I trust this will be a retread many times over for some of you. Sorry if I'm clogging the forum with a redundant post. If this was just settled once in for all three weeks ago, please point me to the post
Back on-line after being active with online bike forums in the late 90s and early 00s. I'm finally, after literally thinking about it for several decades while work, other hobbies, and life in general intruded, just putting the finishing touches on a touring bike (LHT) and am super excited to get in some shorter multi-day tours this summer with maybe something much longer next year.
..and then I realized, oh, I should probably lock my bike on pit stops and certainly overnight. (I've ridden a Kvale fast road bike for decades on day rides but have never once locked it in rural areas, stopping for a bathroom or meal break, though I watch it nervously like a hawk...) But I have this 'huge' 4 lb 25 year old Kryptonite U-lock, and I'm thinking there must be a better way now. I've done a lot of searching and reading online leading to a lot of ideas, but not yet to any conclusions.
So what do you use? I've obsessively considered everything from a modern Kryptonite mini U-lock (maybe the New-U Evolution LITE mini-6? Too small for touring where dedicated bike racks could be rare?), to the ABUS Bordo 5700 folding lock (until I saw the LockPickingLawyer on youtube bypass it in seconds), to the Kryptonite folding lock (until the L.P.L. broke it in seconds with a basic hacksaw), the Ottolock (ditto - LPL; maybe 1 second with cheap tin snips), to the Foldylock Compact (my current favorite; though likely because I haven't seen a youtube video defeating it in seconds yet....)
Seems like for touring, generally in rural areas, the risks of bike theft is relatively small. So the question is really, is there any reason to get anything other than something really light that should stop an opportunity theft by some local kids or petty criminal with no tools, seeing an unlocked bike out of the blue? It seems clear that for determined experienced thieves in urban areas, any lock can be defeated quickly with an electric angle grinder and/or bolt cutters and/or lock picking skills. But what are the odds that a bike thief with an industrial bolt cutter will be stalking your Surly touring bike with rim brakes, racks, and panniers at the small town 7-11 on a coffee or bathroom break, or some remote cafe in the middle of no where when you are watching it from a window seat?
But especially for camping overnight, or longer visits to historic sites, etc., you probably want SOME level of security? So what is the best compromise, assuming we don't want to lug a 10 lb NYC chain and lock around on tour?
I'm considering getting two different relatively light locks: Maybe the Foldylock Compact, because it seems like a good compromise between security and weight and would be ideal to mount under the downtube on the third set of bottle bosses, to use for day trips and rural camping overnights. And then for longer tours where I want a bit more protection and may have some unknown risks, back it up with something else, maybe a little lighter, like the lightest modern Kryptonite mini U-locks (the Messenger or Lite Mini-6 are both well under 2lbs), or maybe the TiGr lock.
But is this just obsessive crazy overkill for touring? (Or naive?) [For context I live in the Methow Valley in north central Washington and am looking to tour initially in rural areas around the pacific northwest.]
Has anyone had their bike stolen on tour, or from a small town gas station or cafe on a pitstop? Is this like being afraid of a shark attack when you live in Iowa?
Is anyone using things like the Ortlieb pannier cable locks? (Has anyone had their panniers stolen off their parked bike?) Pitlocks for wheels? Any other type of safety measures? Or is this just paranoia and petty robbery in the touring world is exceedingly rare? All the bicycle crime information I could find related to a handful of major metropolitan areas.