"The Best" really needs to be asked as "The best for what purpose?"

If someone is locking up a $2,000 bike, and leaving it unattended for nine or ten hours (something that I would never do), they need heavy-duty locks. The massive Kryptonite New York u-lock or the OnGuard Brute u-lock. Or, for folks who want to carry around twice as much weight, yet get nothing extra in security, get the most expensive, and heaviest, chain locks from OnGuard and Kryptonite.

But, the "best" lock for a ten minute stop at the corner coffee shop may be the one that is easiest to carry and to use. I bought an OnGuard Bulldog Mini TC u-lock yesterday. Its "TC" "thin case" on the crossbar makes it OnGuards lightest, slimmest u-lock. Correctly installed around the rear wheel and a steel post, the TC leaves no room for leverage type tools. That leaves cutting...forty minutes of sweating work with manual tools, and power cutting tools are not (knock on wood) used by crooks in my neighborhood.

I continue to see many bikes locked up with ONLY a cable lock. A cable lock, no matter how expensive, no matter how heavy, can be defeated by a skilled crook in seconds. A cable lock is a sign saying "Free bike right here".

And, most of the bikes I see are not locked up correctly. Only the front wheel is attached to the lock. Or, the lock is around a flimsy rack held together with two "easy off" bolts. Learning the correct place to lock up, and learning the "Sheldon Brown" locking technique is just as important as buing "the best lock".