Bike advice for college

[Ajax Bay]

A ripe banana

 

[Sixmile]

Oh all manors of options. A mix of ground coffee, crushed corn flakes, weetabix and sweetcorn makes a very convincing poo.

Or so I'm told.

 

[AndyRM]

Ride whatever you want. I commuted on a BMX for a year.

Try not to over think things.

 

[CXRAndy]

Get the most undesirable ugliest bike you can keep in good mechanical order. There are scum everywhere, who will steal a nice looking bike for spares or complete to feed their addictions.

Get a qr saddle and front wheel, a good sturdy lock or two. Take saddle and wheel off, lock up and pray no one steals what is left

 

[cyberknight]

I would take a ladies bike as less stolen and cheaper to buy, make it look shoddy, but mechanically great, put a rack on it and very good guards for the wet winter days rather than the summer days your thinking of. Oh and do anything else you can to help it cope with neglect.

ahh the ultimate deterrent , a rack and guards do make a bike less of a target against nicer bikes in the same rack that are liable to be locked with something you can chew through if at all .
Make it mechanically sound , shoddy looking and a mahoosive lock is my train of thought for my bike shed where you see some really tasty bikes that are barely locked

 

[DCLane]

Son no 2 has this at university (underneath the orange overdose is a 1975 Carlton Corsa converted into a fixie):

And this (yes, it's a modified kid's bike into a single-speed with a giant seatpost):

To date neither has been stolen; i.e. pick something undesirable and odd, so it's easily identified.

 

[Gillstay]

My daughters bike was well set up but an old Japanese one I used to commute to work on. When a group of them went a bike ride one day they were all amazed she kept up with their smart, but poorly set bikes. Amused us no end.

 

[Legs]

I bought one of these babies for £10(!) in 2002, at the start of my third year in Cambridge, and it did me for two years. Possibly the best VFM purchase I've ever made. Only occasionally bothered locking it up, required minimal maintenance (I don't remember ever getting a puncture, I broke a chain once, it got an occasional squirt of WD40 if I was feeling profligate), super-convenient mixte frame, suicide levers, and good-fitting mudguards. It weighed half a tonne and went like excrement off a digging implement.