Novel designs for bikes that can’t be stolen – like this example from Chile
Bike theft is a massive ball ache, hence the raft of locks and other anti-theft devices on the market, but what if a bike couldn’t be stolen without detriment to its frame and parts?
Students at Chile’s University of Adolfo Ibáñez have arrived with the design of Project Yerka, in which the down tube splits out, allowing the seat post to connect the ends around a lamppost or other vertical post.
It’s a nice idea, but it has a fault not of its own making: bike thieves are remorseless bastards.
//www.youtube.com/embed/1pWYu8t5o4o?rel=0
For all it’s snazzy folding seems to work on the same tube lock as most bike locks – the type that are regularly broken to allow theft – rendering its marvellous frame prone.
It also creates other design problems – by removing the seat you’d have to find a way to stop the inside of the frame from rusting; the down tube would need to be made from heavy, hardened steel, and the hinges for the frame would need to be equally thief proof, otherwise you’d simply have to unbolt the pins.
Should a thief take a shot of stealing it then give up halfway through, the damage would probably amass to a costly headache for the owner.
It is only a prototype, and it would deter a thief over having no lock at all, but we wouldn’t get too excited about it just yet…
