Your Bike Deserves A Decent Lock

People spend good money on a great bike but they seem oddly reluctant to invest in a decent lock to protect their purchase. Instead, they go to their local discount retailer and buy something cheap and flimsy off the shelf. We can’t work it out. Why insist on buying a great bike, only to make it highly vulnerable through a lock that is child’s play to cut or break?

We have one of the most extensive ranges of bike accessories in NZ, including high-quality bike locks. We think that in this day and age, when bikes are highly attractive targets for crims, it’s vital that you buy the best lock you can afford. That’s because low life thieves are turned off by high-quality locks. The harder they have to work to break a lock, and the more time they have to spend doing so, the more likely they are to move onto an easier target.

As a rule of thumb, the most secure locks are the ones that are the bulkiest and heaviest. Their size is what gives them strength because they’re less vulnerable to attacks that rely on brute force to break the lock. As long as a lock has no obvious weak points that a thief can easily identify, you’re going a long way to keeping your bike secure. Unfortunately, the locks you buy at generic retailers have plenty of weak points. In the long run, you’re better off contacting us and we’ll help you buy the best lock you can afford.

So that you protect your bike even better, you can check out these ideas about where to lock your bike. 

• Don’t make the mistake of locking your bike in a so-called “hidden” place in the city. Alleyways and deserted streets just give a bike thief more time and fewer people to deal with. Choose busy streets that make it easier for the thief to be noticed and caught. If you notice CCTV,  that’s an even better place to leave your bike. 

• If there are other bikes around, lock in the middle of them if you can. When other cyclists are coming and going, your average thief will be more than deterred. After all, being disturbed is the last thing they want, and a fellow cyclist will be more likely to raise the alarm than a passer-by. 

• Another reason to lock your bike around other ones is they might look more attractive or easier to steal than yours. And if yours is within a bunch of bikes and harder to access, it is more difficult to target.

• Don’t make it evident that you’ll be away from your bike for a prolonged period. Lock your bike away from the cinema or gym, for example. Lock it up among other bikes even if it’s a fair walk away. Be wary when leaving your bike in workplace or public cages, or on racks at bus or railway stations. In these cases, it’s obvious your bike will be there for a while, so that’s when you need to use the very best lock you can afford, or use two, three or even four cheaper locks to signal to the potential thief that they will have to spend a lot of time getting through them all.

Organisations like the New Zealand Police will have further information on preventing bike theft, so their website is well worth checking out. But remember...bike security always starts with a really, really good lock.