But I could have been… OK, here’s the story: I bought a cheap bike for my son to use at college this year and locked it to the bike rack in front of his dorm when we dropped him off last fall. He ended up getting a skateboard and never even used the bike. He also lost the combination to the lock!
The bike was left out all year and we just went to pick him up from school yesterday. We still didn’t have the combination so I brought a hack saw, some sheet metal cutters and other tools with me in case I had a problem with the lock.
I didn’t want to waste a lot of time getting permission to cut the lock so I thought that I would just give it a try and if campus security came by, well, I’d just have to explain and beg for mercy (it’s the “easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission” theory).
So I put the tools in an inconspicuous, flowery shopping bag and went up to the bike rack (no ski mask to hide my face or anything!) I whipped out my hack saw and got ready for the heist. It took 10 to 15 seconds to saw through the cable lock! It was so easy. I had just done some research for my bike locks page and was reading about how easy it is to cut through cable locks. Well, I just proved it. I’ve read about it but it really sinks in more when you have actually done it and see how easy it is.
Bike lock easily cut with old rusty hack saw
Even though I was in front of a dorm on a crowded campus in broad daylight. Ten seconds to cut through a bike lock did not drawn any attention. In this case it was our bike anyway but that event highlighted how easy it is to steal a bike if I really were a bike thief.
This lock was pretty thin and cheap but if I can cut through it in 10 seconds then 20 seconds for a thicker cable is still not really a problem.
So, if you have a cable lock, it’s almost useless against someone who really wants the bike. A high quality U-lock is much better. See the bike locks page for the latest bike security and bike lock updates.
Well, a pretty similar thing happened to me yesterday. I made a quick trip to Walgreens for some batteries for my bike computer, locked my bike up outside then when I came back out I could not open the bike lock.
Before I get into how I broke the security and “stole” my own bike, here’s a little background on the lock. I had a really cheap cable lock that I have used for years just to keep someone from hopping on my bike and taking off with it while I made a quick stop somewhere.
I had never intended this lock to be anything more than a deterrent or way to slow down a potential bike theif. The cable was about as thick as a typical PC power cord so I didn’t ecpext much protection.
Well, this lock was a key lock and was really old (and left out in the elememts for years) and for some reason the key would just not open it anymore. Something inside the lock broke.
So I had to have my wife come and pick me up and I had her bring some sheet metal cutters. It turned out that the sheet metal cutters were really overkill! I might have even been able to cut through this lock with a pair of heavy scissors!
As far as how this relates to the original post is that I had to break the security and cut another cable lock off to “steal” one of my own bikes again and it was incredibly easy to cut these locks!
In both of these cases, it turns out that the cheap, easy to cut cable locks were quite an advantage. But the flip side of that is if it is someone else trying to steal your bike, you need to know how easy this can be done with a cheap cable lock.
I don’t really think that any bike lock is totally secure and personally I just use my locks as a deterrent to theft for quick trips in fairly secure locations. As I’ve written in my Bike Locks Page, a high quality U-Lock is much more secure.
I’ll need a replacement now and I will still stick with cable locks for the reasons that I stated above and just for the conveinence but please be aware how easy it is to bypass bike locks.