I just saw this video and had to share it. I'd be especially interested in what Orchid think of it, since she's our main supporter of urban cycling.

Check out this video sharing how Japanese bicycle commuters are safely parking their bikes.

After all, one of my biggest concerns with urban cycling is how to keep the bicycle safe when parking it. I can't tell you how many bikes I've had stolen, despite having really top quality locks on them. (Well, OK, I can: The number is 4. Three were even stolen out of locked garages!)

It's a great demo video of that type of system in Japan.
However it would be better if it wasn't electrically powered..doesn't help when the city has a disaster and its electrical power is cut. Which is what happened in our city.

I'm sorry you had such instances of theft. In the end, then the bikes must be kept inside the house itself.

Hi Orchid,

Yes, keeping a bike inside the house is generally pretty safe. But several of the bikes I lost were parked (and locked) on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

As in I rode my bike to school, parked and locked it, went to class, and when I returned, it was gone.

Based on an article I just read, about using "bait bikes" to catch thieves this is still a problem on the UW Madison campus all these years later.

I remember one of the times my bike was stolen, the police told me that ALL of the bikes parked in a large rack were stolen. They gave me the idea that there was a gang of bicycle thieves who would just pull up in a truck, cut the locks off all the bikes, load them all into the truck and drive off for part unknown...

And yet, I also think I've heard that a few years ago the UW was experimenting with a program where there were "sharable bikes" parked throughout the campus. The idea was that if you needed to get somewhere faster than walking, you could grab one of these free bikes, ride it to where you needed it, and leave it there for the next needy person to find and use.

I wondered if this program was still in use anywhere. so I checked: Here's a link to Madison WI bike sharing program. but Google seems to indicate this sort of a program is also in place in many cities, including Toronto, Portand, OR, San Jose, CA and New York City.

The self-locking public bike shares are often a privately funded or part-government funded initiative. These bikes are locked in docking stations installed into the sidewalk (with cooperation of local municipality), metres to buy use with payment via card and timed as soon as you take the bike out of docking station.

Siince you have to stick in your charge card or a user card, your name is tied to the bike when it's "signed" out and in use. In fact, I believe some of the public bike share systems have a microchip on the bike that allows the bike share company to track the location of each bike. For them to retrieve it back.

Hopefully Madison's system will be used often! That's great Madison has moved along.