Locking good

When I bought my new mountain bike in Heidelberg in 2008 (as a result of the one I'd brought over from Melbourne being stolen), I followed the rule-of-thumb advice that suggests you should spend ~10% of the value of the bicycle on securing it. To this effect, I bought not one, but two locks: an ABUS Steel-O-Flex 950 (one of the best in the independent tests of the time), and a folding lock from Trelock; the latter was also rated highly, but what particularly appealed to me about the folding lock was that they're fairly unusual.

Now, professional bicycle thieves can crack pretty much any lock, given the time. However, like almost thieves, the majority concentrate on the low-hanging fruit; stuff that it easy to steal. (Three minutes is roughly low long they'll spend on one bike, reckon the German police.) And because of the different techniques used to get through different locks (bolt cutters or hacksaw for a chain/cable; prybar for D-locks; etc), professional bike thieves tend to specialise. By having two different styles of lock (including one fairly uncommon one), I hoped to just make my bike too much of a hassle to bother with.

Four winters (and zero maintenance *shame*) later, my ABUS finally carked it, after being caught out in last week's torrential Sydney downpour. I tried for a couple of days to get it open, and eventually wheeled my bike – still locked up – to my local bicycle workshop. I did this on a Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight, roughly around the time that the AFL match at the nearby SCG finished; yet despite wheeling this – still locked up – bike past hundreds of people, not a single one challenged me. Hmmph.

The guys at the workshop unable to open the lock, either, despite copious quantities of WD-40, so I asked them to cut it off. After about 30 seconds with a hacksaw, the mechanic realised that the Flex-O-Steel's cable was surround by steel shells that simply rotated with his strokes, and that he wasn't going to get anywhere. Since they couldn't use their angle grinder with customers around, I left my bike with the mechanics over the weekend and came back on Monday – only to be told that their regular angle grinder blade was having the same problems with the steel shells, and they needed to get a different one. Thank god I hadn't locked my bike to anything.

Two days later, I finally had an unlocked bike. Hurrah! However, I also only had one lock (my folding lock), which wasn't nearly as convenient to carry around as the ABUS after the Trelock carrying bag wore out. So, I needed a new lock – and, given the one I had lasted so long in the workshop, I was pretty happy with the old! Being gainfully employed now, (and not using the second lock as much) I treated myself to the next model up: the ABUS Granit Flex-O-Steel 1000. This model is, in fact, also marketed by ABUS as a lock for scooters. So, pretty tough!

But I still promise not to leave it out in the rain as much :-/

P.S. The London Cyclist has some good tips on how to lock your bike.