10 OF THE BEST… BIKE LOCKS
On the face of it, the easing of lockdown restrictions in the UK has been a good thing for cyclists and cycling. We can get out on our bikes without worrying that we’re breaking a vague guideline, more people are taking to two wheels, and the government has put bikes front and centre of its policy and investment plans.
There has been a downside, though. According to figures from national cycle database BikeRegister, bike theft is up postlockdown. In June alone, reported thefts increased by 48 per cent compared to the same month in 2019. This means that cyclists, experienced and new alike, need to be more vigilant than ever when it comes to securing their rides. To help you keep your pride and joy (or even the old clunker you’ve just rediscovered in the shed) secure, read on to discover our pick of the locks…
In June 2020, bike theft increased by 48 per cent compared to the same month the previous year
How we tested
Over the two decades that we’ve been putting together our intensive lock tests, we’ve always used a combination of manual and power tools, plus force and finesse, to try to break the locks under scrutiny. We've travelled far to put them under even greater pressure this time around. The findings for this particular selection of locks are based on testing we've undertaken in the state-of-the-art labs of a security manufacturer, Having been shown how to use its machines to the peak of the hardware's powers, we then devised a series of separate tests that simulated the different ways a lock can be attacked and broken. See p70 for a rundown of the tests that we performed.
