That is a great alternative ... and very affordable!
The Xena disc lock/alarm is popular here but costs from about $75 up to $120 usd. ... and it's only 120db.

Asking the receptionist or even the bar waiter is a great advise - they will know much better than you do. E.g. in the middle of Leuven they told me about an underground bike parking just round the corner - no way I would've found it myself.

Premier classe, etap, f1 or whatever are good choices for transit hotels when you only need to stay for 1 night. They are also often on the outskirts of big cities which means you can easily access them from a ring road without need to go into city traffic. Great for when I'm crossing France on the way out or back and need to cover many kms in one day without sightseeing.

I have a Xena alarm disclock (I actually found it pretty good, no false alarms for me and loud enough). I also have an alarm with long-distance pager installed. Its not wired to ignition as I don't want to mess around with immobilized bike, and I usually put this in silent mode (though I can still put this in normal alarm mode if I know I'll be out of the pager range, e.g. in the city during the day). The pager has a good range so it almost always would reach my hotel room. This just gives me a peace of mind that I will know right away if someone is tampering with the bike. It also will not encourage the thief to hurry up putting my bike in the soundproof van whilst still giving me a signal something is wrong.

And yes, in campings I use cover - trying to remove the cover (let's say to steal smth from luggage) will set off my alarm and I'm in the tent only few meters away.

First thing I did to my Triumph thunderbird when I bought it was remove the alarm

Usually I ask for secure parking and often end up in the proprietors garage or garden

Pretty much every ferry trip I've been on in the summer has some poor sod with an alarm fitted that keeps going off, I've even seen one bloke have to push his bike off the ferry due to a flat battery because of the damn things. If I buy a bike with an alarm fitted, the first thing I do is have it removed.

So far I've been lucky enough with just an Oxford Boss disc lock and a cheap £9.99 scruffy cover from Ebay.....no problems so far but I'll always try and look for off road parking when choosing a hotel.

However, in April on my way to Morocco I stayed at the Motel Emporio just north of Valladolid and the room comes equipped with an en-suite garage!

Motel Emporio, Cabezón de Pisuerga, Spain - Booking.com

The good thing about alarm I have is that its not self-arming. So I don't have to arm it, unless I want to .

I'm surprised how many people use cables, disc locks, and/or alarms. I've never used any of these, but do try to find secure parking. Sometimes I leave my bike on the street, mainly depends on the town. Last year in Oslo I left my bike on the street in what looked like a quiet area by day, but after dark I realized I'd parked right between a pool hall and a strip club, with lots of seedy looking people hanging around. That was probably the only time I was worried about the bike being there in the morning (it was).

With bags, I just strap my main bag to the passenger seat and keep my iPad, etc in a smaller bag in my hard case; both of those come inside every night, everything else stays on the bike.

We have two old bike covers made from old sails and they have always rendered the bikes invisible until India this year. This pic was taken from our hotel window. The guy had already torn the cover on the other bike. We don't normally tour on Harleys .... but they were free in return for a couple of articles for BIKE India magazine. Moral: go back to travelling on cheap bikes that don't attract attention...

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They stood out so they wondered. Coupled with a location with low inhibitions.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

Always ask; you don't know what they have available until you do.
I've parked in the entrance way to a fairly swanky hotel smack in the centre of a large French city full of tourists, having been told to do that by the receptionist; their official car park was full at the time.

Kyriad is another of those brands.
Nowadays, many of them in France are gated and locked at night, especially in the obvious places, such as Calais.
I asked a hotel manager in France about this a few years ago and he simply indicated that vehicle theft from such places was increasing, at that time.

I stayed in a brand new Ibis budget about 5-6 weeks ago on the outskirts of Orleans and it was akin to Fort Knox to get into the vehicle park - it has an automatic gate system for which you get an access code once you are booked in to stay there.
Also a code for the bedroom and front door.
+ an automated check in system/machine at the front for those who arrive outside the hours that the reception is manned; having paid with a card, all the codes are issued there and then, assuming that there is room available.

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Dave

They are only looking: folks of that part of the world like looking.

You put a couple of covers on bikes parked next to each other when none around them use such things; that says there is something to see there.

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Dave

From my last couple of visits to France I feel sure that Accor are updating their premises, including building brand new facilities such as the Ibis budget that I describe in my last post here.

Accor rebranded their range of hotels a short time ago and are still reacting to the competition; I noted a couple of more chains but I haven't tried them as yet.

B&B Hotels in France and Italy - Booking hotels online

Brithotel home

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Dave

....................... I see that Tripadvisor has started to act as a booking site, just like booking.com, hotels.com and all the rest.

For a long time there have been questions about the veracity and accuracy of tripadvisor reviews; maybe this development of theirs will make their site more trustworthy to find a decent, secure hotel room for the night?

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Dave

LOL... Czech Republic is same like the rest of Europe, we are not a Jungle ... You can leave your bike anywhere same as in the rest of Europe and if you are very unlucky it can be stolen like anywhere in Europe