I'm looking at buying a heavy-duty Abus Cable for my Lemond. Most of the time it will be used to lock my bike up at home, but occasionally I will have to carry it, i.e. when I plan to go for a ride directly after work. I may also want to take it on a planned cycle trip to Europe where I will carry the cable on day trips,so I can lock the bike up while eating lunch, waiting for a ride, going to the can, etc.

So the trade off is length vs weight. Abus makes a variety of heavy-duty cable locks, i.e. their steel-o-flex line that vary from 80 cm (2'7") to 1.7 m (5'7") and weigh from 0.67 kg (1.5 lbs) to 2.85 kg (6.3lbs). Obviously you need to lock the bike to something, so it has to be long enough to do that and I'm happy to take the front wheel off to save some weight.

I'm favouring the 100 cm (40") Steel-o-Flex 1000 which weights 1.85 kg (4lbs) and was given a top rating in a recent review in Cycling Plus magazine.

See: http://www.abus.de/us/main.asp?Scree...=4003318100222

Any suggestions?