Adventures in biking

Considering I bike to work everyday, I often consider myself lucky that I haven't had many mishaps, accidents, or problems.

But Tuesday of this week, a scenario I'd often thought of finally occurred.

After a long day at work and a bit of over-time, I left my office and went to unlock my bike. But after removing my U-lock and my flexible chain lock I realized I was still stuck: someone arriving after me had locked up their bike to the other side of the bike stand and had put their small flexible chain lock through the cable that ran from my handlebar to my gears. Because of a puny cable and a cheapo bike lock I couldn't ride my bike home.

I found a colleague who could help and he looked at the situation. We couldn't undo the cable for my gears without taking off the handle and I didn't want to cut the cable because that would mean expensive repairs to rewire the gears. We couldn't jimmy the lock open from the other bike, and since I needed my bike later in the evening and to return to work the next day I accepted that the only solution would be to cut through the other person's lock.

But of course I had no metal cutters or saw. My husband confirmed by phone that there was nothing at the house that would work. So I walked across downtown Toulouse to a housewares store that has a decent hardware aisle and I bought a small metal and wood hacksaw for 7€80. Forty-five minutes later, I was back in front of the University and set to work freeing my bike.

The lock on the other bike was made of lots of thin strands of metal twisted together like a rope and covered in a plastic tube. The thin strands meant the lock was rather flexible and could be coiled up. It also meant I had to stretch it out with one hand to get a good place to saw. I quickly cut through the plastic tubing, but my puny saw and the unevenness of the metal strands meant I couldn't safely saw back and forth. For about 10 minutes I did one way saw movements to cut through the metal. At the end, I was able to break the last two strands just by bending the two halves back and forth quickly to weaken them.

I left the cut bike lock on the other bike (a neat vintage model) to make it look like it was still attached, then put on my helmet and rode home.

One of the strangest things was that a number of students clearly saw me sawing through the bike lock (I was right by the entrance and there were lots of people coming and going), but no one said anything to me. At least one student stared at me for the last 5 minutes of sawing and she must have been really confused when I left the second bike after spending so much time sawing through the lock. But she didn't say anything.

A couple months ago my husband share this video with me:

I've thought about what I would do if I ever saw someone who looked to be stealing a bike, and I've decided that I would say something (although what? "Are you stealing that bike?" and if they say yes? or no?) and probably try to take a picture of them in the act. I thought about saying something to the group of students who saw me with the hacksaw, asking them why they didn't speak up or confront me on what I was doing. But from when I realized I was stuck to when I could finally go home was an hour and a half, and I just wanted to go home and relax, not give a lesson to random students I didn't know. Probably what other people think when they ignore someone stealing a bike.