Originally Posted by
smasha
Sure, thieves will break a dollar-store lock to steal a crappy bike; I've previously stated that.
Will they break a good lock (properly used) to steal a beater-bike? Anecdotally, I don't know of that happening.
So the real question remains unanswered.
It's obvious that those thieves targeted that bike, regardless of the lock. It's not like most locks are hard to get through in a few minutes anyway, I'm sure they wouldn't have been deterred had the beater bike been locked with a heavy duty lock.