Shed Shackle

Shed Shackle
Price: £42.95
From: www. torc-anchors.com
Tested: Five weeks, no thefts so far.

The Shed Shackle is a security device that you fit to your shed, providing a fixed er, shackle to lock your bike to. It’s not going to stop anyone breaking into your shed but it might stop them making off with your bike, which has to be A Good Thing. So, how does it work? It’s basically three steel bars that you bolt to a vertical timber plus a brace which is bolted to a horizontal for added strength. The comprehensive instructions reckoned it could be fitted in 30 minutes, so I took my time and stopped the clock just outside 63 minutes, but I’m not complaining.

Because you need to fit the horizontal brace it’s recommended to site the shackle under a window (where your shed has horizontal timbers) which wasn’t practical for me, so the brace went at floor level, which
seemed to work just fine. The bars are secured to the shed with coach bolts and shear nuts – you tighten them with a spanner until the nut shears off so once it’s fitted you’ll not be moving it, which is as it should be. The ultimate test would be to see how hard it is to remove with a crowbar, but I didn’t fancy wrecking my shed just to prove the obvious – that it won’t stop a determined thief.

Overall: At the end of the day any security device is just a deterrent, but paired with a quality lock the Shed Shackle looks like a pretty good deterrent to me. It may seem like a lot of money for some steel bars and a few coach bolts, but if it stops someone stealing your bike it’s got to be money well spent, hasn’t it?
Ali Chant

Review Info