You’ve done your homework and bought the best locks for your bike, you know how to securely lock your bike, and perhaps you’ve even uglified it. But have you ensured the bike rack itself is secure?
University of Oregon students Lauren Miller, Hollie Putnam and Lauren Prince discovered all three of their locked bicycles were stolen when a thief took the entire bike rack. Though they locked their bikes to the bike rack, the bike rack itself was not secured to anything.
I’ve been to places with unsecured racks and made a stink to facilities management about it, insisting that racks are properly secured. Besides racks that are just placed on the ground, I’ve seen racks that are falling apart so that it’s easy to move the tubing around. I’ve also heard of entire racks that are stolen even when they are secured because the mounting bolts use standard heads that can be removed by commonly . I like building standards such as this one used in Denver that specify mounting bolts that are resistant to vandalism and removal.
When you lock up, wiggle the rack around to ensure it’s secure and look at the mounting bolts, especially if the bike will be unseen for more than a few minutes.