Covering a bike in permit parking areas?

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NuggyBuggy

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I live downtown where we only have permit parking - no garage, no driveway. I brought my bike into the city with the plan to commute on that instead of the car. I want to cover it - partly for theft reasons, but partly because the shedding from trees on our street is absolutely terrible.

How does that work when your plate and permit are supposed to be displayed? I suppose the parking authority person would need to lift the cover to read the plate to ticket you in the first place, so is it a non-issue? I've seen reports that they just scan the plate; if so why do I even need to display a permit?
 
NuggyBuggy said:
I live downtown where we only have permit parking - no garage, no driveway. I brought my bike into the city with the plan to commute on that instead of the car. I want to cover it - partly for theft reasons, but partly because the shedding from trees on our street is absolutely terrible.

How does that work when your plate and permit are supposed to be displayed? I suppose the parking authority person would need to lift the cover to read the plate to ticket you in the first place, so is it a non-issue? I've seen reports that they just scan the plate; if so why do I even need to display a permit?
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I would either stitch a transparent vinyl window into the cover so the green hornet can see the plate/permit or attach (probably sewn) a laminated pic of plate/permit to the outside of the cover. Something you could show in court that shows you weren't hiding anything, you had it covered for the reasons you stated. Alternatively, a smaller cover (bottom just below handlebars/tail lights) protects most of your bike from falling crap and leaves the plate fully exposed. Obviously the small cover does nothing for thieves shopping while driving by.
 
GreyGhost said:
I would either stitch a transparent vinyl window into the cover so the green hornet can see the plate/permit or attach (probably sewn) a laminated pic of plate/permit to the outside of the cover. Something you could show in court that shows you weren't hiding anything, you had it covered for the reasons you stated. Alternatively, a smaller cover (bottom just below handlebars/tail lights) protects most of your bike from falling crap and leaves the plate fully exposed. Obviously the small cover does nothing for thieves shopping while driving by.
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I like the idea of stitching a laminated copy of my permit, but they'd still need to either lift the cover or I'd have to introduce a transparent portion to make the plate visible.

They should make covers with transparent vinyl in the back! EDIT: Apparently, they do. Oxford Stormex is the first option I found, but it's expensive.

There used to be a guy who'd park his bike on our street covered, I always wondered but never asked.

I do wonder whether the parking permit people would bother to lift a cover to look for a plate, or whether they'd just pass it over. Next time I see one of them in the neighbourhood, I'll ask.
 
Probably not an issue, but you could take a photocopy of the plate and then stick the copy into one of those plastic sheet protectors and safety pin it to the rear of the cover where your plate is.
 
hdsomeday said:
Call 311 or General Parking Enforcement Inquiry at 416-808-6600. I am sure the situation as come up before.
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I'm on a city board. Have you ever tried calling the city? ;).

It's a logical suggestion, but forgetting how long it takes to get through, they're going to tell me exactly what the City website says, which is that both permit and plates need to be displayed.

They certainly will not tell me that (maybe, hopefully) in practice there may be exceptions or that staff won't bother looking under a cover or won't care.
 
When the Squeeze and I travelled on the Wing I always wondered if I should cover the bike at night. The thought being if it's under a cover it worth protecting and hence worth stealing.
 
timtune said:
When the Squeeze and I travelled on the Wing I always wondered if I should cover the bike at night. The thought being if it's under a cover it worth protecting and hence worth stealing.
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I have the same thoughts, cover shows worth or cover slows potential theft if they don't know what's there plus dry seat.
 
tat2 said:
I have the same thoughts, cover shows worth or cover slows potential theft if they don't know what's there plus dry seat.
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A Hyosung cover used to be the ticket. Dry seat and nobody wants to steal your piece of crap (although it may be a Ducati underneath). At this point, I doubt most thieves have heard of Hyosung and they probably just think it is one of the random letter companies from amazon.
 
timtune said:
When the Squeeze and I travelled on the Wing I always wondered if I should cover the bike at night. The thought being if it's under a cover it worth protecting and hence worth stealing.
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That's a thought. I'd only considered the deterrent that having to look under a cover creates.
GreyGhost said:
A Hyosung cover used to be the ticket. Dry seat and nobody wants to steal your piece of crap (although it may be a Ducati underneath). At this point, I doubt most thieves have heard of Hyosung and they probably just think it is one of the random letter companies from amazon.
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I was thinking of this! I thought if I could get a crappy e- bike branded cover, the Vespa could look like a crappy e-bike covered up!

Then I thought about a lot of the people I see riding those e-bikes/scooters and wondered whether those might not just be the people who'd be the type to steal e-bikes and scooters.

Having said that, if I buy a cover I actually WANT a cover that drops down into the Vespa footwell and fits the scooter shape more closely as opposed to just tenting over the whole vehicle like most covers seem to do. With some of the crazy winds we've seen recently and that I see at the cottage, that would seem to decrease the amount of wind a traditional Vespa or bike cover could catch. I've got several traditional covers as it is.
 
GreyGhost said:
At this point, I doubt most thieves have heard of Hyosung and they probably just think it is one of the random letter companies from amazon.
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I call them Alphabet-soup companies, and I'm very familiar with them as I get offered lots of free stuff from Amazon, much of it sold by companies with names like that.

What's funny about your comment is I just today opened up a motorcycle cover I got. It's branded "Nikishap". Aside from that junky-sounding name, it looks as good and is actually as well made or better than some of the Oxford and other covers I have. But it suffers from a fatal design flaw - the strap is located far to the back, is short, and is not adjustable at all, so you can't actually buckle the strap around the bike.

Whoever made it never tried actually using it on a bike.
 
timtune said:
When the Squeeze and I travelled on the Wing I always wondered if I should cover the bike at night. The thought being if it's under a cover it worth protecting and hence worth stealing.
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I stitched up a mini cover for my 1500 that covered the W/S and seat. It kept debris off the seat and hinted that the bike wasn't a park bench for posers.
 
Out of sight, out of mind is a real thing, and a bland dirty grey cover helps it blend into its natural surroundings of canada (also rather bland and grey most of the year)

Certainly sticks out a lot less than a bright orange KTM or a nice clean red ducati
 
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