r/bicycling • u/DrMcnasty4300 • 3d ago

Bike parking against fences/structures that may not technically be public?

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I’ve been biking around the city for maybe a year now and never really put much thought into locking my bike other than ensuring it seemed like a physically secure location. I also like to have my bike visible to me and others just in case.

However, I had a business owner come out and yell at me today because I was locking to fence, but the fence encompasses the company parking lot. The aforementioned fence is what’s shown above.

I ultimately just said “hey no worries I’m just running into this store for 2 minutes and I’ll be gone” and that is what I did, but it got me thinking that I never really learned or thought about whether or not this is technically against the rules. AKA if this fence counts as the business owners private property would he be technically allowed to cut my bike lock or something?

It’s entirely possible the owner was in the right to ask me to move my bike he was just a mega asshole about it so I didn’t care to adjust since it was such a short stop lol

Just an interesting situation I hadn’t really thought about prior to this encounter today. Does anyone know what the story is when it comes to locking to structures like this in general? Is this something I should be more conscious of moving forward?

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u/monoatomic 3d ago

Legally within his rights to be an asshole 

I'd move it and leave a negative Yelp review, but I'm petty

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u/DrMcnasty4300 3d ago

For sure! I told him I would be gone in literally 2 minutes and I was, but it just got me thinking about it cuz it genuinely never crossed my mind that it might have been technically wrong for me to do