Eggplant Jeff

Is that the stuff that says "DEADLY POISON DO NOT INHALE DO NOT USE IN CLOSED AREA MAY CAUSE CANCER MAY CAUSE DEATH MAY CAUSE WORLD WAR III IN FACT DON'T USE AT ALL IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE OR THE LIVES OF ANYONE AROUND YOU" all over the can?

We had some "Staples" brand keyboard spray cleaner and my god... the stuff must have had four or five paragraphs of warnings on it. I was like what's wrong with compressed CO2? That would be harmless...

barba

I am very skeptical of the "freeze the lock" method. U-locks of any quality are very hard steel. Steel is a very good heat conductor, as well, and it would seem difficult to get the impact point you wish to break cold enough fast enough to do much good with a commercially available coolant. IF you had a tank of liquid nitrogen somehow, and could get the lock in the tank it would likely work, but that seems somehow out of the reach of your average punter.

I would go with the “thieves’ choice”: a small hydraulic jack.

Eggplant Jeff

Steel isn't that great a heat conductor. Aluminum for example conducts heat much faster.

I've never tried freezing, but it's a piece of cake to heat one spot to glowing (1500 degrees) in a short period of time, without the rest of it getting that hot.

As the above poster said, you have to concentrate on a small area, and work quickly. I believe it. And he's claiming to have done it personally, not like "a friend of a friend" type deal.

alanbikehouston

"Slim Chestnuts" method has been tried against high quality locks and it does not work. The editors of "Cycling Plus" have used every known method against Soldsecure "gold rated" locks, and no method used by crooks on the street will break locks at that quality level in less than eight, ten, or twelve minutes.

Slim's method DOES have a substantial potential for causing serious injury to anyone who attempts it. Perhaps Slim is hoping some crooks will read his posts, and blind themselves will playing with dangerous coolants. But, more likely, it will be some 12 year old kid who experiments and gets hurt.

Bike Forums: the new home for bad, and dangerous advice on how to open a bike lock.

2manybikes

Any kind of coolant like freon is the wrong thing and just a misunderstanding of the whole idea. Not remotely correct. Just bad information.

Michigander

Whats this one-

https://www.ranch.bz/misc/recoil.wmv

compared to a .223?

2manybikes

No they didn't, they don't want to spread the word on how to break a bike lock quickly. That's not helpful to cyclists. Or people who sell bike magazines.

What they wanted to do was give a fair comparison of one lock to another and how they stand up to the many common methods. They achieved this goal. They will not publish the fastest and easiest ways. That's a terrible thing for a bike magazine to do.

You have misunderstood this from day one. They explained this, but they don't want to come right out and say "there are faster ways to do this". That's the wrong thing for them to do. It sounds like you believe that if someone knows a faster way and does not disclose it on the internet they are just making it up.

Did you ever consider that they just know better than posting it on the net?

alanbikehouston

Obviously, there are "fast" ways to break a bike lock. There are methods that would destroy the lock (and the surrounding city block) in a fraction of a second. "Cycling Plus" and "Soldsecure" test the methods that are actually used out on the street by crooks.

Crooks enjoy going home at the end of the day with all of their fingers and two eyes and a minimum of facial damage. They also prefer to use methods that don't draw undue attention from the police.

Over the past few years, many guys have posted saying that they know a "trick" that will open any lock instantly. Yet, there has never been a post from a guy saying "I locked my bike correctly with a New York lock (or an OnGuard Brute) and when I came out of the store, my broken lock was laying on the ground, and my bike was gone."

Why has there been no such post? Because in real life, a crook is not going to even look at an average bike correctly locked with a "gold" level lock. For every bike that is correctly locked with a top quality lock, there are twenty bikes locked with inferior locks, or locked incorrectly...and those are the bikes that get the attention of crooks.

Speaking of "locked incorrectly". I recently got ready to unlock one of my bikes, and the lock was laying on the ground next to the rear wheel, unlocked, and undamaged. Had some clever crook opened my lock, and decided afterwards he did not want my bike?

Nope. When I was getting ready to lock my bike, a neighbor of mine walked up, and we started talking. I simply forgot I had not finished locking the bike. Many posts about stolen bikes mention "there was no damage to my lock"...which led to the goofy rumors that crooks were taking the time to pick locks. Your lock is laying open on the ground without damage? Well...

2manybikes

It's a big world out there. We don't have any way to know the statistics. I don't know the odds, you don't know the odds. I happen to understand how it can be done. That does not mean I know how likely it is to happen to anyone’s bike. You don't know the method, that does not mean you know more about the odds than I do.

Lots of people who have bikes don't go on bike forums. This does not mean that no one has that happen to them. It does not mean it does either. It means nothing. I would hope it means it does not happen often, but it is not really even a good indicator.

It's misleading to let someone think there is a not a fast, safe, quiet, way to compromise any huge lock.

I think most of the time big strong locks do what they are supposed to do, including make another bike an easier choice, that's true. But I would feel bad if someone left an expensive bike somewhere with a NY Bicycle lock, or a bigger stronger Kryptonite lock and the bike was taken. It definitely stacks the odds in favor of your bike being safe, but not as safe as some think. I think it's better to know more and decide for oneself what they think the odds are of the bike being taken. Neither you or I know exactly what the chances are. Maybe Kryptonite has some statistics about this particular method, who knows? Not you, not me. Kryptonite, Cycling Plus, and I are not going to explain it.
Let's hope that it gets forgotten by the masses and that bike thieves are limited to what they learn from bike magazines too.

slagjumper

Different locks need different approaches. Many can be easily picked. A friend gave me a pick set a few years ago and everything it has worked on every lock that I have tried it on. The most disconcerting was the garage door. Took me about 2 minutes.

There was a 2 sided master lock that could be picked by filing off all but the last prongs (farthest from the part of the key that you hold).