lots of those things are intended to catch thieves in the act, not prevent theft from taking place.

Someone (Bob) told me this quote a while back, and the person saying it (Randy Newberg) was talking about marriage, not bike theft, but it strikes me as maybe a good life philosophy. It goes, “be more interested in peace than justice.” It lives in my head in this shorthand version: [HAND-DRAWN BOX WITH PEACE > JUSTICE]

What does justice actually mean, in the case of a bike theft? Getting the bike back? Catching the thief? Seeing them punished? After we become the victim of a crime, we seek justice. But what we really want, I think, is for things to be like they were before the crime. And that’s impossible.

The bike lock, to me, is pursuing peace in hopes of not having to pursue justice. If I take away the possibility of my bike getting stolen, maybe I won’t have to spend any time, energy, or emotion trying to track down a thief (and my bike). [FLOW CHART: PEACE Vs. JUSTICE IN BIKE THEFT]

I love my bike. Every time I ride it, it reminds me of my friend Gregory. If it ever got stolen, I would do everything I could to get it back. But I don’t want to have to do that, so I’ll keep carrying this big-ass lock around with it, to keep my chances of peace as high as possible, and my chances of having to pursue justice as low as possible. [PHOTO OF ROUND BIKE LOCK FORMING PEACE SIGN]

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