Stop At Nothing
Recently I began work on a small bicycle information / maintenance booklet and one of the sections I’m working on focuses on bicycle security and things you can do to help “city proof†your bike. One of the suggestions that I give is to glue ball bearings into the hex heads of components that you rarely adjust such as your stem, seatpost, etc. to discourage theft.
Sometimes I wonder if a bearing in the stem topcap might be overkill but every now and then you ride by something that reminds you that nothing is overkill. I can imagine that this person once had a nice suspension fork, front wheel and stem.
Now they’ve got a bike that they can’t ride home and some junkie has $15 worth of crack that they got for $300 worth of bike components. Bike thieves, as you might expect, get The Gas Face.
Speaking of The Gas Face
on January 24th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Funny thing.. I was just thinking of putting together a short video series on bike maintenance. With more and more average people getting into it, I think there’s an audience for easy to digest how-to type videos… If nothing else I’m sure they’d make great podcasts… I’m just saying….
on January 25th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Whoa, the attorney’s name is Mosher!
on January 26th, 2008 at 3:57 am
[...] This shit is becoming epidemic! [...]
on January 27th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Better than glue + BB: solder. Easy to remove that way. Just heat it up, bye bye solder.
on January 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am
solder… oh thats a great idea.
on January 27th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
love the solder idea, will probably try this out
on February 14th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
wow, great idea, it would totally save your stem and fork… and, basically never adjust that, not like you even have to check it for tightness from time to time, not really safety critical or anything.
sweeeeet!
on February 14th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
do i detect a little sarcasm?
tory – either solder or glue are easy enough to get rid of at home to take the bearing out to check for tightness or make adjustments – it just adds another layer of frustration for a potential thief.
thanks for your concern, though.
on February 14th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
no, no sarcasim at all. sorry, wassn’t suposed to come out that way
I actually just went and (after testing on random screw) soldered the screw mentioned here, one screw that attaches my bars to the stem, one chain ring screw, seatpost collar, and the screw that holds the seat to the seatpost.
I’m soooo tempted to do the crank arm bolts… but I worry that would take too much heat, and could disturb the integrity of the crank arms in additon to the fact that I have a lil plastic ring that, that.. though may not die on the installation of the solder, but, definatly would die on the removal.
I did a quick look on locttite.. I did not know that the pernament loctite could be removed with heat. I’m curious what 220degrees celcious would do to the materials….
on February 14th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
on later thought… BB + solder would allow for lower heat, and probably easier removal.. oh well.. such as life… I don’t have any BBs around anyways.
on February 15th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Ha! Well, don’t I feel like a dong?!
I totally misinterpreted the “safety†comment – my bad!
If you use Loctite I’d recommend the blue loctite – you can get red off with heat but I wouldn’t want to have to – that stuff is a pain in the ass!
on February 21st, 2008 at 7:50 pm
ha, yeah, I would defiantly have to experiment before putting that on my bike (red loctite)
follow up on the solder: I actually had, 1 or 2? I can’t rember now… fall out… Probably because I didn’t clean the screw heads at all. In addition, I did puposly remove one the other day, and it came out pretty smoothly.
on May 29th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
[...] Super glue and ball bearing: Glue a ball bearing into the head of the screw/bolt. Via the blog Living for the City comes this [...]
on June 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
[...] glue and ball bearing: Glue a ball bearing into the head of the screw/bolt. Via the blog Living for the City comes this picture. A variety of glues could be used, but many out there on the Internet believe [...]