Anyone keep their motorbike outside?

As per title? Thinking of getting a new bike but don’t have a garage.

Live in a fairly secluded street away from the main road. The house is rented unfortunately so no possibility of building a shed our owt like that. Obviously I’ll cover it when not being used.

Don’t want a Jap rocket, more of a commuter type.

Is it a bad idea? Obvious worries about theft, but it is away from the road so is unlikely to be seen.

it ll be seen it ll be stolen. sorry.

Used to keep a VFR750 and then a R1100GS on the street under a cover. The BMW didn’t like it and rusted all over it’s pathetic chrome finish, whereas the older Honda was better made and blemish free. Moral of the story is buy a Japanese bike.

I’ve left bikes in the front garden in south west london for years, never had one stolen – good quality cover and good quality lock, a ground anchor is useful if you can get one in your rented accomodation

All depends where you live really, the OH keeps his behind our house after work every evening, if left for any longer it has the bigger locks but we have neighbours who are in almost 24/7 and live on a unite housing estate, not a through road.

When I lived in a flat and hence no garage I had to keep mine outside, in secure parking, out of sight of the road. In 2 months I had a VF500 F11 and a ZZR600 nicked, then I gave up

If its outside, it’ll go. Guaranteed

It all depends where you live and to some extent how lucky you are.

If you cant get a ground anchor installed then use a big bucket of concrete with your strong expensive chain through it.

It all depends where you live

Quite a few bikes on the streets near me. No one nicks them. I never had any trouble in several years of leaving them by the kerb.

Yep, under an R&G cover. Although i do garage it over winter away from home, but summer it’s at mine and outside

My mate kept his bike outside for about 2 weeks. He lives in Manchester. Put 2 and 2 together*.

Also note, motorbikes can be ‘frozen’ with liquid nitrogen and smashed to pieces with a hammer. I’ve heard about it happening before.

*It was stolen**

**The Police recovered it

As been said earlier if it can be seen it can be stolen. Make sure the bike is secured to something fixed as most bike thefts are simply loaded into a van and any remaining security dealt with later. Never leave your lock unattended either as it can be tampered with before you apply it to the bike. Cover the bike up.
Also think about applying some weather protection to the bike itself. I use ACF50 and it works wonders at preventing corrosion.

not a problem. First buy a decent cover (I’ve got one by Oxford) and it works great. Second, buy a Honda

Covering it up also stops the local kids playing about with it, which is what I assume had happened to mine when I found it on its side one day. (There’s no way it could have been knocked over by a car, and it was in a shared garage…)

If there’s anywhere you can legally park it off the road where a van can’t get to it, that’d be better too.

I kept my motorbike under a cover (at night) on the main road through the village I lived in (in Saddleworth, Oldham/Manchester outskirts) and never had a problem, when I moved to the outskirts of Manchester proper I never saw a bike kept on the streets, now I’ve moved more rural again I see one or two. Mine is now garaged and has been since moving away from the village.

End of the day there is no catch all answer, those saying “it will definitely be nicked” don’t know that any more than those who say “it’ll be fine”.

I rent like the OP and when I was last moving and the prospect of not having a garage came up I looked into building a lean to at the back of the house, seems like a good compromise.

I lived in rented accommodation and couldn’t fit a ground anchor so I got a length of chain, a large plastic barre, some concrete and some of those metal bra/posts that hold cordons on building sites. I inserted chain into barrel leaving a loop out of the top. Then threaded bent/ cut metal rods through links inside barrel and then filled the barrel with concrete. I basically made a huge anchor to lock the bike to (as I had nothing else in the vicinity) and then locked my bike lock to the loop of chain hanging out the top. Obviously if you use cheap chain its easily cut and becomes the weak link (no pun intended) otherwise the risk is them smashing the concrete with a sledge hammer which will be made more tricky by the metal bars embedded and hopefully will be noisy enough to attract attention.

Cheers folks, it sounds like a possibility then.

Like the suggestions of concrete buckets to secure locks to, good idea.

I kept mine onvthe road outside my house in a pretty rough bit of Reading for 3 or 4 years with just a chsin through the back wheel. Didnt get knicked but was knocked over a few times.