How to lock your bike in Manhattan. Duh.

Every month is bike month, so I'm not too sure who or what decided that May is officially bike month, but whatever. Bikes surely rank right up there with hot dogs and secretaries for things that are most beloved to me, and they get their own months, so what the hey.

Anyway, StreetFilms is celebrating by offering this old chestnut: New York's hippest bike mechanic walking the streets of Manhattan and grading people on how they've locked their bikes. (To see the film, click here.) Most salient moment being this:

"Basically, you're just buying time."

Given that just about any lock can be busted, and any bike dismantled, you need to take into account your environment and buy as much time as you can, with as many locks and techniques as are needed.

Clearly in Manhattan, you're going to need to carry about 20 pounds worth of lock and chain. Seats, wheels, forks--anything that can be stripped will be stripped in a matter of hours.

Back here in the Good Old Midwest, it might take a day or two for someone to take your quick-release wheels. It could be months before they go through the trouble of wrenching your bolt-ons. And it could be a decade before anyone comes around to uncouple that old Sella Flite.

The only absolute guarantee against theft and pillage? Ride a Magna with flat tires.