How To Lock Your Bike Securely | Urban Cycle Security Tips

bikes are brilliant they're a fun clean and efficient way to travel around urban areas and commute as well and there's an added bonus they make you fitter but as many of you will know they can be a very attractive target to thieves or as i like to call them to try and stop your pride and joy becoming the victim of thieves we've teamed up with kryptonite so in this video we're going to go through the do's and don'ts of bike security whether you're commuting to work or just popping to the shops or visiting friends we're going to go through how and where best to lock up your bike how best to use locks to secure your bike and also the different types of locks so that you can determine what's best for your needs bike locks come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and the different types have relative advantages and disadvantages also bigger isn't always necessarily better now before we go into the specifics of how and where to lock up your bike i'm going to go through the different types of lock that are available bike locks are often graded in terms of their unbreakability yep that's a word i just made up but you get the point for example kryptonite grades its locks between one and ten one being the least secure kind of lock they make and ten being yeah the best of the best the absolute gold standard in bike lock security now all the locks we have here start at five but you can see on the packaging the security rating is labeled on there something that's less than five would typically be used uh as a sort of just a slight counter measure if you were stopping at a cafe in a rural location or perhaps just to secure your bike if you're traveling on say a train or something like that the first type of lock to be aware of is the d-lock they range from something like this a basic d-lock designed for use in a rural area to this an absolute beast of a d-lock designed to stop the most notorious thieves in a major metropolitan area think of gotham city after bane has taken over and you've got the right kind of idea also we've got a few in between as well anyway d-locks are regarded as the strongest and most secure bike locks you can use and they they vary in strength and sort of well durability and solidness and weight and a few other features as well and this is reflected in the price so something like this is more expensive than something that's lighter and less durable this d-locks also vary in size so you get small ones like this and bigger ones like this and they're designed to either lock your bike to an immovable object or to lock say your frame to another part of the bike such as wheels or panniers and a common tactic and it's a good tactic is to use a d-lock in combination with another lock such as a cable lock to secure other parts of the bike such as wheels and well whatever you've got on your bike speaking of which cable locks are another popular type of bike lock they are generally lighter than a d lock meaning they can be a bit more appealing for traveling around and looking in a backpack but they're less secure now they come with different locking mechanisms you can get them with combination locks on them or key locks or ones with loops on like this that are designed to be used with another lock usually a d-lock cable locks can stop an opportunist thief but they are much less secure than a d-lock and bolt cutters will make quick work of a cable lock they're usually a steel cable such as this with a kind of plastic coating on the outside to help prevent corrosion [Music] next we have chain locks guess what they're made from well again they have different locking mechanisms this one has a combination lock on it but there's also ones with just keys as well and they come in a range of different shapes sizes and strengths they're generally more secure than a cable lock but less strong than a d-lock they do however have the added advantage over a d-lock that they can be a bit more maneuverable because of it's a chain wrapping round and securing different parts of your bike whereas because the d-lock is sort of static and rigid that can sometimes be a bit more difficult another type of lock we have which is less common than the others we've shown you is a folding lock we've got one here now folding locks can be pretty useful because they can take up less space in your bag when you're transporting them than a d-lock because they fold down and again this can be really useful depending on where you're locking your bike up and what kind of bike you're locking up they're regarded as being more secure than a cable but once again less secure than the trusty d-lock this is because while they can resist bolt cutters very well a tungsten-tipped saw or angle grinder can make short work of them at the higher end of locks you'll see features like thicker hardened steel shackles double deadlocks and higher pick resistant lock barrels as well as smaller openings in the locks themselves all these things make it harder for someone to break the lock using brute force or to lever it open at the lower end these features are paired down slightly that's not to say the locks don't work but they are less resistant to a skilled thief or higher brute force using narrower gauge steel and smaller lock barrels the lock or locks you use depends on a number of factors so the type of bike that you have where it is that you're going to be locking it up the time of day or night and also how long you're planning to leave it for all these factors contribute to the amount of risk associated with how likely your bike is to be stolen location is really important certain areas can be bike theft hot spots such as train stations and we'd also recommend that you'd avoid if possible putting your bike in a quiet side street such as this because in a quieter area with less people around it can often give the thief potentially more time to work on the bike consider other things too such as is there cctv where you're locking up your bike this can often act as a deterrent to thieves areas where there's lots of footfall and people either sat at cafes or walking around that are busier can also be a deterrent and think about unconventional locations to lock your bike so these railings are a good example i'm going to lock my bike to them not on this side but on the other side overhanging onto where there's a road this kind of location is going to make the bike much more difficult to work on for a thief and makes it a much less appealing target there's also in this location a security guard that's placed over there he's there most of the day and there's a chance that if a thief were working on the bike he might notice it as well so all things like this make your bike a less attractive target this is going to be quite an unattractive location for someone to try and work on this bike and also a subtle detail i've put the actual lock where the key goes on this side and not on this side subtle detail but it makes it a little bit more difficult to work on the lock if you were going to try and pick it always lock your bike to an object that can't be cut i mean it sounds obvious but a wooden post might look nice and secure but a saw will make short work of it around here we've got a number of options so you've got like a drain pipe some people sometimes lock their bikes to drain pipes but again they can be cut quite easily and if they're plastic you can just simply rip them away from the wall if you really want to you've got a lamp post here lamp posts can actually be really solid and a decent thing to lock your bike to but it can be at risk from being damaged by people just walking past it and knocking into it there's also some classic georgian railings over here which are made from cast iron now these are okay but again an angle grinder or a saw will make short work of these this is much easier to cut through than the hardened steel that you'll get on a good quality d-lock i'm not going to show you how best to lock your bike up and the technique that i would use and there's a few tips that will make it more secure so firstly this is a good area it's a nice street it's not you know very there's not many signs of criminal activity also lots of footfall it's well lit and uh you know lots of people around and we've got dedicated bike railings here which are really nice and secure and you know no one's going to be able to just lift the bike off this like if it was a bollard or a tree stump that they could cut or something like that i'm going to lock the bike in order of its sort of value of the respective parts the frame being the most valuable part followed by the rear wheel and then the front wheel so you want to secure in this order if possible i'm going to use a d-lock to secure both the frame and the rear wheel with the d-lock placed through the rear wheel and the frame i'm also going to use a cable lock as a secondary measure to help secure the front wheel as well so simply passing that through the d-lock shackle through the frame and then through the front wheel and then back into the into the d-lock like so next gonna put the end of the d-lock back on and ideally if you can you position the locking mechanism of the d-lock pointing down as that will make it harder to work on also this is where i talk about biggers not always better if you have a massive d-lock that was then going to be quite loose on where you're locking your bike that can allow space for people to get more thieves to get tools in so that they can prise the d-lock open and you want minimal space between where you're locking your bike and the bike itself and that's why smaller more compact d-locks such as this one can come in handy in those situations it sounds obvious and to many of you it will be obvious but i have seen people lock their bikes in this way they attach it to what appears to be a really solid object that's just immovable and it's not going anywhere but they lock it in a way that makes the bike not secure at all classic example there's something like this sort of bollard that's sticking up you can just locking it like this you're just going to lift it straight off right i'm away with the bike now see you later in addition to using a cable or perhaps instead of using a cable you could use another type of lock to secure the front wheel to the frame and this could be a d-lock or a chain lock or whatever you like but again don't put it through this way with the lock facing upwards that makes it easier to work on instead put it downwards like that generally speaking the more locks the better and it makes you buy less appealing to thieves and if you're going to be locking your bike up in the same place every day such as at a work location then you can actually leave locks like this just simply lock to the bike racking down the bottom that way you don't have to lug them on your commute every time because locks like this are very secure but they are quite heavy they do have special covers on them that you can slide across to stop water ingress and damage to the lock from weather as well which makes them ideal for this kind of purpose you may notice that some locks come with a second rating in addition to the manufacturer's own strength rating and this is sold secure sold secure is a third-party testing and certification body that rates locks based on its own standards because of this it's often the only rating that's recognized by insurers in summary it's all about weighing up you know how you want to lock your bike what locks you're prepared to carry with you how secure you want it to be and where you're going to be leaving it if you weigh up all the points that we've discussed in this video you should be well on your way to properly securing your bike that said no amount of locks is going to stop a really determined thief so with that in mind if your bike is super super valuable i'd think twice before locking it up in a public space for example if you've got really expensive components on your bike the uh it doesn't matter if the wheels and frame are secured because the thieves might just strip off the components off your bike and leave you with the wheels and frame left behind the aim of the game is to try and make your bike as unappealing to thieves as possible and kind of think of it a bit like lions chasing antelope you don't need to be invincible to lions you just need to not be the weakest antelope and another tip if you are going to be picking a bike that you're going to be using in an urban environment and locking up it's a good idea to have a bike that is less valuable it's just a tool for getting from a to b sticking with the antelope analogy you don't want your bike to be the plumpest tastiest looking antelope nothing too flash i hope you've enjoyed this video and found it informative and armed with these tips you'll hopefully be able to make your bike more secure and less vulnerable to thieves if you haven't please give it a thumbs up and let us know in the comments what videos you'd like to see in the future and your own bike locking security tips i'll see you in the next one cheers

Channel: Global Cycling Network

Views: 478,254

Keywords: bike, theft, steal, nick, stolen, lock, safe, secure, insurance, insured, town, urban, locking, securing, prevent, theives, chain, cable, combination, best, better, safer, break, broken, frame, wheels, technique, properly, strongest, bike lock, how to lock a bike, GCN, Global Cycling Network, Sports, Cycling, Bike, Bikes, Bicycle (Product Category), Road Bike, Cyclist, Road Bicycle, How To, bike skills, cycling skills, GCN Cycling, velo, ollie, sec-how-to, sca15, gc21s, c3, c1, gc11sas, g3, ଙ, パ, ꘒ, ዩ, ළ, Բ, Ե, Լ, Ծ, ፕ17, ズ, ዮ, 4097

Id: v4p4FiGDMCY

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 23 2020