How to steal a bike

[citoyen]

It's really remarkably easy, you know.

As mentioned in the div thread, I locked up my bike yesterday morning then lost the key. I can only possibly have dropped it within a very small area, but despite thorough searching, I didn't find it.

This morning, I asked around at various places to see if it had been handed in. No joy. Then phoned a local locksmith to see if they could help. Sure, they could - but they very kindly warned me it would cost me in excess of £100.

So, on to plan C...

I got a set of bolt cutters from Screwfix - went for the mid-range ones, thinking the low-end might not be powerful enough, but also didn't want to spend too much. Even so, they're only officially rated to cut up to 10mm and the shackle of my lock is 13mm. Some internet research suggested that I'd struggle to cut through the hardened steel with these, but I found a site that recommended using a hacksaw fitted with a carbide grit rod saw blade (as used for tile cutting). So I also picked up one of these from B&Q.

I tried the saw first - thought it would make me look less like a hardened criminal than carrying round a bloody great set of bolt cutters (they're really quite hefty). Did the trick nicely. Quite slow going, mind - took me about half an hour to cut all the way through, including breaks to rest my hand (it's quite tiring work), and I had to swap the blade round about 3/4 of the way through because it was getting blunt. Probably could have done with getting a spare blade or two. I don't know why, but the last few mm seemed to be the hardest to cut through. Fortunately, I only needed to cut once - that allowed enough wiggle room to release the bike.

I'm slightly disappointed that no one challenged me while I was doing it. Perhaps I look too honest. Or perhaps it was the fact that I was being brazen enough to do it in broad daylight in a busy place - plenty of people walked past, and only a couple even bothered to give me a slightly suspicious look.

When I got home, I thought I'd have a bit of fun and see how I got on with the bolt cutters... Blimey. It was surprisingly easy to cut through the shackle. I used my foot to put my full weight through the handle but even so, I'm not all that heavy!

So, there you go. I'm not sharing this as an instructional guide to thieves - I'm sure they know all this already. But it is worth knowing should you ever find yourself in the same situation as me.

Also a stark reminder that however secure you think your bike lock is, there's really not a lot that will stop a determined, well-armed, knowledgeable thief.

[citoyen]

Some pictures...

This was how far I'd got after about 20 minutes of sawing...

"stealing" my bike by citoyen, on Flickr

Finally, job done...

"stealing" my bike by citoyen, on Flickr

You'll note it's a fairly clean, smooth cut. With the bolt cutters, it's much rougher - I think the shackle actually snapped when I was about halfway through cutting it. Perhaps one of the forum engineers will be able to comment:

Like a hot knife through butter by citoyen, on Flickr

[αdαmsκι]

Years ago I locked a new Spesh Langster up in Islington as I nipped into supermarket. Locked with a decent D lock.

I came out to find someone had ripped out a 2 m or so stack that was supporting a tree and used it as a lever to explode the D lock. They had levered it against the lock, ie the weakest part. Probably took ~30 seconds.

Physics is awesome. Losing a new bike was not awesome.

[Jurek]

Following on from Stuaff's theft-of-Litespeed post in On the Road, I've commented to another forumite that I don't think a lock exists that is anything more then a mild deterrent.
I bought a pair of TiGr titanium locks (the same as I have) as a wedding present for a couple of cycling friends a few years ago.
He had his Brompton stolen, and the thieves had a good crack at her one with a battery-powered angle grinder, while the two of them enjoyed a meal in a restaurant.
It pisses me off as I thought I'd invested in some really top end security.
I have lots of tools - but I have very little capable of cutting Ti.
As to why they were leaving their Bromptons locked up outside and not taking them in.....  Let's not go there.
ETA - I cannot help but think that the likes of Abus, Kryptonite, TiGr et al have sold us a lemon and are, in reality, well behind the penetration curve, and the purchase of their products (or not) is for the benefit of the underwriters. 
I can open most locks with legally purchased lock picking tools in a non-destructive way.
ETFA - To that extent, does it make much difference whether you have a £5.00 lock or a >£100.00 lock?
Both will require the thief to access a tool which will cut the lock - I guess that the tool to cut the £5.00 lock may be cheaper than the tool to cut a £100.00 lock

[Andy64]

Bolt cutters will only cut so far, then the rest will shear. Probably due to the pressure being exerted, and how hard the steel is.

[Kim]

I'm slightly disappointed that no one challenged me while I was doing it. Perhaps I look too honest. Or perhaps it was the fact that I was being brazen enough to do it in broad daylight in a busy place - plenty of people walked past, and only a couple even bothered to give me a slightly suspicious look.

Probably because none of the passers-by were Cyclists.  Being white helps, based on anecdotes involving people of colour attracting police attention by being seen maintaining their own bikes, as I expect does not being a teenager.

But ultimately, if you fit the demographic of a typical contractor and rock up with a Turbo Nutter Bastard 3000 and the hi-vis jacket of invisibility, I'm sure you could get away with it every time.

On that basis, I consider the primary purpose of bike locks being to prevent opportunists from wandering off with your bike.  Or to satisfy insurance company requirements, where relevant.  There's an argument for locks that are secure against poorly-equipped bike thieves (and I think the D-lock plus cable lock principle has merit here, as it means you need different tools), but once they're having a go, it's down to time and luck.

Best approach is probably to ride a unicycle / upwrong trike, or keep a Brompton with you.

[quixoticgeek]

Following on from Stuaff's theft-of-Litespeed post in On the Road, I've commented to another forumite that I don't think a lock exists that is anything more then a mild deterrent.
I bought a pair of TiGr titanium locks (the same as I have) as a wedding present for a couple of cycling friends a few years ago.
He had his Brompton stolen, and the thieves had a good crack at her one with a battery-powered angle grinder, while the two of them enjoyed a meal in a restaurant.
It pisses me off as I thought I'd invested in some really top end security.

Um, Alas not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ0UCzi0Tpg

I have lots of tools - but I have very little capable of cutting Ti.
As to why they were leaving their Bromptons locked up outside and not taking them in.....  Let's not go there.
ETA - I cannot help but think that the likes of Abus, Kryptonite, TiGr et al have sold us a lemon and are, in reality, well behind the penetration curve, and the purchase of their products (or not) is for the benefit of the underwriters. 
I can open most locks with legally purchased lock picking tools in a non-destructive way.
ETFA - To that extent, does it make much difference whether you have a £5.00 lock or a >£100.00 lock?
Both will require the thief to access a tool which will cut the lock - I guess that the tool to cut the £5.00 lock may be cheaper than the tool to cut a £100.00 lock

When you can buy a battery powered angle grinder for less than the cost of some locks, yep, security is on the losing side of this one...

The popular Abus Bordo folding lock can be taken out with a relatively cheap nut splitter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs8uyPsDaw0

This tool is easy to carry, small, and rather effective it seems.

Very few bike thieves are going to mess around with picking, Esp when you get to things like disc detainer cores. The 540D Granit XPlus has the same core as the Bordo folding lock in the above picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtdiO1ZiiXk

It can be picked with a 50 euro tool. *BUT* it's a very high skilled attack, takes a lot of practice to get that good. Much better to just take an angle grinder to it.

Dear OP, which abus D lock did you have?

J

[perpetual dan]

I suspect the most secure lock would be one that goes bang quite forcefully if cut into. Best not to loose the keys though

[spesh]

I suspect the most secure lock would be one that goes bang quite forcefully if cut into. Best not to loose the keys though

I think the use of Claymore mines might be deprecated on the grounds that an aspiring bike thief - and much of the immediate surroundings - being shredded generates way too much paperwork. 

[citoyen]

Dear OP, which abus D lock did you have?

Not sure, it was quite old - I bought it well over 10 years ago - but I think a Granite. I remember making a point of getting a high end one at the time, seem to recall it cost me about £60, including a cable to go with it.

I can’t imagine the technology has really moved on that much in the intervening years.

My Pinhead lock, for which I also lost the key, was - I believe* - unpickable, but also quite difficult to open even if you had the correct key. This is one of the down sides of security - make things too secure and they keep the good guys out as well.



*hmm, better check this… yeah, as suspected, it took a few seconds searching the internet to disabuse myself of this stupid notion:
https://youtu.be/jPUx5eWtOEM

[citoyen]

I can open most locks with legally purchased lock picking tools in a non-destructive way.

Shame you weren’t in the Bubble today!

[Lightning Phil]

Should have got a wood saw.  Probably sawn through the wood in less than 20 mins.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I suspect the most secure lock would be one that goes bang quite forcefully if cut into. Best not to loose the keys though

I think the use of Claymore mines might be deprecated on the grounds that an aspiring bike thief - and much of the immediate surroundings - being shredded generates way too much paperwork. 

Skunk Lock:
https://youtu.be/gP9wLJhaBOE

[Tim Hall]

Some years ago a friend's daughter suffered from a jammed lock at a railway station in Leafy Surrey. I borrowed a battery powered disc cutter from work and put on my hi viz jacket.
The lock looked like it featured a heavy duty cable. However it only took roughly the time for the disc cutter to get up to speed before I was through it.  We were then able to see it consisted of a larger diameter spiral wrap of steel/cheese alloy round a 4mm or so diameter steel wire rope.

More recently on the London Sightseer Audax a couple of years ago I helped a rider who had lost his lock key. He'd left his, presumably, expensive bike locked to a stand outside the Velodrome in the Olympic Park, Stratford. Stratford, East London, not upon Avon. Such a beefy lock that I cut through the cable with my brake/gear cable cutters in one go.

And of course my late lamented Mercian went in the blink of an eye, locked with a Crap Lock outside a pub on the Southbank.
Some months later I was riding down the same road with Charlotte's favourite copper, Sgt Titus of The Yard. He pointed out two people who were casing the locked up bikes for likely appropriation plus one known bike thief.

I guess where I'm going is (a) many locks are crap. (ii) Think where you leave your bike. (3) Think about which bike you're leaving (if possible). (Sorry, possible veering into victim blaming here, which isn't my intention.)

[JonBuoy]

The popular Abus Bordo folding lock can be taken out with a relatively cheap nut splitter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs8uyPsDaw0

This tool is easy to carry, small, and rather effective it seems.

A nut splitter may indeed be small and easy to carry.  The bench vice and bench are not.

[ElyDave]

So looking at something to secure a new bike on tour later in the year, is there a general recommendation, proffering some degree of not adding an extra 5kg to the already substantial load.

I'm guessing my 15 year old plus Oxford cable lock is not really worth more than using for the railway station hack bike?

[Kim]

Touring's a special case IMHO, as the security concerns of your bags begins to dominate the problem.  A super-secure bike lock won't stop someone running off with or rifling through your panniers, and you can't carry four panniers while you wander round a tourist attraction, so you're probably not leaving the bike out of sight for much longer than it takes to visit the loo.

My preferred touring lock is currently a Bordo Lite.  To the untrained scrote it looks like a proper Brodo (ie. significantly more substantial than a cable lock), but it's not ridiculously heavy, is a bit more versatile than a D-lock (which is useful on campsites where you might want to lock to a tree or a fence or something) and - useful bonus - you can probably find somewhere for it to attach neatly to the bike frame in its little bracket thing.  I also discovered it works quite well as a hammer, should you find yourself having to apply Persuasion to a mechanical problem.  Obviously it's not going to last long against appropriate tools, but touring security is mostly about deterring opportunists, and in that respect I think it scores well by *looking* the part.

[woollypigs]

Don't look up Lock Picking Lawyer on the Tube. Only conclusion from watching a few of his videos, it no bother with locks anywhere what so ever. Some times it takes longer for you to "lock" your lock than it takes him to open your lock.

[Jurek]

Don't look up Lock Picking Lawyer on the Tube. Only conclusion from watching a few of his videos, it no bother with locks anywhere what so ever. Some times it takes longer for you to "lock" your lock than it takes him to open your lock.

I learned lots from LPL.

[ElyDave]

Touring's a special case IMHO, as the security concerns of your bags begins to dominate the problem.  A super-secure bike lock won't stop someone running off with or rifling through your panniers, and you can't carry four panniers while you wander round a tourist attraction, so you're probably not leaving the bike out of sight for much longer than it takes to visit the loo.

My preferred touring lock is currently a Bordo Lite.  To the untrained scrote it looks like a proper Brodo (ie. significantly more substantial than a cable lock), but it's not ridiculously heavy, is a bit more versatile than a D-lock (which is useful on campsites where you might want to lock to a tree or a fence or something) and - useful bonus - you can probably find somewhere for it to attach neatly to the bike frame in its little bracket thing.  I also discovered it works quite well as a hammer, should you find yourself having to apply Persuasion to a mechanical problem.  Obviously it's not going to last long against appropriate tools, but touring security is mostly about deterring opportunists, and in that respect I think it scores well by *looking* the part.

Thats pretty much where my thinking lies, one of those multi link locks, whilst not necessarily that much lighter is more easily stowed and if it looks marginally more difficult than the next bike, so much the better.

I also tend to put all my valuables in a dry bag that I can then take with me rather than carry everything, I might even label the others as spares, clothes, food etc. I'm also hoping that there aren't many thieves about places like Avebury, though Winchester, Salisbury may be more of a challenge.

The Foldylock also seems to have favourable reviews

[Feanor]

I had to cut through a D-lock on Junior's bike, which was locked to railings outside the back entrance of Waverly station in central Edinburgh.
He'd snapped the key off inside the lock.

It was a busy summer day, and hundreds of people must have seen me.
Not one person made the slightest of comment as I spent 5 minutes creating a shower of sparks with a battery powered angle grinder with a cutting disk.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Depends what you're doing while on tour. If you're going to be wandering around touristing in Salisbury and Winchester then it's a classic bike-in-town-centre situation; best to leave the luggage in your accommodation. If it's a case of stopping at Ye Olde Wearye Traveller's Inn for a pie ana pint, then I'm happy just leaving the bike totally unlocked.

[ElyDave]

It'll be a mix of both tbh. 
Start/finish at Winchester, day 1 passes through Salisbury, but stops too far up the road to be a case of drop luggage off and pootle back
Day 2 passes through Stonehenge/Avebury so not worried about those, finishes at Wantage where I can leave kit and pootle into town
Day 3 mostly Ridgeway
Day 4 Reading to Hindhead area with stuff to see on the way rather than stopping in towns
Day 5 back to Winchester

It's only really Salisbury/Winchester that are any cause for concern. The rest, as you say will be stopping at a wayside hostelry for sustenance

[mrcharly-YHT]

The most effective lock is one that that your insurance company will accept (i.e. they will payout if bike is stolen).

The spiral wrap mentioned by Tim is very difficult to cut with bolt-cutters. But easy to cut with battery-powered angle grinder.

I suspect, but haven't tested, that chain locks like the Kryptonite evolution type are difficult to cut with angle grinder, because it is harder to hold a single link stationary while cutting. D locks will be easy meat for a grinder.

All of the cutting tests I can find (on chains) fix a link in a vise. That isn't going to happen on the street.

[hubner]

Even the thickest and heaviest D lock can be cut with a angle grinder in under a minute. Although the more secure ones will need 2 cuts to open them.

The Hiplok D1000  is supposedly grinder "resistant".

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=123103.0