Yeah.

But they stopped making the locks with circular keys for a while now. Now they use the flat keys and Kryptonite locks are now having reports of the key snapping inside the lock making the whole thing useless. This hasn't happened to me yet, I think the people who have had this issue did not put the key all the way in for sometimes the "teeth" of the key get stuck (not jammed) in the lock chamber I've had my Kryptonite New York standard u-lock (never ever ever ever use a cable lock... EVER) for about half a year now, and no one has tried to break into it yet, granted I have only used it outside 3 times, carbon fiber bike though (I always lock it when I'm not using it).

Maybe no one wants to steal my cheap department store bikes. lol But, I've ridden various bicycles over the years with the same cable Kryptonite lock without having a bike stolen. As a matter of fact, it started cracking here and there.

I've had some bicycles stolen in certain situations though. One time I had one of those locks that you click to close. I found out I had a tendency to push hard enough but not quite hard enough to completely close the lock. So the spring inside would push up and leave it unlocked. Well, a brand new department store bicycle was stolen like that. Another one was stolen with a huge lock on it but was locked to a wooden fence. One board was pushed out and it was taken away. Of course, the superintendant was a known gambler. He's the one who told me it was gone. He also was the one who demanded that my bike be locked on the wooden fence.

The best ulock maybe not the best lock as thickness being equal a chain with a good padlock will be stronger than a ulock for several reasons:

-to cut a good ulock you just need to cut the base of the ulock when to cut a good chain + padlock system you need to cut both sides of the padlock's shackle or both sides of the chainlinks
-good padlocks are usually more pickproof than ulocks, actually i haven't seen anyone picking the abloy PL362 but i'm sure someone must have done it somewhere
-because chains are flexible they are harder to deal with than rigid ulocks
-ulocks have only one lock so thieves can easily learn only a few techniques to pick it when chains can come with many different padlocks (but there is more chances that the owner choose a bad padlock too)
-the best ulocks i know stop at 18mm thickness when chains can go up to nearly 20mm
-chains being usually longer allow more choices and then usually better choices when looking for places to attach the bike
-thickness being equal chain + padlock systems are usually heavier and more expensive than ulocks so they are less popular on the street so thieves will have less chances to get used to than equivalent ulocks (but because we usually buy things with price in mind for the same price your ulock will probably be thicker than a chain + padlock system)
-new york fahgettouboudit systems are pretty popular in north america so thieves will have more chances to be trained on than european or other parts of the world's systems and vice-versa

There's nothing fatally wrong with tubular key locks. They have strengths and weaknesses like all lock systems. They're widely used on the coin boxes of vending machines, laundromats and arcade games and on computers and elevators. They're even used on slot machines in Vegas. Better tubular key locks [like those used on vending machines and in the early days (1973-1988) of U-locks by Kryptonite and Citadel] had variable depth pin pockets, pin springs of different rates and lengths, serrated, spool and mushroom pins and hardened center pins.

Thing was, actual lock picking was and is extremely rare in real life. Out in the wild, U-locks are attacked with jacks and saws. In 1989 Kryptonite reevaluated their design and put more emphasis (i.e. a greater percentage of the consumer's dollar) on resisting destructive entry...and less on resisting non-destructive entry. They specified a much less expensive tubular key lock which was highly susceptible to 'self impressioning' - that's the official name of the technique you use when you open one of those cheap tubular locks with your Bic pen.

Well, okay, fair design concept but the implementation turned out to be 'one bridge too far' and Kryptonite got burned pretty bad for their decision. Because of the bad name all tubular key locks, high and low quality alike, got from this, nearly all U-locks these days use disc-detainer cylinders.

One other note: a Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit Mini weighs around four and a half pounds, while one meter of 19mm chain and an Abloy P362 lock weighs around 17 pounds. That's a pretty big weight penalty for something that can still be reliably torched through. At a certain point, you've got to just resign yourself to the fact that if a well prepared thief has a jones for your locked-up Varsity, it's gone.

That's a big plus, 3 x 10 repetitions every day, perfect work out! (plus a few back pain release pills)

Yep, the discs of those springless disc detainer locks can naturally float and rattle out of alignment and the user has to thread the key in carefully and make sure it's all the way home before torquing it. Also, always use the weather cover over the keyway and lubricate the lock every now and then.

Kryptonite could have handled this better, but they eventually were upfront about it and replaced a bunch of locks with a better, more expensive design. Looking at the thread title and date, it looks like Kryptonite is still getting punished by the public.

Contrast this with Axa, who swept the design flaw of their frame lock under the rug and doesn't seem to be suffering the same never-ending criticism.