Bike Security - chain & Lock

[Wanderer]

Thought some of you may be interested to see this.
Having moved back to the UK, got to deal with much much more frequent bike theft, so I picked up a new chain+lock to at the very least slow people down and cause them to make serious noise.
(coupled with a serious ground anchor in the garage, or a lamppost or similar when I'm out)

Its a bit of a beast - two meters, and a good 20lbs with the lock, so its a tailpack for this!



There's a US quarter for scale.



And a rather serious lock



NOT cheap, but then again, having someone steal my bike would be a lot worse.
Sorry for the dirty rug - thats where the dog tends to sleep

[Stromper]

Good luck

IN NYC they loosen the light poles etc. so when some one loops a chain around them they just lift up the pole and they are off.

I literally watched 4 guys. Van pulls up, out they come, slip the chain and lift. Into the Van .... Literally 20 secs.

[Wanderer]

Good luck

IN NYC they loosen the light poles etc. so when some one loops a chain around them they just lift up the pole and they are off.

I literally watched 4 guys. Van pulls up, out they come, slip the chain and lift. Into the Van .... Literally 20 secs.

Bit harder to loosen a phone/light pole here - different design.
Most of the thefts here occur at home, at night in the garage.

If it does go walkies the VHF tracker should give me a chance

[Garandman]

What is the brand?

Case hardened links?

I had to cut a padlock with a pair of 24" bolt cutters. Seeing how easy that was makes me skeptical a locl will do much more than slow them down.

[Wanderer]

Almax, 16mm links and case hardened.
Lock is a Squire Stronghold SS65CS - closed shackle so very hard to attack, hardened boron steel, and rated to the highest available euro standard for security and attack resistance. Lock itself is about 2lb!
I have the Series III - here's the series III and IV with a bolt cropper attack demonstration. (Guy doing the cropping does not work for them)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozppzywsLsk



Its not going to stop someone with a petrol angle grinder or plasma cutter - but on the upside, both of those make a ton of noise, and still are not that quick to get through these.

[BluGixxer]

16 mm links are unusally big I think. And if its some sort of tool hardened steel ,those bolt cutters won't work . But I guess you found that out. If you where to cut 5/8 rebar with those cutters , it would give you a workout. The jaws don't open far enough to get leverage. If you use tools like that, you would know to use ratchet cutters, a lot more expensive, and you won't find them at home depot , but 3 or 4 seconds and bang yur dun .
you will need to cut 2 sides of one link or 1 cut on the lock.
That was an advertisment for the chain and lock , they made it look good by useing the wrong tools. Not saying that chain isn't tough, it is big , and wil slow down and detere amature theives.
But when it comes down to it , a lock is only to keep an honest man honest.
I don't mean to sound negative, I just hate to see adds like that. They tend to make things better than they really are.

[Garandman]

This seems to be a top-grade product. It's about $300 on their website: some of the Abus products sold here are $100 more.

The Krypotonite Fahgeddaboutit chain is 12mm. According to the Almax website the Kryponite was "Hand bolt cropped in 42 seconds." It appears "cropped" is British usage for "cut."

Unfortunately battery powered angle grinders are now available for less than $100. On the flip side, thieves in the US are much more likely to suffer from "High Velocity Lead Poisoning."

[SVRACER01]

i would also invest in a different style lock like a disc lock or even a U type Kryptonite bicycle lock. Thieves are generally looking for one type of lock. they generally arent prepared to defeat a couple different types of locks on the same bike

[Wanderer]

i would also invest in a different style lock like a disc lock or even a U type Kryptonite bicycle lock. Thieves are generally looking for one type of lock. they generally arent prepared to defeat a couple different types of locks on the same bike

Yup - I've got an alarmed Xena disk lock on the front