Cutting Lock

photonic69

Wife is well pissed off! Someone near where she works has locked their bike cable around her bike in the bike store area. As she commutes daily on her bike she is stuck. Had to get the bus back tonight and again in the morning.

She is asking me if my hacksaw will cut through a flexible cable Kryptonite thing? Any ideas? Might take a while I said

Ta

chris_bass

isn't this something people do so they can come back when it is quiet and steal the bike they have "accidentally" locked to theirs?

photonic69

Luckily the bike storage is a card/fob only access for residents and the businesses so hopefully not an attempt to nick her bike (flat bar Giant commuter thing). There’s a Toolstation not far away so she’s getting a colleague to drive her round to get some bolt croppers so she can keep these at work in case it happens again. I’ll give her the hacksaw to try first though. Got some new blades so worth a try and save £20. I’m lucky where I work as if this happens to me I can get Security to cut it off with a cutting disk. They then lock the other bike with a lock and contact number so the owner can get it removed. It’s a bloody nuisance though.

monkimark

I had a braided cable lock years back that I caught a bunch of scrotes trying to cut through with what I'm pretty sure was a hacksaw and they were certainly making progress when I stopped them.
Bear in mind that the bolt cutters may not get through all of the strands of the cable lock as the jaws don't always completely shut together so it would be worth having pliers/cable snips or something to finish the job.
Or if there's a power supply, you can probably get a cheap angle grinder for around £20.

Wheelspinner

I'd take the bolt cutters and/or angle grinder and also make sure I cut through their frame tubes along with the cable lock and leave both parts behind. Might make them more aware next time.

manoirdelourde

This is what you need.

photonic69

Luckily disaster has been averted! She got to work on the bus armed with my largest hacksaw, my best cable cutters and with a backup plan of ordering bolt cutters from Toolstation for collection from a nearby branch. However her bike is free! The owner obviously went back to the bike last night and saw all the post-it notes and unlocked her bike. Phew!!!

Thanks for all the useful advice. Was looking forward to playing with the bolt cutters though

photonic69

manoirdelourde said:

This is what you need.

Now those are BIG cutters!!!!

StillGoing

chris_bass said:

isn't this something people do so they can come back when it is quiet and steal the bike they have "accidentally" locked to theirs?

It is indeed the modus operandi of the bike thief.

tangled_metal

Little bolt cutters certainly aren't much cop. Although I did manage to release my locked shed with it. I had a decent squire padlock only to find out it isn't weather resistant so it seized up. Using a set of bolt cutters one size down from that I got in. Not through cutting the padlock, although I did a fair amount of damage to it, but by cutting the latch it was used to lock.

It did break the cutters due to a lot of twisting needed. Now they don't close and the jaws don't line up. Not mine but my dad was annoyed!

Lesson learnt, angle grinder with good discs and a large bolt cropped are needed.

Of course cutting their bike frame and taping the lock to your frame to get home might have been easier than cutting the lock.

bompington

Slightly OT, but Bomp Jr's old bike is now toast. He came back to where it was parked - locked to railings on m-way bridge with heavy duty D-lock - to find a car jack wedged tightly in the lock. So tightly that his top tube was bent quite significantly.
At least it was an old bike in urgent need of replacement anyway.

And he's acquired a free jack too.

kingstongraham

manoirdelourde said:

This is what you need.

I bought similar when I needed to rescue my bike and helmet from a lock with a key snapped in it that would not come out. It worked so well that I wouldn't just have a chain in the future, no matter how secure it claims to be.

veronese68

bompington said:

Slightly OT, but Bomp Jr's old bike is now toast. He came back to where it was parked - locked to railings on m-way bridge with heavy duty D-lock - to find a car jack wedged tightly in the lock. So tightly that his top tube was bent quite significantly.
At least it was an old bike in urgent need of replacement anyway.

And he's acquired a free jack too.

Used to regularly see a nice, but fairly old, MTB locked up in Kingston with a dented top tube that I always assumed was due to a similar incident. Looked like the bike just got relegated to commuter duties as a result.

slowbike

kingstongraham said:

manoirdelourde said:

This is what you need.

I bought similar when I needed to rescue my bike and helmet from a lock with a key snapped in it that would not come out. It worked so well that I wouldn't just have a chain in the future, no matter how secure it claims to be.

We've got a set - used to keep them on the boat incase the rigging broke and the mast went overboard - but still attached ....

They've been used to cut 8mm chain with no problem.

monkimark

The big ones will cut 12mm rebar reasonably easily if you can get your weight behind it.

redvee

As mentioned the large bolt cutters will be defeated by multi-strand cable locks, I found out the hard way when some debris dropped into the lock barrel of a cheap cable lock I used as a second lock. Got large bolt croppers on it and cut through it pretty quickly but not the last 1mm, tried twisting, bending and swearing but all to no avail then one of the maintenance guys came into the bike sheds with a portable angle grinder and had the job done in seconds, shame he wasn't there the previous night.
I now use a lock extension cable on my chain lock.