Bicycle Locks

Reviews and Ratings for the Top Rated Bicycle Locks

Bicycle Accessories Online Buying Guide’s summary of product reviews for the Bicycle Lock Category.

Sorting through the customer feedback and the bike lock manufacturer’s list of features and descriptions for the the top rated bike locks, a few points become apparent quite quickly.

There are three manufacturers of bicycle locks, Kryptonite, Onguard ,and Master-lock,that dominate the U.S. bicycle lock market. With the Kryptonite brand having a large selection of both U -bolt and chain style of bike locks they are by far the biggest player.

Since Cable locks are a about as effective as using a piece of rope to ward off a would be bike thieve. You can immediately remove them from any consideration as a secure method of protecting your bike against theft. That leaves the U bolt and chain locks as the main styles of bicycle theft protection in the bike lock market.

New York Chain Lock

Without question, the single biggest complaint from bike riders is the weight of the locking mechanism. Whether its the U-Bolt or chain type of bicycle lock the weight issue dominates the feedback section of the customer reviews. Although our research has found that the customers who left a review routinely overestimated the weight of the lock by practically 30% above the manufacturer’s data sheet.
However, there is a weight limit that bike riders will not exceed when selecting a bicycle locking mechanism.
And in this corner, we have the heavyweight champion bicycle of locks. The
“Kryptonite New York Legend 1515 Chain with New York Padlock“weighing in at whopping 15.9 lbs appears to be approaching the critical weigiht amount that the majority of urban bike riders would not find as a practical solution to bike theft deterrent system.

Onguard U-bolt lock

The U bolt style of lock can also reach an uncomfortable size, For example, the “On-guard Brute LS 5000 Bike U-Lock” has a u-bolt rod composed of 16mm massive hardened ultra steel , with a width of over four inches and a length exceeding 10 inches weighs in at stout 5.2lbs. I’m sure that lugging this baby around all day long is no walk in the park either.

On a side note, did some of these manufacturer’s not get the memo. We don’t use metric system here in the U.S. and in a effort to really confuse the situation even more, they mix the Metric and U.S. systems by publishing size in millimeters(mm) and the weight measurements in pounds(lbs).

The rest of the complaints about bike locks involved the key mechanisms. Sticky lock tumblers and rusting of the locks components were some of the other topics listed in the reviews as problem areas. There were a few instances in the past, where some keys would open multiple locks from the same manufacturer.

These days most of the major lock makers offer a anti-theft guarantee with the purchase a new lock.
And as with any “insurance policy” the devil is in the details, so be sure to read the fine print. The one bike lock that seemed to standout was the “Master-lock Master Lock 8200D Street Cuffs” while still quite portable provided a high degree of security.

Master-lock cuffs