Adventure Bike Rider Forum

Monring all,

Its time to secure my bike. I have a ground anchor and chain but I want to know if there is a decent, light and cheap chain and padlock set to taking on trips. I fear those three attributes are mutually exclusive, please prove me wrong.

Cheers

Bren

Here's what I'd do.

Get a cheap light alarmed cable lock. Easy enough to cut, but doing so will make the alarm sound. You can use this to secure the bike and luggage etc.

Also buy a decent heavy-duty combination padlock. Put this through the chain/rear sprocket of the bike. this makes the bike impossible to wheel away.

Motorcycle theft is less of a problem in most foreign countries than it is here. Also if you are just parking up for the night somewhere, it's unlikely your bike will be targeted...sad to relate most bikes are stolen from regular overnight parking places.

Me and my dad were talking about this yesterday and he told me a bit about working for United Utilities and a load of old rusted ABUS locks they had.
He tried a to cut one of the locks with a good expensive pair of bolt croppers and dented the jaws so he then tried the cheap 50 quid pair and they cut through the lock with no damage to the jaws!
Being a bit gobsmacked he then tried a few more locks and the cheap croppers cut through them all.
Took a bit of work but he could cut the hasp on any of them, these were top of the range Abus locks but a few years old hence the reason they were being thrown away.

Anyway my thinking on this is just to make it awkward to take the bike, so some form of lock onto something else like another bike or object and steering lock on plus anything else you can think of at the time.
I think that the best protection is keeping it out of sight, probably works better for those times your only there one night.

I've thought about one of those alarm locks as well, might just give you the warning you need.

Steve

Richard Simpson wrote: Also buy a decent heavy-duty combination padlock. Put this through the chain/rear sprocket of the bike. this makes the bike impossible to wheel away.

Thanks (thumbs)
Is it better than putting it through the rear disc?

I used an alarmed disc lock in the garage but have often thought it may get moved by a gust of wind outdoors. Anyone use them outside?

Elle wrote:

Richard Simpson wrote: Also buy a decent heavy-duty combination padlock. Put this through the chain/rear sprocket of the bike. this makes the bike impossible to wheel away.

Thanks (thumbs)
Is it better than putting it through the rear disc?

I used an alarmed disc lock in the garage but have often thought it may get moved by a gust of wind outdoors. Anyone use them outside?

Yes I use a very expensive ABUS alarmed disc lock which has been fine outside until 1am one morning on a campsite in Ireland and of course it was pissing with rain when I had to remove the batteries to shut it up never worked properly since so I leave the batteries out, only problem with that is you can forget to remove it . . . :whistle:

Elle wrote:

Richard Simpson wrote: Also buy a decent heavy-duty combination padlock. Put this through the chain/rear sprocket of the bike. this makes the bike impossible to wheel away.

Thanks (thumbs)
Is it better than putting it through the rear disc?

Much better than putting it through the disc. You can smash the disc off, or just unbolt it.

Try smashing or removing a sprocket, much more difficult as they are thicker and made from tougher material, and the fact that there's a drive chain around it makes it even more so. Plus you can ride a bike with no back brake...but not one with no chain/sprocket.

You can pick a keyed padlock by 'bumping', but you can't bump a combination one...and nor can you lose the key.

The only thing is that the padlock is not much of a visual deterrent, so that's why I'd suggest the alarmed cable...you can also loop it through luggage etc.

I've had a few different alarmed disc locks, and they are rubbish. I even had one jam on: luckily at home; and it was really easy to cut off with a Dremmel. Waste of money IMO.

Regarding forgetting to take lock off and riding away:

My foolproof way of avoiding this is to have a bit of small tubing (battery breather tube perhaps) When you use disc or padlock lock you take tube off the lock key and slide it over ignition key. It's then impossible to insert into ignition.

Easy solution as long as the bit of tube fits both keys nice and snug.

Back it up with one of those curly cords from lock to front brake lever and hopefully no lock mishaps should happen

I have had one of the alarmed disc locks (a Xena in my case) and like Richard's it just went off randomly. The batteries eventually died and I never bothered to replace them! It does fit perfectly the side of the bash plate of my EXC for storage in motion (the EXC of course not having an ignition switch, although it does have an old fashioned steering lock in the side of the head tube but I never got the key when I bought the bike, I doubt it's up to much anyway.

I use a Kryptonite Evo mini U Lock as a disc lock and always use a curly reminder cable to the front brake to avoid embarassment. Several people have asked if it's some sort of alarm!

Generally that's all I take on trips

i had a big fat ass motrax chain cut through twice, my bike was stolen a total of 4 times, it was saved the first 3 times by a hidden kill switch, cheap, simple and very efficient. all it takes is either an old ignition switch wired into the ignition circuit before the actual ignition switch, or just an on/off switch in the same place. on my VF i have a battery kill switch with key that i always turn off.
my bike only got stolen the last time as it was stolen when it was in my trailer when i was emmigrating, im betting they didnt start it even tho the key was in it.

There are locks that you can buy industrial ones that are linked to the internet and let you know if they have been opened or broken into. Don't know what they are called I seen them at ifsec in 2013