Given the daily notifications of bikes nicked locally, I’m of a mind to upgrade the security in my garage. I currently have 8 bikes Inc wife’s and kids with a D lock to wall anchor, standard kryptonite cable through all the frames, and another D lock on the last bike.

The kryotonite cable is the weak link (pun intended). A mate has a super thick cable, not sure where from, but is there another solution? Can anyone recommend a chain of maybe even bar (although that would be awkward). Needs to be about 3m long.

Having similar thoughts here. Many bikes hanging in a row by their front wheels. I think I’ll run a chain from a ground anchor and lock at the last bike.

These look good (maybe 16mm version)

Where did that link go?

Linky

Sturdy ground anchor, big chain. Bikes d-locked to chain.

You might need a couple of these to get 3 metres though…

3 ground anchors, 3 19mm chains and 3 RoundLock Padlocks

An armed guard.

Realistically you have 8 bikes that you need to secure, in a garage, so the question is what is the best solution, for me i minimise the amount of entry points they can get, i have an up and over that i don’t use, so it’s now secured and won’t open unless i dismantle the internal protection. Same thing if it was windows or a door i didn’t really use.

As for the bikes, the reality is 8 bikes together is not viable, unless you spend hundreds on properly thick chains and locks, not to mention ground anchors to have them fixed (as most insurance firms require), so for me i arrange mine in order of cost, making it the most awkward and troublesome one to get to the nice bike, but that means the ones at the front are easier for anyone to take if they can get through a couple of gold secure locks.

In most instances you’re just trying to scare them off with the time it’ll take them to get the bikes they want and away, they want in and out quickly, so if you have a weak point (garage doors are mainly crap with crap locks), bikes tied up with chains that can be cut easily with bolt cutters, then they’ll see that as worth their time to give it a try, for me it’s all about making it awkward, that also includes making sure the bikes are locked away in an unrideable condition (wheels not on, chain off, etc) i do this from just normal maintenance though, so cleaning the chain i’ll leave it off, if i’m out riding the next day the wheels are off and ready for going in the car, etc, etc.

In short, my advice is whatever bikes are the most attractive, make sure to use the rest of them as annoying as possible to get to the good bikes, it’s sad, but after having two bikes nicked last year i put the effort in to securing the bikes now, car up against the garage, security lights, all the above, and a few more things that mean i waste time getting to my bikes when i want to ride!

Almax. Looks like a normal bike chain in the pictures, but they are about 5x the size. Two 2m chains is hard to carry up stairs. I was burgled years ago and I felt real relief when I saw them. Well worth the money if you have it.

Looking for the weakest links is a good place to start and how strong your security is going to be is going to depend on how deep your pockets are.

I would start at the outside and work your way in. Are your entry points secure? Consider the strength of any padlocks (opt for close shackles if possible), something like the Abus Granite / mortise locks and the shackles they are attached to, as having a good lock is worthless if attached to a thin shackle. What about hinges, can these be strengthened or hinge bolts fitted? Are there any windows. How secure is the roof.

Assuming any would be thieves have made it inside without waking you or the rest of the neighbourhood.

For D-Locks and Chains I would recommend looking at those with 16mm to 18mm shackles / links as that is enough to thwart most bolt croppers. Kryptonite also have an anti-theft protection offer that might be of interest. There is also the Shed Shackle that you can use in conjunction with ground anchors to ensure as many of even all bikes are suitably secured.

If thats still not enough and presuming you have the room to do so, you could also consider adding a retractable / sliding security grilles to further protect the bikes themselves, windows and doors.

Whatever solution to decide to go with, be sure to make sure that wheels are secured to the bike frame and while that cable you have might not seem to be of much use, it can be used to pass through forks and saddles as an additional hindrance.

Basically make it as much of a hindrance as possible for them to take anything at all or that if they really want it that they are going to have to use an angle grinder and make a whole lot of noise.

I think I’m maybe an extremist but I wouldn’t even bother locking a bike up in a garage with a cable lock or lightweight chain- a properly equipped thief will break it faster than it takes you to find the keys.

Almax, Squire and a few others make cropperproof chains. Most expensive chains can be broken with bolt cutters that cost less than the chain- big tools, sure, but portable.

It’s a scam tbf, you can spend a lot of money on a lock that has all the right prizes and accreditations, Sold Secure Gold, and it doesn’t mean a damn thing. Likewise many independent tests- they test with the wrong tools, then say how well it stood up. “We couldn’t cut this with a hacksaw!” Yes these are tools that people use, but only on crap locks, it makes no sense to test anything better with them. It’s like saying that most houses are broken into with a brick through the window, so we tested this security door by throwing a brick at it and found it to be 100% Brick Secure Gold.

Of course, nothing is invincible- but since most bikes are poorly secured, many thieves don’t bother bringing the kit to break a proper lock

If they’re attached to a wall, it might be worth having a chain and anchor up high, bolted into the wall so as they can’t get a purchase off the ground with bolt croppers.

These are obviously just a layer in addition to a decent chain but I was quite impressed with the beefy construction of these from Screwfix which you could add a few of and make it more of a hassle.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/smith-locke-braided-steel-security-cable-3m-x-15mm/4893X?tc=RT4&ds_kid=92700048793315984&gclsrc=aw.ds&ds_rl=1244072&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3ZX4BRDmARIsAFYh7ZINgkwpn0eYC1RBmbxpGY17ZVxaRyAx3vrZiENOUUDe2lyvGLO1-E8aAuh_EALw_wcB

I used to have several chains padlocked together between two ground anchors, so you could break it in various places rather than dragging 3m of chain through several bikes. One break would be enough to release all, so I added extra anchors and now lock the bikes in pairs.

Anchors quite far back so its a hands and knees job to unlock a bike, inconvenient for me but also makes it harder to get a big lever through the ground anchor or a large set of croppers on the chain.

I now use a shed shackle with 19mm chain which is secured about 3 foot off the ground. I can secure 3 bikes this way with a 3 metre chain. The shed shackle would allow me to run another chain through if I needed to, so could secure 6 if the chain was long enough. Majority of the cost is in a good thick chain. I was surprised how much they are.

The whole set up cost me about £200 but money well spent if it stops the bikes being nicked.

I think you need to treat this in stages:

1 – make it hard to get in the garage. That’s doors / windows / roof. Windows need bars inside with awkward bolts to try and reach through to undo. Up and over doors are tricky – I’ve screwed mine shut / secured the bottom of both to the floor with bar and big bolts / built a full stud wall behind 1 and got a cross bar behind the other. Pedestrian door – not sure – I’ve got a house standard upvc door there whic might be the most vulnerable point. If you’ve got a flat felt roof that maybe the point they pick on to come through as I’ve seen that locally – must be some solution for that but it’s probably not easy to secure.

2 – make it more stressful to stay inside working on chains – loud alarm that covers all entry points and has infrared sensors inside (in case they come through the roof). Yale make some that are battery only / wireless so are relatively easy to fit with no wiring.

3) Bike anchors. I try to keep all chains going to a ground anchor secured up on the wall so it’s difficult to get big bolt croppers. I think to get mine they’re going to have to commit to a battery powered angle grinder.

My chains aren’t almax- I think I’m reality their 19mm chains are the gold standard and are very difficult to get through quickly or with bolt croppers.

I’d try to lock your multiple bikes in batches of 2/3 to separate ground anchors and with separate chains or shackles.

If you’ve got particularly high value bikes in there then I’d try and mix a decent chain and a decent d lock for that one or 2 bikes. OnGuard is a good source of a relatively cheap D lock with a 16mm shackle – much cheaper than Kryptonite / Avis.

The Brute is available for £25-£30 – the weakness is the pick ability of the lock so say (according to the lock picking lawyer – google it) – but I don’t see most thieves sitting there trying to pick a lock. It’s sold secure gold so will
meet insurance standards if someone does break it somehow.

Big chains are expensive – I’ve got a motorbike chain that is fairly heavy with a big closed shackle – plus a couple of sold secure gold locks – again for insurance purposes.

The Oxford Chain10 pictured above somewhere is sold secure gold but a 10mm chain can fairly easily be bolt cropped – so if you use that get it up off the ground and tight round frames so it’s difficult to get at with any leverage.

4) Insurance – make sure you’ve met any insurance requirements and it covers what you want / need it to.

Spend the money on decent locks and chains – I would be using a good shackle lock on each bike and a whacking great chain all boltcropper proof stuff as boltcroppers are the tool of choice

It always astonishes me that people will lock several grands worth of bikes with a £20 lock. I have a Kryptonite m18 that weighs 2.5 kilos and cost best part of £100 and that is the minimum I will use on my bikes

Bucket of concrete and a metal hoop as a ground anchor

The existence of cordless angle grinders makes pretty much any lock or chain obsolete. If they want your bikes, they’re having them.

I hate to say it but if it was me I’d spend £2-300 on the 2 or 3 expensive bikes and leave the rest unlocked – in fact that’s what I do.. 😀

Not many bike thieves wander around with angle grinders, they are noisy and dangerous, plus all the videos of people getting into them is when they are secured in a vice, if you have a D lock in a ground anchor, between two bike wheels and barely any access it’s not as easy, add darkness to that in a garage at night and so on. If you get hit by bike thieves using an angle grinder effectively, then they would get your bikes anywhere!

The basic thief has bolt cutters, crow bar, screwdrivers, etc, they are looking for easy access as they’re not lock pickers or that clever in getting in, most try brute strength attacks through leverage to get in, and don’t want to spend 20 minutes cutting stuff with an angle grinder (and the spare discs that they may need!).

As always though, check your insurance and make sure you have evidence of adhering to whatever they require, mine is being locked to an immovable/fixed object and using at least one sold secure gold lock, also check that they offer the required level of insurance for garage based bikes.

An alarm and cover the nice bikes up, leave cheaper ones uncovered.

Don’t make your security too good as you will just spend £100’s repairing stuff when they break in

The existence of cordless angle grinders makes pretty much any lock or chain obsolete. If they want your bikes, they’re having them.

This. I’d say secure the garage itself as well as you can and lock the bikes with whatever the minimum is to satisfy your insurance policy. If they get in, they’re having your bikes or, if the frames are chained down and they can’t get through the chain, whatever bits of your bikes that they can strip off. Either way it’ll be an insurance job.

(FWIW mine aren’t locked at all in the garage, as the insurance states that they simply need to be in a locked garage)

The existence of cordless angle grinders makes pretty much any lock or chain obsolete. If they want your bikes, they’re having them.

Depends on circumstances. In our street that would wake everyone up and the coppers would probably be round straight away.

that Oxford lock is a complete waste of time in a garage.

I’ve got 13 metres of Pragmasis chain and assorted padlocks, concrete filled tires etc. The chains cost around £500 or so, but seem solid. Pragmasis and Almax are streets ahead of a lot of the other tat.

Bear in mind that the the whole SoldSecure Gold/Silver / Bronze thing is not a certification, it’s just an advertising gimmick/cabal/bullshit from the lower quality manufacturers to put their useless wares in order of patheticness

/rant over

Layered security is where it’s at. Lots of little bits to make it hard for them and they’ll give up.

1) External security – don’t make it easy. Up and over doors are trivial to open, so use secondary locks. Think about windows, doors and even the roof for access. How might they get in, and how might you make it harder for them. If you have a side gate, stick a lock on it (“gatemate”) – no, it won’t be impervious, but it might make them move to the next house
2) Alarm. So much stuff is nicked while people sleep next door, so make sure that it’ll make a lot of noise if they set it off. If you have a house alarm, integrate the bike storage into it and turn it on at night! Make it ring your phone, send SMS, call the neighbours – just make sure someone knows it’s going off
3) Camera with proximity notifications – really useful for knowing who’s moving around your property at night.
4) Chains and anchors. It takes a stiff constitution to angle-grind through even the most modest chain while the house alarm is blaring. Most tea-leaves will take one look and realise that there’s no easy wins here. Lots of locks better than one big one if you can, and ground anchors make it hard to cart stuff away
5) Community – never underestimate the value of a community working together. Get to know your neighbours and agree that you will mutually keep an eye on each other’s kit when they are not there. Start a neighbourhood watch and get people curtain twitching and reporting the milkman on Facebook. Get to know your local police / community officers. They can help you too.
6) Think like a bad ‘un – they won’t use sophisticated techniques, it’ll be bolt-croppers and angle-grinders. If you put a cheap alarm in your shed and it can be silenced by hitting it with a hammer, then think again!

And remember, you don’t need to be better than the burglars, you just need to be better than your neighbours…

Anti-Theft Hierarchy:

1. Insure the bikes as named items, add a little on for locks and accessories. Make sure you have up to date photos, and records of the serial numbers etc.
2. Secure the building they are in. Internal sliding gate if no option to better secure the exterior.
3. Add a camera. WiFi cameras are very cheap and link to your phone via the cloud with local storage on the device.
4. Add an alarm.
5. Add locks to the bikes.
6. Put the most valuable bikes (sentimentally and ££’s) in the least convenient place with some cheaper sacrificial lambs nearer the door.

When they get stolen don’t expect to see them again

Oh yeah, I won’t discuss details but, a combination of chain and d-locks works very well imo. A single loop of chain is defeated if you break it in one place, a line of chain with d-locks through it can’t be (well, you can break it loose from its fixing point but it still leaves all the bikes chained together). It’s also much more convenient, for unlocking the outermost bike anyway.

The onguard brute mentioned up the page is a serious amount of metal for £30. Don’t know if it’s as good as the very best d-locks but since you can get 5 for the price of one of those, as long as it’s not a single-point-of-failure, I don’t mind. They’re not good with weather though

onewheelgood
Subscriber

The existence of cordless angle grinders makes pretty much any lock or chain obsolete. If they want your bikes, they’re having them.

That doesn’t make a lock obsolete, for the reasons I gave above. Even if your thief does bring a cordless grinder, it still takes much longer to go through a good lock, and makes much more noise, than going through a bad lock with silent tools. A silenced grinder is quieter than people think but it’s still pretty raucous.