How to Protect Your Electric Bike from Theft

hey guys today I'm gonna talk to you a bit about security primarily gonna talk about locks and locking electric bikes but most of what I talk about today will be applicable to normal bicycles as well but there are some things that are gonna be specific to electric bikes or at least the electric bikes that we offer we're gonna mostly talk about locks but we'll also talk a bit about strategies and how to secure your bike and protect it from thieves now we offer a variety of different locks at our shop we primarily at the moment work with abus we'd work with other companies there's other large companies in the market one of them is called kryptonite very recognized they have this security insurance or security guarantee which unsurfaced value it seems really appealing but the challenge is that it doesn't protect against power tools which really is the way that most locks are broken today in modern times you know people use angle grinders to cut lock so I feel like that doesn't really make sense and I'd rather have just good locks that work well and generally just pair with insurance I'll get back into the locks but I just want to mention I've mentioned insurance that we made another video talking about insurance I think there's a really good consideration if you're locking your bike often in less secure areas or if you're using a bike for transportation you can't always predict where you're gonna lock it so my strategy in general is to have good locks and to get insurance just to give you that peace of mind so if you want more info about the insurance you can check out the video below and let's talk about locks so this here is a u-lock this is made by abus this is one of their the the highest security you lock that they offer specifically for bicycles now they do offer a higher security you lock that we do sometimes offer in our New York store it's called the Xtreme this is called the granite x+ you lock this is the 540 and it's x+ because the type of key that it uses it to X plus key and they have these different security ratings and this one in particular is 15 out of 15 as I said there is another lock that's actually made for motorcycles and that lock is actually 20 out of 20 so the motorcycle security goes up to 20 bicycle security goes up to 15 at least for abus specifically if you see some of the other locks like this one for example this is a 10 out of 15 so that's not going to offer you as much security and basically the difference between this lock and say another folding lock that might have 15 out of 15 is the key side the type of key that uses the key for the 15 out of 15 is a higher level of security so this lock is a 12 out of 15 it's a plus lock so the key is not as heavy duty and then the actual u part of the lock is not as thick you know so this is a little bit thicker in comparison so that's why this has a higher security rating you're gonna see a difference in weight now each of these locks are available in different lengths as well and it really depends on what your specific need is whether you're gonna go with a shorter lock I mean from my side I feel like if you can get away with using a shorter lock it's nice something like this you can almost even put it in your pocket or put in your belt or it goes really easily into a small bag or something like that so I kind of appreciate it but something that's a bit longer you might be able to get around more things maybe even lock two bikes together something to consider but I'll talk more about the strategies I want to just talk about some of the products that are available to secure your bike and then I'll talk about strategies and how to lock your bike so these are what's considered you locks this is these locks kind of have a relatively long long history in the bike industry this is a change this chain is pretty long actually abus measures their chains in centimeters because their European company and company specifically so this is a hundred and forty centimeter but it also comes in eighty centimeters 110 centimeters 110 is really the most popular but something like this is pretty nice particularly if you have something a bike to lock like a cargo bike for example where you might not necessarily be able to get the frame as close to this like in you know immovable object that you're trying to lock to now I can lock this very easily with the 140 chain but if I want to use like a 80 centimeter I might have a challenge to do so another great thing about the abus locks is that you can get the same key as your lock and the battery so on an electric bike you generally have a battery on there that's locked on and most of the bikes that we sell use the Bosch motor system and you can use the same key for this lock as you can for the the Bosch system they also make locks four Shimano as well so that's a good way to go and basically you can have one key for multiple locks and say for example your bike might not have come with a lock or it came with one lock and you wanted to add additional ones you can use the code that's on the back of this card here and order additional lock so we can help you with that if you need that and it's it's a good way to go the one thing to note in relation to that though is that this is a plus lock and and currently abus does make a plus version of their locks as well as a non plus version but they don't make the X plus so if you want this really high security X plus you can't get a key to light to the bike but you can get multiple X plus locks keyed to each other so good thing to note in relation to that now these are you locks I showed you chains I want to show this other type of lock which is growing in popularity and it's what's considered a folding lock and abus was really one of the first ones to introduce this style you just open it with the key and then this side kind of pops open and you can use it in a similar way it's it's kind of almost like in-between a chain and you lock because it's it's got these rigid parts to it but they're they're much longer and it's a little bit more flexible than say a u-lock which is which is nice and then the great thing about is it folds away real nice and then you can mount it on the bike or easily put it in a bag that sort of thing and there's there's different versions of it this is the granite x+ version there's a new version that came out relatively recently and we actually carry some bikes that come standard with this lock and this is the alarm version so basically the way that this thing works is it has an alarm mechanism and a sensor so if i unlock it lock it fully lock it and then pull the key out it's gonna arm so after a couple seconds you'll hear it make this noise so now it's armed so now the bikes locked up I walk away somebody starts messing with the bike it's going to give this warning hey you know I got an alarm and then if you keep on messing it the alarms gonna go off I'm going to turn that off quickly hopefully that's not too disturbing on the video but I wanted to give you an idea what that's like so in order to store the lock you actually want to just put the just the top notch in if you try to put the second notch in which is the fully locked position you won't be able to fold it I'll actually just show you what that looks like but try to put it all the way in and try to fold it up you'll see it actually won't fold because it's actually in this arm position but if I pull it out just a little bit and just put it the part of the way in I can fold it up so now it's law alarms not gonna arm and you can store it away that way the one other lock I want to show you is what's called a frame lock and in conjunction with the frame lock I have this this chain so this bike has a frame lock on it also known as a cafe lock in order to lock it I'm just going to turn the key and just rotate the lock like that I can pull the key out and the nice thing about this lock is I can use it in conjunction with a chain this particular bike the recent Muller loads available it comes with the chain as an option so something like this I locked the frame now the challenge with that you know the frames lock but technically somebody could just lift up the rear wheel and wheel it around but with this chain I can just go around this pole here and stick it through the frame and then it's secure now I wouldn't necessarily trust this on its own but it's good for the quick lock ups you run it in the store real quick or you're at a park and the bikes kind of in your sight or you're at a cafe as the name implies and you know you're kind of sitting outside the bikes there you just don't want somebody to be able to run off with it really the most popular way that people are penetrating locks these days is with the angle grinder or at least these kind of professional thieves and we actually have a lot of experience with that being that we have our shop in New York and even out here it's in in Long Beach where we are right now that's kind of a thing it's not as much of a thing but unfortunately in some places there seems to be almost it's like professional industry of thieves and it's it's an unfortunate reality but you know it really depends on where you live and what the security constraints are you know some places I realize that I'm talking you know from this perspective of being in an area that you really require a high level of security but you know many people maybe they can get away with just this I mean I know I visited many European cities where people don't even use the chain they just lock the rear wheel and walk away from the bike and they figure nobody's gonna like try and walk around town with with the wheel lifted up because they'd be very suspicious but you'd be surprised what people can get away with in big cities especially in the States it's again it's it's unfortunate but that's the reality so you know I think this is probably a good time to get into maybe some locking strategies as I started talking about that a little bit as I said you know this on its own would work for those quick lock ups but a bike like this I'd probably use this in conjunction with the heavier duty chain you can use it with the u lock or something like that on this particular scenario I think I'd find a u-lock kind of difficult to use but a standard bike rack if I got the frame close enough I can use this frame lock in conjunction with the chain and then maybe a you lock if I really backup the side right into it but I'd probably want a longer one than this this folding lock I'd probably have an easier time especially with the longer one this one happens to be on the longer side so that is helpful but really for cargo bikes specifically I think not much compares to a chain in the versatility of what a chain can do but just storing and carrying a chain they can tend to be heavier especially you know if they're longer but in this scenario which is which might replicate a more challenging lock up scenario you can use this you lock basically what I would do is just open this up and lock the frame generally my strategy consists of locking the focusing unlocking the frame particularly on a electric bike where all the most expensive parts are really attached to the frame including the battery the motor and that sort of stuff so at this point I'd feel relatively secure about the bike in a like in an area where maybe bike theft is not very high but there's still other parts on the bike that are somewhat vulnerable and there's ways to protect them specifically the rear wheel is secured but the front wheel is actually still a bit vulnerable and now this is not as vulnerable as a bike with the standard quick-release where somebody can come up with no tools just open the lever and pull the wheel off this one does require a tool but you can make it more challenging by using this part called the hex locks now this one I would keep this standard axle and insert the hex locks this is what the hex loss does basically it's this little insert here so you just push the key in and instead of you know making this available you use this hex locks drop it in and then somebody can't put a tool in there and it's very secure this way so this is one type of quick release skewer there's many different ones out there this is specific to the Sun tor fork which a lot of the bikes that we offer come standard with now I find actually many people don't really know how to release this quick-release skewer so I feel like it actually improves the security in some ways because of that but in order to release it you just basically open the lever and you twist it a little bit to loosen it and then once it's loose it can actually push through so I'm gonna just tighten it up but basically in order to secure this I would want to actually replace this front skewer with one of these parts from hex locks now this is something pretty unique I found really this is one of the only parts that works with this Sun tor front skewer and it works really well and it keeps it really secure just by keeping the hex locks in there we just and we can pull it out just with the key here so that's really nice now this same hex lock system will work on other parts of the bike and I want to talk a bit more about that because you know now that we've talked about securing the wheel which you can do this with the front wheel and the rear wheel because there might be scenarios where you don't have the ability to attach a frame lock say for example on a full suspension by a core or maybe it just doesn't have those attachment points but there's other parts like the seat posts for example we can check that out now this bike has a really convenient quick-release seat post clamp which will allow you to really easily adjust the saddle up and down but the challenge with that it's also really easy to remove the complete seatpost because you can just basically open it up and pull the whole seat post out now this is not very secure so if you did want to make this more secure what I would do is replace that quick release clamp with one of these more standard clamps now this bike actually comes with this style clamp we have this quick-release on here and we use it for our test bikes but some bikes might come standard with the quick-release and you want to go back towards you know a more fixed clamp here the great thing about the fixed clamp is you can use the fixed clamp and then insert one of these hex locks parts and so when talking about the front wheel the rear wheel and just kind of thinking about these parts that can be easily removed from the bike that's something you might want to consider especially if you're in one of these less secure areas some of the most vulnerable parts about the bike is the front wheel the seat post and then actually you can go one step further and start thinking about say the handlebar and stem for example and you know it's really sad to think about like all the different ways that somebody might be able to steal your bike or steal parts off your bike but I think really the best way to secure your bike is to think about the ways that somebody might attempt to steal parts of your bike one of the things that I have seen before it's not that common but it can happen is actually if somebody was to remove the stem they can actually remove the whole fork off the bike if they just clipped the the front brake hose it's not that common but it can happen if you think about it that's a pretty expensive part and there's a lot to that so a lot of times if you want to increase the security what I generally do is put one hex locks in this stem bolt somebody can't loosen the stem and as a result they can't really remove the fork so I can show you what that that little bolt hole it's just just right here so I'll put a hex locks in there sometimes you might find that some of the bolts like for example on this handlebar stem here some of the bolts are not going to be the standard allen key style bolts and sometimes what we end up doing in the shop is replacing one of these with a bolt that can accommodate a hex locks and at something like like this scenario what I would do I'm using this commuting around town I would put one hex locks here to prevent somebody from moving the handlebars put one on the stem and then another kind of expensive part up front here is this headlight and what I would do is put one more inside the bolt for the headlamp and that would help prevent somebody from easily taking the headlight off and cutting the wire I don't know if people are thinking about that that deeply but I think it's important to consider these details so another consideration when securing your bike is the display this particular bike has a smartphone hubs you actually use your cell phone as a display but some of the other bikes will have a removable display and it's generally a good idea to take that with you when you secure the bike speaking of the electronic system a lot of people have concerns about the battery specifically now pretty much all the bikes that we offer have a lockable battery and I don't really find that people are trying to steal them I have heard in other countries where electric bikes are becoming more popular that people are getting into that a little bit especially the ones that are not in the frame something like this is very difficult to actually remove the battery from the frame but this cargo bike has external batteries on it and technically I guess with enough force somebody can actually like break the battery off with the the mounts on it I think that it's not actually a very common thing and I don't want to get everybody so paranoid about this stuff but it's it's something to consider that you know if you're in a in a very high crime rate place maybe you want to take the batteries off the bike as well some of their details just while we're here and thinking about it you might be wondering like oh if I get hex lock should I put it on like all these different parts like put it on the crank arm or put it on the pedal or like the suspension and I think you really got to consider one how compatible these parts are with other bikes and to how much effort somebody might actually go into to steal a you know very inexpensive part or or what it's actually worth to you so for the most part I try to just secure the main items like the wheels the handlebar stem for get such a seat post but but some of the other stuff I generally don't really bother with too much I know we covered a lot on the video some other things that come up quite a bit when people are talking about security is GPS tracking we talked about GPS on our insurance video which I mentioned earlier GPS is a great concept but it's not so common these days part of it is that there are some liability concerns with GPS also GPS signal is not always so great what we found is that law enforcement won't always even pursue GPS information so if you could say I know where my bike is they're not necessarily going to use that information it's really unfortunate but that's just the reality and outside of that you know as we talked about insurance I think from my side I would really consider that I think that's a good way to go and just think about you know where you're locking in it I try not to lock outside overnight if you can avoid it or if you are gonna have to lock it up outside say for example you have a cargo bike you don't really have too many options putting a cover on it could really improve the security or there might be certain scenarios where you're locking the bike outside you're going into a restaurant or a bar or something like that just be strategic about it most people will often think like oh I'm just gonna lock it in like a very high traffic area that's not always such a good thing because you might have just so many people walking by nobody's paying attention to what's actually going on what I found especially when you're locking near a bar or restaurant if you lock in front of a bar say for example there's a door person at the bar like checking so you know IDs or something like that that's a great place because you have somebody right there or maybe you could even utilize a parking garage there's a lot of these different scenarios and it really varies depending if you're an urban environment or not but I hope this video was helpful to you guys and if you have any questions about security or thinking about your specific strategy and you want some feedback just let me know I'm always happy to help and it's it's a challenging thing it's a thing that nobody really wants to think about but I think it's really important to think about and I hope that this is a good way to kind of open your mind about some of the possibilities of how you can secure your bike and and really protect your investment so I hope you enjoyed I look forward to seeing you in the future all right see you soon

Channel: Propel

Views: 145,757

Rating: 4.8627176 out of 5

Keywords: bike lock, how to lock a bike, bike theft, bike security, electric bike, how to lock your bike, bike locks, best electric bike locks, how to, cable lock, best bike lock, bicycle theft, rieseandmuller, riese and muller, e bike, e bikes, electric bikes, e bike security, abus locks, u lock, folding lock

Id: j99HdeFh0DE

Length: 22min 53sec (1373 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2020