(mark freedman) wrote in message

theft is an issue when a bike is
locked up for extended lengths of time. By all means, buy a
road bike or touring bike for your recreational rides, but use
a clunker for the 10Km ride to and from school. Anything valuable
will tempt thieves.

a good point, but remember that your 'clunker' only has to *look* like
a clunker. if you have a friendly LBS, or spend a little time on
rbmarket, or have a stock of parts, you can put together a beater, or
fix up a yardsale special into a completely solid bike. just not so
much a looker, and probably nothing youd want to run up and down
stairs with.

i have a couple really sweet looking bikes. i never lock them up
anywhere ever. i also have a couple bikes assembled from odds and
ends, that look like complete trash. but they're not. besides weighing
a tad more because the components are not high end, i think id be hard
pressed to rationally say the well-maintained beaters would get me
anywhere any slower than the prissy racy bikes.

one beater in particular withstood four years of hard daily bicycling,
as well as being locked outside day and night in new haven, ct, which
has about as high a rate of bicycle theft as any city, it would seem.
great bike to ride, though.