look at those locks?

manchita

I am still amazed by how many people use cable locks? Have you no sense? I know D-Locks are not invincible but COME ON!!

I have spent a lot of wasted time and money for the penny to drop (not the brightest see). Thankfully this penny dropped on my head and woke me up a long time ago.

Many moons ago i rode a cheap and i mean CHEAP sit up and beggy. I have to admit i did look like i just staggered out of the nearest coffee shop. I ended up smoking cannabis due to the fact i had had my previous 6 bikes stolen. Including one outside my workplace, which was taken in full view of 6 hairy arsed blokes too busy scratching and picking to notice someone that looked the polar opposite to me walk off with my bike....i was not there at the time. Returning at 5pm i had to make everyone, as they were running out the door, aware that a bike had been stolen.
1. Yes, that is my.............i mean, was my bike that man walked off with.
2. Yes, I have been riding that bike that has been locked in front of our office window to work.
3. Yes, that was my bike.
4. I would love to leave my bike inside our secure workplace but unfortunately this is a construction site and there IS NO BLOODING BUILDINGS, JUST A HOLE IN THE GROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By this point in my cycling career i was slowly transforming into MR T. BICKLE ready to wire any stationary bike to the nearest source of electricty just so i could get some comfort. I eventually became normal again and went to the nearest fleapit market and found a man under a urine smelling railway arch who paid me to take his sit up beggy.

Then one day (remember this bit for later) i started to have bad capitalist thoughts. I realising that having more money equated better bike. I tried to wipe these images from my mind but they grew and grew. Soon i had no resistance and went out and treated myself to a top of the range bicycle yehh! Being, as i was back then, surrounded by thieves, junkies and dodgy geezers i made the grrown up decision to buy a £50+, 5 yr gaurenteed cable lock.

Remeber the 'one day' bit earlier, well that's how long i had my lovely new bike. I vaguely remember locking my bike, using this ' 5 star anti theft lock' in a bike park, ouside my work, on a busy road, in front of a swimming pool which catered for 1000+ people a day with the secure, confident feeling that no B*****D! Is going to touch me now!

Well...........i'll leave it up to you to fill in the blanks. Lets just say i carried those two bits of heavy steel mesh cable around with me like a new born child for many months wishing, just wishing to catch some hoddies in act so i could wrap it around their throat. Eventually me and the cable had some therapy and moved to a country cottage. Now i have seen the light and stop random bicycle riders preaching the word.......PRAISE THE D!!!

fossyant

Well, I use both a Gold standard d-lock (which I carry with me) and a gold standard chain lock (which stays at work cos it weights 10lbs :shock: ) and that seems to have worked the last 6 months in a public area..although lots of the other bikes are locked with the cheap cable ones......

magicroundabout

So, I had my previous cheap (~£150 Raleigh Hybrid) nicked one night. It had a D-lock on it (not massively expensive, but a D-Lock). Some idiot went to all that bother to pinch my cheap bike?

And so I figure that, if they can break my cheap D-lock so easily that it's worth their time doing it to pinch a beat up bike with no mod-cons whatsoever, they're probably going to go to greater lengths to pinch my £600 road bike...aren't they?

So, if they can break a D-lock anyway, and they want my bike, it doesn't matter what lock I put on it. And my insurance only demands that my bike be locked to a fixed point. So I don't bother with a D-lock because it's big and heavy and doesn't always reach the point I want to lock to.

I see arguments about locks as deterrents, the time it would take to break it, and the inconvenience of having a bike stolen. But, seems to me that if they want my bike they'll get it whatever I lock it with/to. So why bother with an expensive lock at all?

(Slightly playing devils advocate, but interested in whether or not people really think a D-lock is worth the expense/hassle).

MR

marchant

If you look here thieves don't always have to break locks and (at least in my area) take the defeated lock with them, either to avoid leaving evidence or to conceal their MO. I agree, if they want your bike they'll take it (I have heard rumours of well-specced bikes having frames sawn through - easier than cutting the lock) but to me making your bike as unappealing as possible is the best way. Higher end locks are (to me) worth the hassle, but they require a bit of thought to get the best out of them

alfablue

If you get a top rated lock like an Abus Granit X Plus 54 23cm D Lock you can expect well over 5 minutes protection from attack with hand tools (probably much longer but the tests are to 5 minutes) and about 3 minutes with power tools (obviously very conspicuous). At about £54 I reckon it is a price worth paying. Cheap D Locks last less than 1 minute in attacks with hand tools.

karl j

42 seconds according to the Feb - March edition of Cycle (the CTC mag)

and that includes some "Sold Secure Gold" locks

alfablue

42 seconds for "average" D-Locks - sonds about right.

The Abus, according to C+

"The Granit X Plus is a long time favourite in Cycling Plus tests. It has a very usable size and a reasonable weight, and a simple but clever bracket is included too. Under our first test(use of an extending bar for leverage to twist locks, a hammer, pliers, mole grips, wire cutters, chisel, axe and large bolt croppers), the Abus is simply brilliant the clever design of the shackle(square profile) means it simply will not twist or turn under leverage. The lock mechanism is protected with hardened steel, which blunts a hand hacksaw and the shackle resists this type of cutting just as well; it sailed through the five minute attack with a bit of cosmetic damage. Under test two(use of a quality battery drill rated to 12000rpm with a 30 minute battery life on max output - drill bit and metal cutting disc)the power tool took about a minute and a quarter to get through one side, but again due to the clever design and the double-bolt lock we still couldn't free the bike. This meant we had to cut through the other side too, leading to a very impressive time of over two and a half minutes. If you lock your bike with this lock, cleverly keeping one side of the shackle out of the way, this wouldn't be possible. Simply put, this is the best design available, and backed up by Abus's quality control makes the Granit X Plus the best U-lock you can buy."

Note there are several (nearly) similarly named Abus locks, not all of which attain this level of security.

tardington

As far as I can gather all locks are breakable - and at 4 in the morning, a thief has a lot more than 5 minutes to play with!

But!

Even a crappy lock can act as a deterrent - a friend of mine has a nice road bike stored in a shed; he just threaded a 5 quid combi lock through the frame and wheel - locak chavs nicked his flatmate's bike and left his after a very cursory go at breaking the cable.

But #2 My gf has a bike, and she had a 15 quid cable lock - she chained it up last summer, having forgotten her key, and we severed the cable in 5 minutes flat, including the time it took to borrow a stanley knife from a local shop. NB there was two of us looking embarrassed, but no one even looked like they were going to ask us what we were doing... :?

Cunobelin

Cable locks have a place!

Each lock type requires different tools, so if you use diffrent lock types you make it more difficult for the thief.

Personally I use:

Abus Granit X54 as above
Masterlock Street Cuffs
Kryptonite cable linked to the Abus
Masterlock Python cinching cable lock.

3 different key types and systems which makes it an unattractive proposition.

patchy

there's a really good article in the CTC magazine this month about breaking locks - apparently even top-quality d locks can be knackered in less than a minute by using a bottle jack. I'd go with

make bike unappealing
park in public places
use 2 locks
GET INSURANCE.

alfablue

patchy wrote:

there's a really good article in the CTC magazine this month about breaking locks - apparently even top-quality d locks can be knackered in less than a minute by using a bottle jack. I'd go with

make bike unappealing
park in public places
use 2 locks
GET INSURANCE.

Also, position the D-lock so that it is full of bike frame (so the bottle jack can't get in) and well up from the floor (prevents ultra-long bolt croppers from being used, which need to be braced on the floor).

graham_g

alfablue wrote:

patchy wrote:

there's a really good article in the CTC magazine this month about breaking locks - apparently even top-quality d locks can be knackered in less than a minute by using a bottle jack. I'd go with

make bike unappealing
park in public places
use 2 locks
GET INSURANCE.

Also, position the D-lock so that it is full of bike frame (so the bottle jack can't get in) and well up from the floor (prevents ultra-long bolt croppers from being used, which need to be braced on the floor).

This is the most important bit - anything 18mm+ thick steel will need mega bolt-croppers or involve the use of a bottle jack. Lock the bike in a fashion that inhibits both of these common techniques and you stand a far, far better chance of coming back to a locked bike.

Best CTC article in years that one.

My further recommendation is to get smaller 'mini' U locks so that they aren't so exposed to attack. See Sheldon Brown's locking technique here for a good example:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html

Parkey

One point I've heard is that it's a good idea to use two different types of lock, as the tools needed to break them will be different.

tardington

Has anyone got the ones that look like handcuffs? Tempting in a sort of pervy bondage bike way!

fossyant

All good advice on here.....

My MTB commuter is left out at work, it's old, but in excellent condition, but runs with Deore LX, would probably cost a fair bit to replace, plus the inconvenience of busing home..... it's by far my cheapest bike, but it does a particular job, i.e. out in all weather conditions, on rubbish roads, often puddle covered, so no need to worry about what I run over....

As mentioned earlier, I use heavy chain and d-locks - as advised - both need different techniques to pinch, and given the protection most other bikes have, it should be left alone.

chewa

I try not to leave my bike out. When I moved to this firm one of the conditions was that I had secure cycle parking (they already had showers), so they converted one of the cellars into a lockable bike store.

When touring we tend to stay in b&b's or hotels and again always ask for secure parking (bikes have been in restaurants, offices, kitchens, staff rooms...)

I use a D lock and cable when parking in street but would never leave the bike long.

Still have nightmares about the day in 1972 my Mobo Cross 70 got nicked!!

WyS

i use £160 worth of locks to keep my £100 bike being robbed. i also electric taped it all up and never clean it.

works a treat, and thats it being left out on road in angel.

marchant

Couldn't help remember when I lived in Epping, I hardly ever locked my bike then. Just shows how lucky I was really.

neslon

I've never left my bike out for the robbers, locked or otherwise. Thats easy when I'm at work (as long as easy includes carrying it up to the 3rd floor). Several times in the last year I've had to go to events at conference centres in northumberland and durham - on both occasions, I turned up on the bike & asked the reception staff if they could find somewhere secure to put it. Both did so immediately & without fuss. Chapeaus to Longhirst Hall and Lumley Castle!

Tariq

Where on earth do all you people live, there is no bike theft in my city. I ride a £500 hybrid bike and it looks flashy, I make no effort to make it look dull and 'beaten-up' . I use a £2 cable lock and in the past two years I've left it unattended for many hours and never worry about it being stolen, even in the city-centre.

If you don't want your bike stolen then move to Birmingham!

squired

At the weekend I saw something that I could only describe as teenage scum riding along with a mate, who was on a bmx. He was on a brompton. Given the cost of a brompton I couldn't help thinking that it was probably stolen.

I have to admit that I've been tempted in the past to lock up my good bike in the local shopping centre and then sit there for an hour to see if anyone tried to pinch it so that I could challenge them/call the police.

My biggest fear is having my bikes stolen from my garage. The door is electronic, so I have the power turned off and a ladder pinned against the inside, hopefully making it virtually impossible for someone to break in. I've lost count of the number of dreams I've had about my bikes being stolen, even though I've not yet had one pinched.

alfablue

Do you use a ground anchor in your garage? I would.

I have a metal shed with a cheapish door padlock (the door could be ripped off anyway) but inside I have a PIR sensor alarm positioned at the far end (so can't be reached because of bikes) and the four bikes are fixed to a ground anchor through conrete, with a hefty 13mm link 2m chain. The outside of the shed is covered by a 500w PIR floodlight. I just dare them!!!

jedster

alfa,

what no razor wire or landmines?

alfablue

Oh, I'm tempted! Although they are all insured I feel very protective of the bikes! (As I am sure we all are). As the shed is metal I could of course wire it up :twisted:

To be honest my security could be overcome with the right tools in 5 minutes, but it couldn't be done without waking the neighbourhood.

Yellow Cliff

I use a reasonable D-lock and also a decent chain. I'm careful about where I leave my bike too. Personally I think the weight is worth it - my bike is normally my main form of transport and I don't want the inconvenience of losing it!

Parkey

There was a fella who, about 30 years ago, stopped traffic wardens giving him a parking ticket by electrifying his land rover using one of the devices used to power an electric fence. Saw it on an old BBC news article.

An idea for secure cycle storage perhaps?