bike locks

For discussions about bikes and equipment.
Psamathe
Posts: 17650
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: bike locks

Post by Psamathe »

I find the technology of bike locks quite amazing. We (as in human race) are pretty smart when it comes to materials science and technology. Just look at amazing stuff like graphene. Or replacement heart valves, etc., etc. And we can plonk expensive stuff outside and, despite its high desirability, we have built devices to stop people nicking it.

Yet when it comes to bikes we need to lug around massive lumps of steel all to delay a thief for a few extra seconds.

I cannot believe we cannot do better.

Ian
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5834
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: bike locks

Post by RickH »

I've heard it quoted that a secure bike weighs 40lb! At one end of the scale, if the bike on its own weighs 10lb you need 30lb of locks to make it secure. At the other end, a 40lb bike may not need locking at all! :D

On the water bottle front, I still have one cage & 1 bottle will probably do me up to around 30 miles unless it is really hot. Most of my bike trips tend to be utility ones of around 3-6 miles each way so I can manage without a bottle generally (unless I want water for the time I'm wherever I'm going).

Rick.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Raph
Posts: 636
Joined: 13 Mar 2007, 8:14pm
Location: Banbury

Re: bike locks

Post by Raph »

Psamathe wrote:I find the technology of bike locks quite amazing. We (as in human race) are pretty smart when it comes to materials science and technology. Just look at amazing stuff like graphene. Or replacement heart valves, etc., etc. And we can plonk expensive stuff outside and, despite its high desirability, we have built devices to stop people nicking it.

Yet when it comes to bikes we need to lug around massive lumps of steel all to delay a thief for a few extra seconds.

I cannot believe we cannot do better.

Ian
When we apply our smartness to cope with the ravages of nature or other reasonably constant forces, they don't redouble their efforts. Make a rainproof jacket and the rain doesn't double in intensity just to try and get through it. Make a faster car and the road doesn't suddenly maliciously get steeper just to slow it down. But make twice as tough a bike lock and the thief just works twice as hard, and still nicks your bike.

The time when bike locks will become truly effective is when grinding/cropping/etc a lock takes more time and effort than it would have taken to get a job and go and buy a friggin' bike.

RickH wrote:I've heard it quoted that a secure bike weighs 40lb! At one end of the scale, if the bike on its own weighs 10lb you need 30lb of locks to make it secure. At the other end, a 40lb bike may not need locking at all! :D
Not quite - the 40lb bike will still get nicked, but it's true they won't bother boltcropping or angle grinding for it so a cable lock might do.

The measure of whether it gets nicked is mostly whether it can be re-sold, so cosmetic condition is paramount. Anything trendy is much more at risk - an old looking road bike, even if laden with a fortune's worth of fancy campag, is reasonably safe next to a shiny new mountain bike with go-faster stripes.

Case in point: my other half has an 80s Battaglin, nice stuff on it, Schmidt hub and Edelux, just the back wheel's worth more than most entire bikes you see in town, never locks the back wheel, uses a D lock you could probably bite through with yer teeth, nobody even looks at it. Anyone nicking that would struggle to get £20 for it, and would get interest from enthusiasts - so more of a liability. Though I keep on at her to get a tougher lock(s).
User avatar
Sweep
Posts: 8444
Joined: 20 Oct 2011, 4:57pm
Location: London

Re: bike locks

Post by Sweep »

Interesting post raph and the comment about cosmetic appearance is nice and reassuring which is why I like my old Ridgeback* around town.

Are you sure about crooks not appreciating high-end bits though?

There was that story a while ago about someone havving their Rohloff snipped out.

* I must take the sticker off that identifies the wheels as built by our own colin :)
Sweep
Raph
Posts: 636
Joined: 13 Mar 2007, 8:14pm
Location: Banbury

Re: bike locks

Post by Raph »

Sweep wrote:Interesting post raph and the comment about cosmetic appearance is nice and reassuring which is why I like my old Ridgeback* around town.

Are you sure about crooks not appreciating high-end bits though?

That's close-ish to what I said - "reasonably safe next to a shiny new mountain bike with go-faster stripes" - they appreciate tasty high end bits, yes, but can they sell them on easily and quickly and with a minimum of risk? All else being equal, what they can sell to most people is worth more to them than fancy bits that can only achieve their potential value to customers in the know, who are a greater risk to the dodgy seller. So I'm not saying no crook will ever be out for nice bits - and of course they can still remove the bits and sell them separately (a mate of mine's seriously tasty frame got cut up and disposed of for that reason, long story...), but it's a whole other level of involvement for the thief so narrows it down to a minority. Most nick in bulk and sell for peanuts regardless what the bike is - eventually it gets into the hands of someone who gets what they can on eBay or whatever.

A couple of times I've sort of "infiltrated" conversations about this, and I get the impression that most theft is un-fussy, the guy doesn't want to have to have a room stacked up with bikes he's pulling to bits to get the best revenue from, the easiest is quick theft and quick sale. The sale to the public is the point of greatest risk, my guess is that the more specialized the stuff, the greater the risk as you'd be selling to enthusiasts - no average punter is going to pay lots for high-end stuff that doesn't get them to the shops or to school any better than anything else, so it's of no more value to most thieves than anything else.

I've regularly locked up top-end-campag-equipped bikes all over London, and in the bike-thief's take-away freebie emporium that is Oxford, nobody has ever shown any interest whatsoever in them. There's never been any sign of an attempt to nick them, even when surrounded by all sorts of BSOs - one day a said neighbouring shiny new BSO lost its wheels and got mangled, nobody touched mine even though my rear hub was probably worth more than the whole bike in question.

Assessing risk is an endless guessing game though, just lock your bike with as tough a lock as you can and preferably two! As the guy says in the vid, make sure it's tougher than what's on the next bike.

PS I'm not all that experienced in having bikes nicked, I kept losing them at a frightening rate till I got my fist D-lock c.30 years ago and haven't lost one since. But I do hear other people's sob stories, that's what the above opinions are based on.
mercalia
Posts: 14630
Joined: 22 Sep 2013, 10:03pm
Location: london South

Re: bike locks

Post by mercalia »

I think I ll start a rent a bull mastiff business. tie his lead to the bike and train it to know the customer other wise ..... actually does work some one approached my bike to borrow it but some one had tied their dog near it and the dog didnt like the way the guy was geting close so showed its teeth ( I was told)
Raph
Posts: 636
Joined: 13 Mar 2007, 8:14pm
Location: Banbury

Re: bike locks

Post by Raph »

mercalia wrote:I think I ll start a rent a bull mastiff business. tie his lead to the bike and train it to know the customer other wise ..... actually does work some one approached my bike to borrow it but some one had tied their dog near it and the dog didnt like the way the guy was geting close so showed its teeth ( I was told)

:lol:

You have to be a bit careful though, I once saw the entire population of my street smash up a car cos the alarm went off in the middle of the night, probably someone had tried to nick it, however it wouldn't stop, the cops came along and forced open the bonnet, half wrecked the car to stop the alarm, then when the cops had gone everybody vented their anger and finished it off... That wouldn't have been my approach to the problem, nevertheless I do get miffed at theft deterrents that treat every passer-by as a criminal, including over-zealous guard dogs. Protect your stuff by all means, but don't make everyone else's life a misery in the process.

Not to mention that even if a guy gets caught red-handed nicking your bike, he could still sue you for more than the value of your bike, for the bite he gets or even just the "emotional trauma" of being growled at! Maybe I've seen too many tabloid headlines but I do get the impression that criminals have considerable rights these days! :cry:
Psamathe
Posts: 17650
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: bike locks

Post by Psamathe »

I keep thinking about getting an alarm lock.

Probably a much discussed topic but, for my own use I keep feeling they would provide quite a lot of additional security. I accept they will do nothing for a bike left unattended (e.g. at the station, etc.), but in my case it would only be when the bike was e.g. locked outside a small shop where I would hear the alarm go off and dash out.

Ian
Raph
Posts: 636
Joined: 13 Mar 2007, 8:14pm
Location: Banbury

Re: bike locks

Post by Raph »

RickH wrote:
Raph wrote:Glad to see the hinged bar type lock in action - was that the 3-second one? :? I was almost considering getting one till I saw that!

3 seconds with the lock held in a bench vice using a mains powered grinder isn't really representative of the real world. I note the video didn't show any attempts to cut one on a locked bike - I think that would be significantly harder.

True that's not the real world, but comparing like with like, the same guy in the same workshop was on at the 18mm Kryptonite D-lock like I've got with a mains powered grinder for quite a while and hinted the grinder was overheating. The hinged bar lock might be 20seconds in the real world, but that's still pretty bad. I would have liked to see him cut a 14mm or 16mm hardened chain and see how long that took. I'm almost tempted to take a link off mine to see how long it takes!
edocaster
Posts: 475
Joined: 10 Apr 2013, 10:43pm

Re: bike locks

Post by edocaster »

Here are some ideas for the future (some actually have present implementations). Many have been shot down, partly in the belief that bike thieves are more bloody-minded than other crooks. But I'm sure at least some of these are close to prime-time:

- smartphone+GPS alarm. Not an annoying 'car alarm', but something which will call/text you. Smartphones have shrunk amazingly in the last 3 years (it's the screens that get bigger), and the underlying technology has become cheaper via economies of scale. if it was commercial, people would be producing these left, right and centre. Places to install include seat-tube, steerer, inside a handlebar - many possibilities. While a thief could target this if they knew it, there are many ways of making these tamperproof (two independent systems+trigger a camera on tampering and send images to a server?). Only technical issues are charging (magnetic induction, anyone?) and antennas (just needs some part connected to the outside world).

- Thicker, slightly hollow U-locks. Still made of hardened steel but thick enough to make bolt-croppers a poor proposition. Still needs enough steel to be crush-proof and as hard to get through via angle grinder as a solid U-lock. I guess no-one would like the look of a 25mm thick U-lock though. Plus it's probably harder to make hollow, hardened steel.

- Hollow U-lock filled with something nasty, such as UV paint. Or gunpowder/petrol (joke). Or I'm pretty certain something viscous could also easily mess up an angle grinder disc and make it not worth the thief's effort. I'm guessing there's reluctance to do all this as it would also upset 'legitimate' lock breakers (i.e. local council and property owners removing illegally locked bikes in cities).

- Superglue and ball-bearings in allen key bolt heads. Not every single one for any particular fixture, as you might need to tighten something, but enough to make removal difficult (needs 5 to 10 minutes per bolt).
Raph
Posts: 636
Joined: 13 Mar 2007, 8:14pm
Location: Banbury

Re: bike locks

Post by Raph »

YES!!! an alarm that rings you instead of annoying everybody. I've wondered about that.

Gunge-filled U lock that jams up a grinder. Genius! And legitimate lock breakers shouldn't be too fussed as they have unlimited time.
User avatar
Sweep
Posts: 8444
Joined: 20 Oct 2011, 4:57pm
Location: London

Re: bike locks

Post by Sweep »

Psamathe wrote:I keep thinking about getting an alarm lock.

Probably a much discussed topic but, for my own use I keep feeling they would provide quite a lot of additional security. I accept they will do nothing for a bike left unattended (e.g. at the station, etc.), but in my case it would only be when the bike was e.g. locked outside a small shop where I would hear the alarm go off and dash out.

Ian


Me too for when camping/on tour. I'm sure anyone setting one off on a campsite or free camping site would just ***er off since the alarm would obviously have been heard.

I think there is one that folk tend to recommend - anyone care to remind me?
Sweep
User avatar
[XAP]Bob
Posts: 19793
Joined: 26 Sep 2008, 4:12pm

Re: bike locks

Post by [XAP]Bob »

http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/

Scrap that advice:
SPYLAMP2 is an anti-theft device. Here's how is works:
Arm the tracker by holding down the on/off button for 3 seconds


[XAP]Bob:How do you disarm it?
Phoenix: Hi
Phoenix: Just do the same process
Phoenix: to swift off hold down the on/off button for 3 seconds.
[XAP]Bob: Hardly secure then - ok it has to be recognised, but still...
[XAP]Bob: On the top cap version is the key fob unique per unit, or a generic one?
Phoenix: It is generic.
Last edited by [XAP]Bob on 7 Apr 2014, 4:08pm, edited 1 time in total.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
User avatar
Mick F
Spambuster
Posts: 56359
Joined: 7 Jan 2007, 11:24am
Location: Tamar Valley, Cornwall

Re: bike locks

Post by Mick F »

Sweep wrote:I think there is one that folk tend to recommend - anyone care to remind me?
Kabrus.

It's a narrow U lock with the alarm unit clamped on your frame. The U is fitted in the stowage slots and locked in place.
When you lock your bike, the U is taken out and fitted into the alarmed slots and through the wheel.

When you lock it and remove the key ............. it's armed and extremely loud if it's touched.

I did a crappy YouTube video on mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgR09Bj_SX8
The instructions weren't too comprehensive so it took me a while to work out the correct way to use it.
Mick F. Cornwall
AlaninWales
Posts: 1626
Joined: 26 Oct 2012, 1:47pm

Re: bike locks

Post by AlaninWales »

mercalia wrote:Any one know where you can get an anchor chain? wont be able to get their bolt cutters around that.....

http://atlantic-group.com/?s=anchor for example

Actually, anchor chain comes in all sorts of sizes, from suitable for 11' dinghy to suitable for a battlecruiser or the foundation of a house.
Post Reply