Grey legality, but I would do something like that too
If the cyclist has half a brain he can get the padlock off with a piece of cut-up coke can, anyway.. ah, wait. Based on Ron's description he's probably still there staring at it, isn't he
As part of my continual professional development and a desire to get in to Red-Teaming, I have been learning to pick locks and many of them are very, very easy unless you get a ruddy expensive one. A basic 4 pin can be done by a beginner like me in a few seconds. Made me think......
Yeah - I had a play with lock picking a few years ago when a colleague brought a practice set into the office.. I did
not have the knack so gave up any ideas of becoming an international spy
But padlocks .. a simple shim opens the cheap ones and probably a good number of expensive ones!
Lots of YouTube videos of people demonstrating how. Do wish I had the 'feel' for proper lock picking, though.
Er, y'know, for research purposes