Sadly, no amount of locking points provides sufficient protection against an experienced thief. In London, I've seen some of these Sheffield stands cut with an angle grinder.
It doesn't have to be perfect; just good enough. You don't have to lock up perfectly, just better than the bikes around you. And carry insurance and be prepared to replace your bicycle. Or just ride beaters.
In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
121–130 of 240 posts
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#122Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#123A classic example for me is microwaves. The amount of variations I've seen to enter in a time and turn it on is absolutely ridiculous.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#124I also love the extreme brutalist look it gives to the buildings its next to. Punk as all hell
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#125While the overall point of simple racks being better definitely stands, the premise that a bike needs two locks is just silly and impractical. Get wheel locks for your bikes - pinhead, hexlox (my favorite), etc. If your wheels are secured to the frame you just need to lock the frame with one lock/chain. Takes way less time to park and you dont need to lug multiple 5lb locks (unfortunately thats how heavy secure locks…
Pinhead & Hexlox barely say how they work or offer any instructions and they're also quite expensive compared to cheap bikes.
Could you still hack one? Sure, given time and forethought, but every other bike near you will have quick-release or regular hex nuts.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#126For most bike "racks" here in NL it seems like the primary purpose is not security, but just having somewhere to lean bikes against and give people a sensible place to park their bikes (as opposed to "in a huge pile") Most people don't bother physically locking their regular city bikes to anything (only using a ring lock on the bike itself), primarily cheap beater bikes but also there's a guy in my street with a €200…
No one locks their bikes in Japan, either. According to Wikipedia this is thanks to "strong policing and general public disregard for stolen items." I can certainly say I've never heard of a US police department doing anything proactive in response to a reported bike theft.
Of course it's a tiny ring lock. It's to stop unmotivated people and also people just taking the wrong bike. But works well enough.
Probably not 100% but "no one locks their bike" is incorrect.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#127In general, the author is right, and the simple design is by far the best. But the classic Sheffield stand with a circular cross section can be easily cut with a pipe cutter. Contrary to an angle grinder, a pipe cutter doesn't make any noise. Thus, the design has been improved by making it solid instead of hollow and giving it a rectangular cross section, like [1]. I used to hate the improved design because it's obvi…
Is the risk of someone using a pipe cutter really that high? Seems like if someone is that dedicated they are getting your bike anyway.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#128In my car-centric city (southeast USA, population ~125k) when I visit private property with no bicycle parking, I try to find the owner and offer to install one of these just for the cost of materials. The idea being, they can put in another one when they see more than one customer on a bicycle at the same time. It's very cheap, less than 100 bucks typically as I have the requisite tools in my garage to make them fro…
all you need is a pipe bender, right?
90 degree pipe bends are a stock item most places you can buy pipe.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in a city where bike theft happens, but you're reasonably sure to come back to an intact bike if the frame is locked to something attached to the ground. The security aspect of the Sheffield stand may not be necessary, but I still prefer them. There are a couple of reasons for that. Spacing is one reason. While you may share a stand with someone else, the next stand is going to be two to three feet away. I don…
Those Sheffield things barely exist here and where they do, they're always taken with other bikes parked all over the place around them so you can't really get your bike back out anyway without lifting other bikes aside. Theres tons of bikes and very little room here since cars need all that's available, so if your bike passes as ordinary, you'll come back to an intact bike regardless of how you lock it, as long as y…
Then there are the other indignities, the most common being improperly installed stands. My current favourite though is how my city installed some post and ring stands, then used them to secure signs for a construction project. (The irony is that cyclists now have to secure their bikes to sign posts that are secured by bike stands!) Whenever parking is reduced due to construction, city hall hears about it. Whenever a bike stand is rendered useless, cyclists are supposed to be grateful for what we have.
As for the space requirements for the Sheffields, the least efficient arrangement that I can think of would still handle six bikes in one parking spot. When you factor in the amount of space used by aisles, which don't need to be as wide for bikes, the average will be closer to 17 bikes per parking space. That is not much of a sacrifice. Indeed, it would free up a fair amount of space. Space that could be used for homes, businesses, or even parkland assuming that you could convince people to bike instead.
(I did some quick arithmetic: two parking spots separated by an aisle is 450 square feet, or the size of a small apartment. Managing to eliminate 25 parking spots is the equivalent of freeing up a quarter acre lot, which is sufficient for detached home and yard.)
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#130> Not bad, but still not good enough imo
If that's your idea of "lots of bikes" (see the picture), something is very wrong.
Go to a grocery store in Shanghai, where people regularly use bikes, and there will be a fenced-off bike parking area with no stands of any kind. That's how you hold lots of bikes. The stand is a way to say "we don't expect people to use bicycles, but doesn't our stand look cool?".