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New bike, which lock?
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arciere
Posts: 1,361 Forumite

I've just ordered a bike from Halfords and while I wait for the delivery I am looking at bicycle locks.
I think I have narrowed it down to the Kryptonite New York Standard and the Abus Granit X Plus 540. Does anybody have any experience with them or any other recommendation?
I think I have narrowed it down to the Kryptonite New York Standard and the Abus Granit X Plus 540. Does anybody have any experience with them or any other recommendation?
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I bought a Abus Granit-54 X-Plus - Black, 30cm in 2013. I left it at my workplace. Never attacked. Felt very heavy and strong. You want to make sure it is long enough to go through frame, back wheel and something immovable. The reviews warn you to never lose your key as you will never get them off. Quite heavy to travel around with if you are planning on that. Really need to know value of bike, area and whether you are travelling with it or leaving it somewhere. We used to get people who spent £1000 on a cycle to work bike and then leave them with the flimsiest of cables. Then they were upset when their bike went and they still had to pay for it.1
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Thanks, value of the bike is £450, so not super expensive but not cheap either.
I will be mainly using it at weekends for fun, so no road trips to central London for now. But if I do decide to take it to work, I'd rather not have the anxiety of having bought a not-so-good lock.
The Abus is around 1.5 kg, the Kryptonite is 500 g heavier. I haven't been cycling in ages, but if you reckon that 1.5 kg is heavy to carry around, I'd definitely ditch the Kryptonite one.
On the plus side, I managed to get a reasonable (?) bike insurance for around £6/month.0 -
The New York ones always looked very short. It's normally easy to get your rear wheel and frame in the lock but getting a post in too can be tricky. I went for the longer Abus. Longer equals heavier though. Could you work out exactly what you need for your work and leave a heavy one there and get a cheaper one for weekends? Or get a heavy one and see if the weight bothers you? Weight doesn't really matter until you go uphill.0
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I'm a very satisfied Abus user of many years. That's what I'd go for.0
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Ok, I think I will go for the Abus. The other thing that I need to consider is that I will not store the bike inside the house, but in a semi-hidden wooden shed, so I will probably need to anchor that lock somehow to the floor.0
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I think the Abus Granit locks are pretty bombproof so you won't go wrong with one of those. Having said this, because one of my main family bikes is a cargo bike (and you need a long chain really to secure this properly), when we got it, about five years ago, I purchased a 6ft length of 7mm thick chain link, put this into an old inner tube (in fact two inner tubes, cut to length and gaffer taped together) and this, together with a serious padlock is what I use to chain the bike up when I'm out and about. The bike is worth over £2k so I want it to be safe, but so far, so good.
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Michael
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
-- Dom Helder Camara0 -
arciere said:Ok, I think I will go for the Abus. The other thing that I need to consider is that I will not store the bike inside the house, but in a semi-hidden wooden shed, so I will probably need to anchor that lock somehow to the floor.0
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The dutch use a lot of bicycle frame locks which just stop the back wheel from moving. They only deter other cyclists. There is nothing to stop you just lifting it up and putting it in the back of a Transit van. I was always amazed how many people just left their bikes with those on. I would always advise locking back wheel to frame to immovable object.0
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