New Lock

I once studied cryptography.  In good crypto, management of keys is crucial to strength of system.

Same with bikes.  Key management is everything.  I discovered the absolute most secure approach is simple:  just leave your key in another city and nobody, including yourself, can open the lock!

Luckily, my lock was only securing my cable to the seat of my bike, so I could still ride.  But I couldn't remove the cable from the seat, so I couldn't use it or the lock to secure my bike.  So what to do?  Hack the system ;-)

Good hackers have good tools.  And fortunately I packed the equivalent of a bicycle repair shop.

I dis-assembled the frame of the bike seat. Slid the lock & attached cable off.  Purchased a new lock.  So now I have a perfectly useable cable, with a perfectly useable new lock, plus the old lock still attached... consider it a piece of decorative jewelry, useless but it does make the bike now appear to have two locks, so maybe it's an even better system now.

Process took about an hour.  Unlikely that any bike thief would bother, even if they had the right tools in their pocket.

Now have three keys to the new lock.  One in the lock... one with my travel docs... one in my wash kit.  Triple redundancy in my key management system!  Publishing the location of keys is a technical security breach, but a minor one since I'm physically difficult to locate.  And it is a huge convenience to me, in case I forget where I put them!