Sheldon Brown Locking Method: Potential Flaw?

Remember the Sheldon Brown Locking Method? This one:

Well, I thought this article on Commute By Bike showed a potential flaw in Sheldon’s system:

Basically, what the thief’s done is cut every single one of the spokes so they can take the rest of the bike away. Yeah, I know.

However, I’m fairly sure that this is actually the remains of a front wheel. Even with the spokes removed, it’s still not possible to get the wheel rim of a bike through the frame’s rear triangle - not unless you actualy fold the rim up, which hasn’t happened here.

So why would someone go to all this trouble to remove a front wheel rather than just undoing the axle? Who can tell. Maybe the thief had forgotten his spanner (wrench), or maybe the rest of the bikes in the neighbourhood had quickrelease skewers and this one didn’t, and the technology of a hex-nut defeated his intellect. Or maybe it was a really nice bike (that’s a Bontrager tyre after all), with Pinhead Skewers to protect the wheels:

These will prevent someone making off with your wheels. But remember - no lock is completely resistant to being defeated. If someone wants a bike badly enough, they will find a way round.

So in the end, maybe this is another example of the lessons in locking your bike up:

• Lock your bike near to other bikes
• Make sure your bike is better locked than the other bikes
• Make sure your bike doesn’t look as nice / swish / expensive as the other bikes
• Always lock up somewhere very public. Cutting this many spokes takes time, and the thief is less likely to risk that if there’s a bunch of witnesses looking on.