The bike theft scene has changed a lot since that was written, especially in the UK. In big cities like London it's a major problem. The biggest offenders are feral kids on scooters who ride in packs and threaten anyone with hammers and machetes if they try to intervene. The best defence against those is multiple layers of security, because if it takes them too long to steal a bike they know they cops will arrive. Big chains don't worry them because they don't use bolt cutters any more, it's all cordless angle grinders now. Got big disc locks? They don't cut them, they use a jack to lever them apart, or cut the disc. Bikes getting lifted into vans is relatively rare.
So yeah, put it somewhere anonymous, chain it to something solid, use disc locks, make it take too long. It's like running from a bear, you don't need to outrun the bear, just the other guy.
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