MrDude_1 said:
later when I came out, there are two guys at the rack. One is missing his bike, except his front wheel is there. The other is missing his front wheel, but his bike is there.
My observation suggests that this is exactly why most front wheels get stolen. A thief makes off with a bike some ding-a-ling locked up by only the front wheel, but then he needs a front wheel to ride it away/sell it quickly. That's not really any fault of the person who locked his bike but has a QR front wheel.
People do some really dumb things when it comes to locking their bikes. Some of my favorites include
- "locking" up to chain link, often just to the top tube
- putting the lock around the seat post
- locking to short poles that have nothing on top, enabling the bike to be lifted off
- "freelocking", i.e. locking a wheel to the frame, but not to any immovable object
- leaving their lock combination set and visible whenever the bike isn't actually locked to something
- lifting their front wheel up and over the top of a rail-and-picket bike rack, thus enabling easy locking but also smashing their shift cable stops flat.