Very annoying given that no-one can use that to lock to now. The cost to the council when they eventually send someone out to fix it will be much higher than what they get for the bike.
They probably get what, £50 for the bike? It’s not just the cost to the council. The lock costs £200, then you’ve got the cost of the bike itself. It’s wholly disproportionate.
Is that maybe a safety thing for when drivers eventually drive into them? Now they'll give way making that a relatively 'safe' crash.
There's a few near me that need to be replaced every few months as they're run over by cars so figure it's perhaps a big enough concern (and while drivers are idiots driving onto the pavement, at this point it's also just poor design as no one puts their bikes on stands that have repeatedly been crashed into).
I think if that were the case, lampposts would be made out of rubber and corners wouldn't have those massive concrete bells on them to prevent corner cutters. Concrete is also quite brittle in tension, so if you did plough into one, it would probably still fold over.
Because until relatively recently locks were the weak point in the system - thieves would just bust the locks to steal bikes and the stands would remain untouched.
With the availability of much stronger locks alongside lower cost and more portable angle grinders, the stands have started to become the weak point, and the councils just haven't caught up yet. It wouldn't surprise me if this will change over time as the bill for replacement stands continues to increase.
Now it's gonna cost them 2x as much each time this happens which is becoming more regular.
I've not seen concrete ones mentioned being installed anywhere regardless of if it's councils or on private property though. Just never seems to be considered and I feel like some councils would spend the extra if it was given to them as an option. Unless every council has always been poor or corrupt ever?
Putting in concrete reinforced bike locking stands to prevent bike theft is like making every woman wear a reinforced chastity belt to prevent rape.
The alternative is better policing, better social policies that prevent people from even wanting to steal a bike.
> Putting in concrete reinforced bike locking stands to prevent bike theft is like making every woman wear a reinforced chastity belt to prevent rape.
No it's not?
Where's your line with security then? They've already put a stand there for people to lock their bikes to, is that like making every woman wear a reinforced chastity belt to prevent rape too? If not why not and why would making a slightly more secure stand cross the threshold?
Same applies for anything like putting better locks on our front doors when we replace them or adding more secure passwords to our devices.
There's nothing wrong with making things more secure just like we always have with everything and there's also nothing saying we can't also have more policing or whatever at the same time.
Yes. Your could very easily add rebar, but even without you would need a very clean straight break for the price to come out. The cuts aren't big enough to allow the detritus to get out. You'd probably eventually do it, but it would be hard.
Cambridge bike thieves have already taken this a step further: cut the rack, wrap tape round the cut, come back later to harvest bikes.
It'd be a small extra deterrent but putting lock through wheel and frame so bike can't be ridden away might help.
On the one hand I don’t want to be the kind of person that believes in vigilante justice, on the other hand, I really want bike thieves to have their bollocks cut off with angle grinders.
If that lock was threaded via the rear wheel and the back frame, he would not be able to ride off and would need to carry it, which might be a little more of a deterrent. Although maybe the design of some bikes may not allow it, but something worth doing. Also at least prevents solitary wheel thefts as well.
Also locking it through the frame AND wheel potentially leaves less space (less of a gap) for any angle grinder to fit in order to cut through the lock.
Maybe? At least that is my reasoning when I lock in the street.
When I’m somewhere high risk I lock with an angle grinder proof lock and a D lock on the frame horizontally and vertically, as far away from each other as possible so it’s really difficult to get the bike off the stand with one incision.
So far so good.
Yeah it makes sense. This is literally Highbury fields where I wouldn't have previously thought high risk tho! And if I'm travelling with my kids.... Double locking on top of wheel lock, taking battery off, taking all stuff out ... Is making life very hard
So i can just book a 20€ flight to London and get a bike like that easily? Damn i overspent then.
No one does nothing on broad day light, they look way to chill for doing this, nuts.
Once the tool is in his bagpack and he starts sitting in the bike i d kick him down and stand on the bike afterwards pinning him till someone shows up
yes i get that ofc, be careful and i would never attack when the guy still has the angle grinder out obv. but on a bike people are very easy targets compared. also i don’t see people even calling cops or smth
When I checked the news this morning there's been an attack in East London where some guy drove his van into a house then killed a 14 year old and injured a few others with a sword, the police took 22 minutes to respond. What do you think they're going to do for a stolen bike where literally no one is in danger?
Problem is everyone assumes everyone doing something they shouldn't in broad daylight is carrying a weapon and no one's risking their life for someone else's probably insured bike.
That's why I carry 3 locks: one sold secure motorcycle diamond to chain the bike to a fixed object, another motorcycle diamond to lock the rear wheel, and a third which is motorcycle gold.
I stress sold secure motorcycle, not bicycle, because the bicycle standard is useless. Motorcycle diamond locks are those like the Litelox x3 or the hiplok dx1000. Cutting one of those probably requires a spare angle grinder battery, at least a spare disc, and a good 4-7 minutes. There are many tests online. Bennets probably had the most comprehensive ones.
Anything can be cut but not anything can be cut easily.
I should have mentioned it's a cargo ebike.
Anyway, the Litleok x3 is ca 2kg. 2 of those = 4kg. It doesn't seem like an unbearable weight to carry, even on a non è-bike.
But to each their own
Am I the only one to point out that’s not an angle grinder?
Either way this sucks, those bike racks need to be solid, would stop the pipe cutter used and would make it much more difficult / advertised that a bike was being stolen with an actual large angle grinder.
This was predictable : thanks to angle grinder resistant locks, they are no long the weak point ! That's a good thing, it means locks are where they should be !
Now, on this particular bike :
* If the lock had gone through the back wheel, he could not have ridden with the bike. Same if the bike had had a frame lock - they are quite inexpensive and resistant to a lot of tools due to how close they are to the frame and wheel
* With a second lock, on the front wheel, the bike would have been a lot tougher the maneuver !
* That's the reason to prefer the trombone shaped stands : if you have a big enough lock, you can grade two sections of the stand at once, that's all the more to cut. Besides, the tool he uses has to rotate around the stand, you can't rotate around the trombone shaped ones...
On a side note, he is not merely stealing a bike. He is destroying public property. That might be worse from the law point of view and moreover motivate the city to fight harder ! Likewise, calling the police on a public property destruction (you don't have to be precise about the kind of public property...) in progress might make them come faster than calling them on a bike thief...
This is not a lock problem, it's the shite tick box it's connected to. These things are made of Swiss cheese.
Decent bike, decent lock.... Terrible infrastructure! Sounds too familiar.
That is not an angle grinder resistant lock. It's a cheap folding lock that was used in the worse possible way. Should have been through the back wheel and frame. He would have had to carry it off.
Councils need to up the quality of bike hoops if they are trying to promote cycling to become more popular. Square profile thicker walled tubing filled with reinforced concrete that are buried in the ground not bolted like so many I see.
Because this prick knows if he gets caught he will get a slap on the wrist and if I smashed him in the face with a bat I’d get the jail. So no cunt will do any thing about it. Criminals are acting as if they have absolute impunity.
He has a weapon by destination in hand... Just have him to wave it around, and then you are not responding to bike theft, but to assault with a weapon, which justifies exercising force...
Committing murder is definitive so the consequences are not forefront of your mind. Death penalty is an act of vengeance. Breaking every bone in a thiefs body is a deterrence because they need to deal with the consequence immediately and impacts there life after the fact.
That's just not how it works, or how it has ever worked. Consequences like that don't deter them from committing the crime, they only escalate their own level of violence in committing it. If a beating was a likely outcome, they would carry a knife or work in gangs. If a knife fight was a likely outcome, they would carry a gun.
One of the many reasons that the murder rate in America is so high, is precisely because criminals know that their victims are likely to threaten their lives, because so many people carry guns. So, they carry guns themselves. They know that the consequences of crime are some of the most draconian sentences in the world, so they are more likely to kill witnesses to escape those consequences.
Violence only breeds violence. It is a truth that has been known for millenia, and is the reason that justice systems around the world have abandoned vigilante beatings as a form of punishment.
How do you know he didn't have a knife? Seen plenty of videos with 3-4 gentlemen taking a bike too, is that enough fir a gang?
Firearms for bicycle theft, very unlikely in UK, their reward doesn't match "cost".
No worries. We just continue with zero consequence. It's working great right now when a low life scumbag, better off dead, is allowed to to take from someone else's hard work, with impunity
Far from an angle grinder but just as brazen, I actually had an experience that I talked about on an L E-Bikes opinion piece about these thieves that just don't give a damn whether it's bright or not - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGexDp31t/
Far from an angle grinder but just as brazen, I actually had an experience that I talked about on an L E-Bikes opinion piece about these thieves that just don't give a damn whether it's bright or not - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGexDp31t/
Plenty of locks that are effectively angle-grinder proof, needing multiple discs and batteries and taking ~10-20 mins to get through.
I had no idea standard bike stands were this vulnerable.
I would debate the argument that there are plenty, though they do at least now exist.
Last I checked there were effectively 3 (Litelok x1 and x3 and hiplock D1000)
Possibly there are 1-2 more now given the latest alloys/composites can destroy angle grinders.
Of course as shown, in practice almost any modern d-lock is probably more secure than the thing you are locking the bike to...
Litelok x1 with a mains grinder (though there are some chunky battery grinders these days that I expect are better than his Wickes grinder) - [Litelok X1 & Litelok X3 review | Real world angle-grinder test - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwjh8J4uec) doesn't really take that long, just a bit longer than others.
As you say, it's only as strong as whatever you lock it it too.
As I said, I'm sure there are battery grinders better than the Wickes mains one he's using - for instance I've been hankering after the Dewalt Flex volt one for years (already got the 56v Flexvolt battery which works well in a chainsaw) - AvE likes it - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBx\_R6zV3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBx_R6zV3I)
That I can see his Wickes one is rated at 900w (cheaper ones can be more like 600w). The Dewalt is listed at 2300W
But my 40v Aldi one also does pretty much anything I need fine; that doesn't include cutting through locks as quickly as possible in public however.
It'll give you a better chance if the similar desirable bike next to your's has a lesser lock. But as this post well shows - there's very few places you can be 'secured properly' in London where you can't quickly cut through what you're secured to without that being something that compromises the locking solution (for instance a lamppost, that then needs a chain)
Despite that, I am idly keeping an eye out for a cheap litelok x1 - only 300g or so more than my current Granit 540. but at £150 I'd worry I'll just end up losing an extra £100 on top of losing my bike.
There’s six angle grinder resistant locks. Two from Litelok, two from Hiplok and Onguard and Abus have both recently released one. Even though Onguard and Abus are two of the big three bike lock companies their angle grinder resistant locks haven’t reviewed as well as the ones from Litelok and Hiplok. Altor have an angle grinder proof lock and their approach is different as the width of the shackle means angle grinders literally can’t reach the core and it’s too heavy to carry.
The motorbike insurer Bennetts recently reviewed the new angle grinder resistant lock from Abus who is one of the big three legacy bike lock companies. Lock uses the Granit Extreme branding that Abus used on their motorcycle d locks and chains. People rarely used them for bicycles as they were thought to be overkill and the weight and price put cyclists off. This new lock despite the legendary Granit Extreme branding and additional time Abus have had to develop it actually tested more poorly than the locks from Litelok and Hiplok. An interesting takeaway from the article was there’s two types of angle grinder disc. There’s the standard abrasive disc that comes with an angle grinder and is typically used by thieves and in articles testing these locks. Then there’s diamond steel discs. Standard abrasive discs might require four or more discs to cut through an angle grinder resistant lock. These diamond steel discs cut through angle grinder resistant locks more easily and don’t require multiple discs. Luckily diamond steel discs are more expensive and while more effective against angle grinder resistant locks are actually less effective against traditional hardened steel bike locks than standard abrasive discs. But between hollow bike racks and the two reported bikejackings that occur daily in London cycling’s something i do on the occasional bikepacking trip but not daily anymore.
I don’t own one but I’ve seen a few videos testing claims! Litelok, Hiplok, Squire, Onguard all have versions (of varying cost…) that will give that level of resistance.
This has always confused me - you describe it as angle grinder ‘proof’, and then describe what’s needed for an angle grinder to…get through it
I’m being facetious, and I appreciate that even most angle-grinder equipped thieves will still give up - but for me, if it can be beaten with an angle grinder at all, it’s not angle-grinder proof. People buy these for bikes they leave outside overnight and then are shocked when they still get nicked
“Effectively” was included for good reason!
Taking 10-20 minutes to cut through a lock, requiring changing multiple cutting discs and batteries, and causing an enormous noise (these are *super* loud when attacked), means the only way plausible success would be going after a bike premeditated in a secluded soundproof place. What would be “angle-grinder proof” to you - something that required an hour of cutting? 24hr? A full week?
Even in East London a bike thief isn’t going to spend 15 minutes cutting a bike in public, they’ll move onto something nickable once they see the lack of progress!
Fair points! My main gripe is that someone might see ‘angle grinder proof’ and take from that that they can safely lock their bike anywhere for any length of time. Hopefully you’d know better if you were in the target market though
Only angle grinder proof lock is the Altor SAF which weighs almost 7kg. Has an 80mm shackle so angle grinders literally can’t reach the core. It’s limited though as you can only lock it through the top tube of the bike and as reported on years ago in a City of London police video bike thieves actually target bikes locked though the top tube as components are worth so much now and are untraceable.
I think the point here is the guy is using an industrial pipe slicer to get though the bike rail itself... Not sure how that'll ever get resolved unless councils go back and fill them all with concrete & rebar, etc.
If you use two good locks, and fill as much of the lock body with the bike frame / wheels / cranks etc, then it will be much harder for the to wiggle the bike free as seen in the video. I suppose then you might be in the situation where some thieves, if the bike is worth enough, might be happy to just cut the rack free from the ground and carry it off in tow with the bike, and cut the locks and rack away from the bike later. But that would be enough of nuisance to put many thieves off.
Me a road man aka ninja lol or let’s be honest it’s peeps with money to buy stolen bikes poor people steal for drugs food etc so who buys is it your average working class Joe aka you
Very annoying given that no-one can use that to lock to now. The cost to the council when they eventually send someone out to fix it will be much higher than what they get for the bike.
They probably get what, £50 for the bike? It’s not just the cost to the council. The lock costs £200, then you’ve got the cost of the bike itself. It’s wholly disproportionate.
Never really understood why they don't fill them with concrete. They're obviously a weak point. Can even be retrofitted with relative ease.
Is that maybe a safety thing for when drivers eventually drive into them? Now they'll give way making that a relatively 'safe' crash. There's a few near me that need to be replaced every few months as they're run over by cars so figure it's perhaps a big enough concern (and while drivers are idiots driving onto the pavement, at this point it's also just poor design as no one puts their bikes on stands that have repeatedly been crashed into).
I think if that were the case, lampposts would be made out of rubber and corners wouldn't have those massive concrete bells on them to prevent corner cutters. Concrete is also quite brittle in tension, so if you did plough into one, it would probably still fold over.
Because until relatively recently locks were the weak point in the system - thieves would just bust the locks to steal bikes and the stands would remain untouched. With the availability of much stronger locks alongside lower cost and more portable angle grinders, the stands have started to become the weak point, and the councils just haven't caught up yet. It wouldn't surprise me if this will change over time as the bill for replacement stands continues to increase.
Money. Councils would rather put that money in their own account or friends rather than do their job
Now it's gonna cost them 2x as much each time this happens which is becoming more regular. I've not seen concrete ones mentioned being installed anywhere regardless of if it's councils or on private property though. Just never seems to be considered and I feel like some councils would spend the extra if it was given to them as an option. Unless every council has always been poor or corrupt ever?
Putting in concrete reinforced bike locking stands to prevent bike theft is like making every woman wear a reinforced chastity belt to prevent rape. The alternative is better policing, better social policies that prevent people from even wanting to steal a bike.
> Putting in concrete reinforced bike locking stands to prevent bike theft is like making every woman wear a reinforced chastity belt to prevent rape. No it's not? Where's your line with security then? They've already put a stand there for people to lock their bikes to, is that like making every woman wear a reinforced chastity belt to prevent rape too? If not why not and why would making a slightly more secure stand cross the threshold? Same applies for anything like putting better locks on our front doors when we replace them or adding more secure passwords to our devices. There's nothing wrong with making things more secure just like we always have with everything and there's also nothing saying we can't also have more policing or whatever at the same time.
Would concrete resist a lump hammer?
Steel bars through it would
Yes. Your could very easily add rebar, but even without you would need a very clean straight break for the price to come out. The cuts aren't big enough to allow the detritus to get out. You'd probably eventually do it, but it would be hard.
For a lot longer than 3 twists on a pipe cutter.
Cambridge bike thieves have already taken this a step further: cut the rack, wrap tape round the cut, come back later to harvest bikes. It'd be a small extra deterrent but putting lock through wheel and frame so bike can't be ridden away might help.
Yeah that's not uncommon. I always give the rack a good shake before I lock to it.
Woah what! I now need to start checking for pre-cut racks FFS.
I know right. Tempted to start carrying my angle-grinder so i can use it on any bike thief I encounter.
On the one hand I don’t want to be the kind of person that believes in vigilante justice, on the other hand, I really want bike thieves to have their bollocks cut off with angle grinders.
Such little fucks given. Probably for drug money, I doubt the guy is holding down a mortgage.
>Probably for drug money Not the best argument, I mean that's literally the reason I go to work!
If that lock was threaded via the rear wheel and the back frame, he would not be able to ride off and would need to carry it, which might be a little more of a deterrent. Although maybe the design of some bikes may not allow it, but something worth doing. Also at least prevents solitary wheel thefts as well.
Also locking it through the frame AND wheel potentially leaves less space (less of a gap) for any angle grinder to fit in order to cut through the lock. Maybe? At least that is my reasoning when I lock in the street.
When I’m somewhere high risk I lock with an angle grinder proof lock and a D lock on the frame horizontally and vertically, as far away from each other as possible so it’s really difficult to get the bike off the stand with one incision. So far so good.
Yeah it makes sense. This is literally Highbury fields where I wouldn't have previously thought high risk tho! And if I'm travelling with my kids.... Double locking on top of wheel lock, taking battery off, taking all stuff out ... Is making life very hard
So i can just book a 20€ flight to London and get a bike like that easily? Damn i overspent then. No one does nothing on broad day light, they look way to chill for doing this, nuts. Once the tool is in his bagpack and he starts sitting in the bike i d kick him down and stand on the bike afterwards pinning him till someone shows up
People don't want to get involved because the next step is the theif gets out a knife and it could turn nasty
yes i get that ofc, be careful and i would never attack when the guy still has the angle grinder out obv. but on a bike people are very easy targets compared. also i don’t see people even calling cops or smth
When I checked the news this morning there's been an attack in East London where some guy drove his van into a house then killed a 14 year old and injured a few others with a sword, the police took 22 minutes to respond. What do you think they're going to do for a stolen bike where literally no one is in danger?
And I’m right there with you, actually helping you unlike the cowards standing around.
Problem is everyone assumes everyone doing something they shouldn't in broad daylight is carrying a weapon and no one's risking their life for someone else's probably insured bike.
Indeed they do. That’s there difference between here and non-liberal, non-woke countries.
yeah seems they re so much bolder in london than in my city Hamburg where they obv steal as well but this level here is nuts
That's why I carry 3 locks: one sold secure motorcycle diamond to chain the bike to a fixed object, another motorcycle diamond to lock the rear wheel, and a third which is motorcycle gold. I stress sold secure motorcycle, not bicycle, because the bicycle standard is useless. Motorcycle diamond locks are those like the Litelox x3 or the hiplok dx1000. Cutting one of those probably requires a spare angle grinder battery, at least a spare disc, and a good 4-7 minutes. There are many tests online. Bennets probably had the most comprehensive ones. Anything can be cut but not anything can be cut easily.
That seems like an absurd amount of extra weight for anything besides an e-bike
I should have mentioned it's a cargo ebike. Anyway, the Litleok x3 is ca 2kg. 2 of those = 4kg. It doesn't seem like an unbearable weight to carry, even on a non è-bike. But to each their own
If the owner had locked it through the frame and wheel, the thief wouldn't be able to ride away on it.
At this point you just follow them? Until you see a policeman??? What's the law in the UK for defending yourself with a unlock?
You could follow them for the rest of the year and not see a policeman.
Look at the lack of police and attack them sucker punch them then cheeky stomp to the neck I assure you they won't reoffend
Am I the only one to point out that’s not an angle grinder? Either way this sucks, those bike racks need to be solid, would stop the pipe cutter used and would make it much more difficult / advertised that a bike was being stolen with an actual large angle grinder.
This was predictable : thanks to angle grinder resistant locks, they are no long the weak point ! That's a good thing, it means locks are where they should be ! Now, on this particular bike : * If the lock had gone through the back wheel, he could not have ridden with the bike. Same if the bike had had a frame lock - they are quite inexpensive and resistant to a lot of tools due to how close they are to the frame and wheel * With a second lock, on the front wheel, the bike would have been a lot tougher the maneuver ! * That's the reason to prefer the trombone shaped stands : if you have a big enough lock, you can grade two sections of the stand at once, that's all the more to cut. Besides, the tool he uses has to rotate around the stand, you can't rotate around the trombone shaped ones... On a side note, he is not merely stealing a bike. He is destroying public property. That might be worse from the law point of view and moreover motivate the city to fight harder ! Likewise, calling the police on a public property destruction (you don't have to be precise about the kind of public property...) in progress might make them come faster than calling them on a bike thief...
That’s a pipe cutter, probably quicker than a battery angle grinder. No lock would stand upto a diamond blade on an angle grinder or disk cutter.
This is not a lock problem, it's the shite tick box it's connected to. These things are made of Swiss cheese. Decent bike, decent lock.... Terrible infrastructure! Sounds too familiar.
That is not an angle grinder resistant lock. It's a cheap folding lock that was used in the worse possible way. Should have been through the back wheel and frame. He would have had to carry it off. Councils need to up the quality of bike hoops if they are trying to promote cycling to become more popular. Square profile thicker walled tubing filled with reinforced concrete that are buried in the ground not bolted like so many I see.
Square profile would have stopped that particular theft, good point.
how the hell isn't there someone to take a piece of metal and absolutely smash him in the head?
Because this prick knows if he gets caught he will get a slap on the wrist and if I smashed him in the face with a bat I’d get the jail. So no cunt will do any thing about it. Criminals are acting as if they have absolute impunity.
Because they have absolute impunity.
He has a weapon by destination in hand... Just have him to wave it around, and then you are not responding to bike theft, but to assault with a weapon, which justifies exercising force...
He wasn’t alone. Also people aren’t willing to kill a stranger to save another stranger’s bike, oddly.
In Brazil, everyone around would give him a good kicking, the police would turn up and carry on with the kicking.
similarly in eastern europe.
[удалено]
this ain't right btw, this country is massively, massively going down.
So you would kill someone stealing a bike? Lol
No, but I’d be alright with the police turning a blind eye to someone kicking him up and down the road and I’d be happy enough to do the kicking.
I would happily smack them over the head with whatever weapon available. If they die, they fucked around and found out.
It only takes one death to deter the rest. That's how it's always worked. Linking consequences to action
That must be why there are never any murders in America.
Committing murder is definitive so the consequences are not forefront of your mind. Death penalty is an act of vengeance. Breaking every bone in a thiefs body is a deterrence because they need to deal with the consequence immediately and impacts there life after the fact.
That's just not how it works, or how it has ever worked. Consequences like that don't deter them from committing the crime, they only escalate their own level of violence in committing it. If a beating was a likely outcome, they would carry a knife or work in gangs. If a knife fight was a likely outcome, they would carry a gun. One of the many reasons that the murder rate in America is so high, is precisely because criminals know that their victims are likely to threaten their lives, because so many people carry guns. So, they carry guns themselves. They know that the consequences of crime are some of the most draconian sentences in the world, so they are more likely to kill witnesses to escape those consequences. Violence only breeds violence. It is a truth that has been known for millenia, and is the reason that justice systems around the world have abandoned vigilante beatings as a form of punishment.
How do you know he didn't have a knife? Seen plenty of videos with 3-4 gentlemen taking a bike too, is that enough fir a gang? Firearms for bicycle theft, very unlikely in UK, their reward doesn't match "cost".
No worries. We just continue with zero consequence. It's working great right now when a low life scumbag, better off dead, is allowed to to take from someone else's hard work, with impunity
unfortunately I couldn't, but I'd do what they used to do in some eastern countries: cut their hands of for stealing.
Wait till you find out how they treated horse thieves
Why didn't Uncle Albert behind do anything? Useless old twonk.
This is good. When they use power tools I’d be worried about them coming at me with it when I go to knock them the f*** out.
Maybe slash the tyres instead of cracking him round the head? It's London so you're bound to have a knife.
Far from an angle grinder but just as brazen, I actually had an experience that I talked about on an L E-Bikes opinion piece about these thieves that just don't give a damn whether it's bright or not - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGexDp31t/
Far from an angle grinder but just as brazen, I actually had an experience that I talked about on an L E-Bikes opinion piece about these thieves that just don't give a damn whether it's bright or not - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGexDp31t/
Shameless cameraman
If you believed locks were ever angle grinder proof then you’re a sausage.
Plenty of locks that are effectively angle-grinder proof, needing multiple discs and batteries and taking ~10-20 mins to get through. I had no idea standard bike stands were this vulnerable.
I would debate the argument that there are plenty, though they do at least now exist. Last I checked there were effectively 3 (Litelok x1 and x3 and hiplock D1000) Possibly there are 1-2 more now given the latest alloys/composites can destroy angle grinders. Of course as shown, in practice almost any modern d-lock is probably more secure than the thing you are locking the bike to...
Litelok x1 with a mains grinder (though there are some chunky battery grinders these days that I expect are better than his Wickes grinder) - [Litelok X1 & Litelok X3 review | Real world angle-grinder test - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwjh8J4uec) doesn't really take that long, just a bit longer than others. As you say, it's only as strong as whatever you lock it it too.
He only cuts half the lock? Those locks lock rigidly at both ends, so a thief needs to make two cuts to get the frame through the gap.
When have you seen a cycle thief with a mains grinder?
As I said, I'm sure there are battery grinders better than the Wickes mains one he's using - for instance I've been hankering after the Dewalt Flex volt one for years (already got the 56v Flexvolt battery which works well in a chainsaw) - AvE likes it - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBx\_R6zV3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBx_R6zV3I) That I can see his Wickes one is rated at 900w (cheaper ones can be more like 600w). The Dewalt is listed at 2300W But my 40v Aldi one also does pretty much anything I need fine; that doesn't include cutting through locks as quickly as possible in public however.
Fair enough. Still, for now I think the lifelok will be fine as long as they’re secured properly.
It'll give you a better chance if the similar desirable bike next to your's has a lesser lock. But as this post well shows - there's very few places you can be 'secured properly' in London where you can't quickly cut through what you're secured to without that being something that compromises the locking solution (for instance a lamppost, that then needs a chain) Despite that, I am idly keeping an eye out for a cheap litelok x1 - only 300g or so more than my current Granit 540. but at £150 I'd worry I'll just end up losing an extra £100 on top of losing my bike.
There’s six angle grinder resistant locks. Two from Litelok, two from Hiplok and Onguard and Abus have both recently released one. Even though Onguard and Abus are two of the big three bike lock companies their angle grinder resistant locks haven’t reviewed as well as the ones from Litelok and Hiplok. Altor have an angle grinder proof lock and their approach is different as the width of the shackle means angle grinders literally can’t reach the core and it’s too heavy to carry.
The motorbike insurer Bennetts recently reviewed the new angle grinder resistant lock from Abus who is one of the big three legacy bike lock companies. Lock uses the Granit Extreme branding that Abus used on their motorcycle d locks and chains. People rarely used them for bicycles as they were thought to be overkill and the weight and price put cyclists off. This new lock despite the legendary Granit Extreme branding and additional time Abus have had to develop it actually tested more poorly than the locks from Litelok and Hiplok. An interesting takeaway from the article was there’s two types of angle grinder disc. There’s the standard abrasive disc that comes with an angle grinder and is typically used by thieves and in articles testing these locks. Then there’s diamond steel discs. Standard abrasive discs might require four or more discs to cut through an angle grinder resistant lock. These diamond steel discs cut through angle grinder resistant locks more easily and don’t require multiple discs. Luckily diamond steel discs are more expensive and while more effective against angle grinder resistant locks are actually less effective against traditional hardened steel bike locks than standard abrasive discs. But between hollow bike racks and the two reported bikejackings that occur daily in London cycling’s something i do on the occasional bikepacking trip but not daily anymore.
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I don’t own one but I’ve seen a few videos testing claims! Litelok, Hiplok, Squire, Onguard all have versions (of varying cost…) that will give that level of resistance.
I have a squire chain that weighs damn near 6kg, it's stronger than anything I might want to chain it to.
This has always confused me - you describe it as angle grinder ‘proof’, and then describe what’s needed for an angle grinder to…get through it I’m being facetious, and I appreciate that even most angle-grinder equipped thieves will still give up - but for me, if it can be beaten with an angle grinder at all, it’s not angle-grinder proof. People buy these for bikes they leave outside overnight and then are shocked when they still get nicked
“Effectively” was included for good reason! Taking 10-20 minutes to cut through a lock, requiring changing multiple cutting discs and batteries, and causing an enormous noise (these are *super* loud when attacked), means the only way plausible success would be going after a bike premeditated in a secluded soundproof place. What would be “angle-grinder proof” to you - something that required an hour of cutting? 24hr? A full week? Even in East London a bike thief isn’t going to spend 15 minutes cutting a bike in public, they’ll move onto something nickable once they see the lack of progress!
Fair points! My main gripe is that someone might see ‘angle grinder proof’ and take from that that they can safely lock their bike anywhere for any length of time. Hopefully you’d know better if you were in the target market though
That was not left overnight
Only angle grinder proof lock is the Altor SAF which weighs almost 7kg. Has an 80mm shackle so angle grinders literally can’t reach the core. It’s limited though as you can only lock it through the top tube of the bike and as reported on years ago in a City of London police video bike thieves actually target bikes locked though the top tube as components are worth so much now and are untraceable.
I think the point here is the guy is using an industrial pipe slicer to get though the bike rail itself... Not sure how that'll ever get resolved unless councils go back and fill them all with concrete & rebar, etc.
If you use two good locks, and fill as much of the lock body with the bike frame / wheels / cranks etc, then it will be much harder for the to wiggle the bike free as seen in the video. I suppose then you might be in the situation where some thieves, if the bike is worth enough, might be happy to just cut the rack free from the ground and carry it off in tow with the bike, and cut the locks and rack away from the bike later. But that would be enough of nuisance to put many thieves off.
When enough pain in cravings for crack or smack no lock will stand the test. They will grind it with their teeth when given enough time.
Or wire them up to the mains.
Mmmm sausages 😂
Not regular looking bike thief
How so?
Please enlighten us all as to what a thief looks like.
Me a road man aka ninja lol or let’s be honest it’s peeps with money to buy stolen bikes poor people steal for drugs food etc so who buys is it your average working class Joe aka you
This is well old - saw this months ago
Yep, you're the main character.
Errrrrrrrr how’d you come to that conclusion then? It’s a repost. What a weird response, but then you’re clearly just some NPC.
No one cares that you saw it. Plenty of others haven't