SkaroffBlog

For some reason, it seems like our fair city often finds itself at the top of top 10 lists. Unfortunately, we’re often peaking on lists that you wouldn’t necessarily want to find yourself on. Well, add another one to the list.

The Kryptonite lock company, maker of pretty much the best bike locks around, just published their “Top 10 Worst Cities for Bike Theft List.” Oh yeah, we’re #1.

1. Philadelphia, PA
2. Chicago, IL
3. New York City, NY
4. San Francisco, CA
5. Tucson, AZ (tie)
Portland, OR (tie)
7. Denver, CO
8. New Haven, CT
9. Cambridge, MA
10. Austin, TX

Yup, I’m shocked, but that’s what the data tells us. This list is compiled by our proprietary data….input from our regional managers, hundreds of shop visits, input from colleges and universities we talk with, our customer service interactions (both over the phone/email and at events) and data from police in various cities. When we did the compilation, there wasn’t even a city close to Philly. Not even close.

Yikes.

I carry at least one Kryptonite lock on me daily, the Evolution Mini. It’s small enough to easily carry in my bag, in a pocket, or on my Fabric Horse belt if I’ve got that on, but still plenty strong (and actually the smaller size makes it harder to break into). Combined with a cable that I loop through the front wheel and using the rear wheel through the triangle method, I generally feel comfortable locking up for relatively short periods. If it’s gonna be much more than an hour or two I’ll even bring along another Kryptonite U-Lock for added piece of mind.

But this makes me ever more paranoid. Leave my bike alone!

(h/t Cyclelicio.us)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 2:10 pm and is tagged as Bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.