Bike Lock?

heathrow86

Sorry if this has been covered to death but I am starting to ride to work, I have somewhere secure to put the bike and a proper anchor point. So which lock should I buy? I assume I lock the back wheel to the anchor but what about the front wheel as it has quick release.

Is a cable better or a u lock? I live in Birmingham so any good LBs advice?

Mog Uk

Don't lock the wheel, lock the frame.

I use an Abus Bordo, it's 'Sold Secure' and is required by my insurance...

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ProductDetail.aspx?Cat=cycle&ProdID=5360022243&N=Abus%20Bordo%2075cm%20Folding%20Lock

McBain_v1

And the winner for "most angry looking avatar" goes to Mog UK

As for locks, get a New York Fagetabboutit jobbie - they cost the earth, but no thief is going to want to spend the 7 minutes with a power tool that's needed to cut through it!

Shadowduck

heathrow86 wrote:

Is a cable better or a u lock?[/size]

If I'm parking somewhere iffy I use a U-lock and two cable locks...

- U-lock to secure the frame to something solid.
- Cable through each wheel and the frame, then round something solid.

None of the locks are super-high-quality (they're not cheap junk either), but the idea is that cable locks and u-locks need different equipment to attack them. A thief would have to be carrying two lots of gear and determined enough to cut three locks off in order to nick the bike. You can't make the bike unpinchable, but you can make it harder to pinch than the one next to it.

That said, our parking at work is fairly secure so I only use one of the cable locks to prevent some prankster hiding it! 8)

Shadowduck

McBain_v1 wrote:

As for locks, get a New York Fagetabboutit jobbie ... *snip*

I've looked at those in the past, but if I was a bike thief I'd just take it as a challenge with a name like that! They're also a bit heavy to carry round...

OnTow

In Heathrow's case, no need to carry it - just leave a really chunky lock, locked to the anchor!
I had a bike stolen from work once.

Agreed, the Kryp. NY Faghettaboutit lock is not light - I carry one sometimes on my Audax bike - you can get direct carrier mount points for it - or it sits in the pannier bag, as it's too cumbersome to use the frame mount and have bottle cages etc.
I also carry a cable with me, to loop through the wheels/bits and on to the U-lock.

Different locks for different rides - I carry a much lighter weight cable lock for leisure rides where I don't intend to stop, and I carry the U-lock cable with a padlock for weekend trips.

Abus get good ratings too.
We have a Bordo - very useful and practical - however they're not rated to hold out for long, getting a SoldSecure silver rating only.... From memory, something like 3 minutes.

Barbes

In Heathrow's case, no need to carry it - just leave a really chunky lock, locked to the anchor!
I had a bike stolen from work once.

Don't leave the lock attached to the anchor without the bike - this gives a serious thief plenty of time to work out how best to attack the lock and quickly remove the bike the next time it's parked there.

alfablue

The Abus Granit X-Plus 54 got a 10/10 rating in C+. It lasted a few seconds less than the Kryptonite lock, but pretty close. It has a thinner (13mm versus 18mm) shackle than the Kryptonite, but because of the square section it required 2 cuts to break it as the shackle won't twist after one cut. This means they achieved similar security with a lighter lock. This would be my first choice.

You then just need one 4 foot cable, this will go round both wheels (put it around the front and pass the cable through itself, this leaves enough to go round the rear nd back into the lock).