My Electra got stolen within a week of bringing it home. These bikes are magnets for thieves--when I searched Craigslist for "Electra" in my area, every single one of the listings was someone posting a stolen bike. Sigh.

That said, there's no point in having a bike if you're too scared to ride anywhere on it for fear of it being stolen (and FWIW, mine was stolen from my house). I usually go for the two lock method--use a U-lock and a good cable lock and lock it somewhere that gets a lot of foot traffic so a potential thief might think it's not worth the risk of being noticed trying to steal it. I also tend to try to lock my bike near a bike that is less protected than my own, figuring that if someone is going to steal something, surely they'd go for the easy one first? It's probably all voodoo, and in any case it's not like I have a lot of choices of where to park my bike (on a busy day there might be two other bikes on the rack). And make sure to write down the serial number so you have it for the police if necessary!

Sarah