Thankfully, someone else with some sense. Arguing that using a pretty solid ulock is a recipe for automatic bike theft from a ring of sophisticated cycle thieves armed with power tools but advocating locking your wheel instead of the frame seems like crazy logic to me.


Myself; I use a fahgettaboutit mini through the rear wheel and around the chainstay or seattube depending on the thickness of the rack I'm locking to. Then I use a separate abus cable through the front wheel and front triangle and around the rack. So far it works for me. Now, I'm not riding a Pinarello or a Venge or something, but I do ride a CAAD10 or a Giant Defy. I also live in a college town which has a fair amount of thievery. I also don't leave my bike unattended all day (It comes inside at work). I do lock it up for an hour or two on occasion while shopping or catching a movie or whatever.

http://gizmodo.com/5922074/the-best-bike-lock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC3hFr8p2ck A whole bunch of chains tested that would make the Krypto Forgettaboutit chain lock look like child's play. The kryto comes in at 6:15 and that is krypto's best locking system. These test were using bolt cutters which appear to be faster then an angle grinder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ansaTSw3nbs&feature=plcp thief using an angle grinder on a D lock

How did you purchase keyed alike locks?

i use a fahgettaboutit mini around the chain stay/rear tire/rack, abus ketaro around the front tire/frame/rack, as well as a kryptonite 3/8th inch cable to secure my seat/cargo rack/front tire again. bike theft here is ludicrously high. as i already mentioned, this didn't even completely work (they stole my handlebars at the stem and clipped all the cables).... working on something to take care of this though.

Gah... the infamous ***** video. Yeah, you can cut a chain with four foot long bolt cutters. No big surprise there... Too bad you can't afford to walk up carrying them in your bag to steal a bike and toss them on the ground when you ride it away... because they are prohibitively expensive. Not to mention that in a lot of places, it's illegal to walk around with bolt cutters... much less giant red flag four foot long ones. That's about as unrealistic as you can get.

Also, there's no mention of what sort of u-lock the angle grinder was used on, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a "good" one. You *can* clearly see, however that it is not a higher-end kryptonite lock, since it's black.

Also, again... you're comparing apples to oranges. We're not talking about chains, nor are we talking about Walmart u-locks, nor are we talking about any of the locks in the gizmodo piece... and even those took longer than your magical "30 seconds" to cut open. With time and patience I can open even the damnedest of locks with a ream of sandpaper... that doesn't mean it's a realistic expectation that someone is going to sand away your lock and steal your bike [yes, this is a ridiculous comparison, much like the chain one above].

However, I am done with this discussion. People will draw their own conclusions... I will stick with locking my bike up when I run into the store or whatever instead of being paranoid.

EDIT: Apparently you can't even mention that stupid video...

*sigh*


as long as the fire dept has:


1) a $5 mallet and $10 worth of liquid NO2 (less than a minute)
2) a $50-150 angle grinder (1-5 mins)
3) a compact jack (5-10 mins)
4) a $30-80 dremel and carbide cutting wheels (5-20 mins)
5) a $10 carbide saw (this would take a while)


anyone who believes that a u-lock can protect their bike from a determined thief is smoking the hopium.

It's called hyperbole.

No lock is thief proof... neither is bringing your bike inside, or shipping it to the arctic. However, it is reasonable to believe that a quality lock will deter random thieves from stealing your bike. Apparently this concept wads the panties of some people.

i had the lbs cut off a 2 year old kryptonite 2 lock recently (lost key and needed bike pronto). it took a couple of minutes. professional bike thieves have or rent angle grinders. there is nothing special about hardened steel alloy. there are multiple tools that can cut through it like a hot knife through butter.

since the components are the most lucrative part of a bike (there are often no limitations on component sales) many bike thives simply cut through the frame and take the entire bike while leaving the u lock. a cheap carbide blade hack saw can cut through most bike frames in a few minutes.

after having had 2 bikes stolen you are damn right that my panties are wadded tight. i have beater bikes that i lock up for extended periods. i never lock up my nice bikes for more than a few minutes.

I have a pretty good feeling that "professional bike thieves" are not as widespread as everyone is so keen to suggest... and I completely agree about stealing parts (especially wheels, since I see tons of bikes around campus with QR wheels and not even a cable to hold them).

and it's not that hardened steels are the be all and end all of metallurgy, it's that they are harder to cut than the tool steel that cheap locks are made of, and the higher end locks are made of pretty thick pieces of said hardened steel, making them take even longer to cut. Given enough time and determination, any lock can be cut off. It's a question of whether the time and effort is worth it (and at a rack with a few other bikes, a well-locked one isn't).

Pretty much any lock on the market can be cut with a cheap oxy-propane torch from home depot in about a minute... but I don't expect John Q. Randomopportunist to be walking around with a cutting torch... or a grinder. If a ring of "professional" thieves want my bike, they'll take it... whether it's from the bike rack, inside the breakroom at work, or out of my house. Locks exist to keep crackheads and opportunists from stealing your bike. Apparently, this is lost on people.

Sorry to hear about your luck. What kind of lock and locking technique did you use to secure them, out of curiosity?

Wow, apparently you missed the video where a guy walked up with an angle grinder on a public street/sidewalk/business area and cut the lock and stole the bike. There are videos all over You Tube showing thieves walking up to bikes with big bolt cutters, expensive? black market is full of interesting things to buy like machine guns that are expensive and illegal but you can buy one, bolt cutters are small fry compared to a machine gun.

Apparently you missed the video of Krypto's best lock and chain called the Forgettaboutit was defeated in 15 seconds.

Apparently you didn't see any of the videos nor did any research yourself, well you know what they say...ignorance is bliss.

I will add to that. They are thiefs so why wouldn't they steal expensive tools too?

correct you are, and they do.

No. I specifically addressed both of your linked videos. The propaganda film from a competing manufacturer [which has actually been banned from mention on this here forum] and a video of someone cutting an indeterminate lock. I can break a cheap ulock with a 2"x4" who cares if someone can cut it off? I have done a fair share of research on this subject and have come to pretty well-founded conclusions on which locks are the best. *ANY* lock can be defeated with enough effort, that doesn't make them useless. This is the point that you seem to be unable to grasp.

However, it appears that reason is not your strong point, so I will leave you with your tinfoil hat logic (nice stretch comparing the arms trade to stealing bikes... last I heard cartels don't give a **** about bikes).

Just call Kryptonite customer service (number on website) and either (a) order however many likes you want keyed alike or (b) order more with the same key number you already have. I have 4 each of the 5" and 9" shackles all keyed alike acquired over a period of two years.

J.

i get a kick out of people describing locks being cut with an angle grinder for 90 seconds like "a hot knife through butter"

get real

You like to put words into subjects where they don't exist. I never said locks were useless, what I said was any lock can be defeated, which you finally came around to admitting!! And since any lock can be defeated, and I shown more then enough video not to mention a flood of that stuff on You Tube of actual thefts being recorded, and those thieves have no thought about bringing loud or large tools to the crime scene, that perhaps if a person had an expensive bike and has to park it in a high risk area that they might be better served buying a low costing bike and locking it up instead. But it's fine if you want to disagree about using an expensive bike vs a cheap one for locking up in risky areas because it's your opinion and your entitled to that...but guess what? I'm also entitled to voice my opinion in opposition to yours without being called names like you've been doing. There just opinions, and opinions are designed to give the person wanting to know what other viewpoints to consider, then they make up their mind as to which idea, or viewpoint, they like the best for their needs. But you just want to argue and throw name calling into the mix.

Sure arguments like: well if the $5,000 bike is locked with the best lock in the world the thief will bypass it and get a bike with an easier lock...that is the always possible. However it is also possible that the thief would case your bike and come back later with a better tool because he can get more money for a $5,000 bike then an easy to get $1500 bike and spend nearly as much time getting either. The other argument is just get homeowners or renters insurance and it will cover it from loss, true, but what a hassle, plus you lose your deductible cost, and if too many of these claims are paid out then the insurance company will cancel you.

Nor was I comparing bike theft to arms dealing, I was explaining that you can find anything on the black market including a bolt cutter, angle grinders, guns, and your $5,000 bike that some day might get stolen, but again you like to argue. I noticed you didn't attack the guy that first mentioned you can steal bolt cutters, but you chose me to do that with, whatever man.

You're arguing with me for the pure pleasure of arguing. Now that you've had your fun are you now going to go to Disney World?

I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on my bike developing, testing stuff so no insurance money will ever compensate for that work.

Here is a gear like mine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kvn-FNLcMU

Hundreds and hundreds of hours testing? Must be an old bike by now . . .

Haha, nope it took me more than a year to figure out how to modify the bike in a way to beat the structural constrains of carrying more than 200 pounds on the rear rack of the bike. This and other stuff

Apparently you have a short memory, or have difficulty with reading comprehension. The OP asked which locks were good, some locks were listed, you jumped in saying that if you own a nice bike that sophisticated thieves would steal it in 30secs. with an angle grinder. To this I explained that 30secs to cut a good u-lock was silly talk and that most thieves aren't carting around angle grinders and plasma cutters to steal random people's bicycles. As a response to this, you said I was ignorant concerning tools and launched into some tirade about lockpicking contests.

So yes, I have addressed you directly, as you see fit to continue to abrasively quote my post and make derisive comments... and as far as cutting locks, I said in my very first response to your paranoid rambling that any lock can be defeated eventually, but that I didn't see how it was relevant when most thieves aren't carrying the tools to do so. This of course made you jump to assumptions about my financial well being, etc...

I am not out to make fun of you (and I have yet to call you any names), but you seem to be the person with the most far-fetched postings, so yes I respond to those instead of the guy who says something relatively common sense (thieves can steal tools)... not to mention that you keep directly quoting me.

Overall, I think that a lot of the viewpoints concerning the motives and methods employed by the criminal underworld are a little out there... and I've known my fair share of miscreants. The average thief isn't going to steal an expensive tool to steal a bike, they'll steal an expensive tool to sell because taking two risks (especially when one of those two results in a product that is more difficult to sell) isn't worth it. Most stolen bikes are taken because someone wants that sw8 fixay you chained up, or because someone can sell your bike for a couple hundred bucks on CL, not because there is a large black market trade in stolen racing bikes.

That has been my point this entire time, which everyone seems to keep skipping past and delving further into some sort of paranoid circle jerk over whether you can cut a lock or not... and to this end, no one has shown any studies concerning the locks which were actually suggested, but instead just keep throwing out baseless times which it will take to cut them and linking to videos of people cutting chains [and one link to a video of a bike thief cutting an unknown lock of some sort]. The few reviews which involve the locks suggested [which no one has linked to] put cutting them into the 5-6 minute timeframe with a fresh cutting wheel and high speed cutting tool. I feel this is acceptable, especially considering I lock my bike in a fashion which makes angle-grinder usage difficult without damaging the frame... and most thieves aren't going to bother to begin with.

And as for Disney World... nah, went to Universal Studios two weeks ago... so no need.

The heck with you angle grinders!

If you can drive up close enough to where it is locked,

then a simple converter, and a plamsa cutter WILL cut thru ANY steel lock like very warm butter.
1-3 seconds tops!

No lock can 100% keep your bike safe if someone really wants it!

I've got a nice heavy chain that is safer than a cable lock, but more flexible than a U-lock.

Last I locked up at the train station and went to work all day. When I came back, I realized I'd left my key (and my entire keychain) in the lock. Whoops.

Apparently the best bike lock is an ugly bike that nobody wants...