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TECH NEWS
SAF Lock - 1Altor SAF Lock is 'the most secure bike lock in the world'
Wow! That's one massive bike lock! The SAF Lock – the first angle grinder-proof bike lock, according to US brand Altor – is currently looking for funding on Indiegogo.
The 14mm hardened steel core shackle is surrounded by a thick aluminium shell to give a total diameter of 75mm. The idea is that an angle grinder with a 5in disc can't cut deep enough to get to the steel inside.
"The combination of the material and the inner shape of the SAF Tech Shell makes for a terrible cutting experience which wears through angle grinder discs and batteries," says Altor.
The SAF lock weighs about 6.25kg (13.7lb) so it's the sort of thing designed to be left permanently in place in your garage or at your office, rather than carted around in a backpack.
"While all bike locks on the market that we've tested were cut in under 45 seconds, the SAF Lock outlasted every portable angle grinder," says Altor.
The Indiegogo campaign runs for another nine days but it has currently reached only 9% of its £51,000 funding goal. Super early bird offers are still available where you're in line to receive a SAF Lock for £164 in March 2020 – but only if the funding target is met (and all other Indiegogo rules apply, of course).
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
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31 comments
Any place you have to lock bike means you need to be riding a cheap bike.
the expensive bike should be in the house or have your butt on the saddle or your hand on the bars
Get a clunker to go for coffee.
If you used a lock like this - perhaps with the ship chain recommended by dafyddp
- then doesn't the stand itself become the weak point that thieves would cut? It'd be like using a d-lock to lock your bike to a chicken wire fence...
Best matched with a length of chain purloined from a cruise-ship anchor. In fact, for extra security, why not go the whole hog, and bring along the anchor itself?
Best matched with a length of chain purloined from a cruise-ship anchor. In fact, for extra security, why not go the whole hog, and bring along the anchor itself?
I find that 2 (or more locks) are more effective.
Extremely-Secure-Bike-with-Many-Locks.jpg
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha HaHa Ha Ha Ha Ha.
They will elect Donald Trump as President next.
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that, whilst the overall size is huge, the inner space to attach the lock to the bike isn't so I would imagine it will be very difficult to secure the frame to anything substantial. A chain is only as long as its weakes link.
Eh? How does that work then?
So I'm waiting until LockpickingLawyer and BosnianBill crack this sucker open using fair means and foul.
I just found out that the same company is working on the problem of easy-to-lose badminton shuttlecocks
badminton-shuttlecock.jpg
Watching the amount of dust being kicked up by the grinder cutting the SAF lock does give me an idea for an alternative security system.
How about a material under the rubber covering of the D-lock that would chuck out a nasty powder if heated of cut with a high speed cutter?
Maybe some seriously hot pepper powder or for a bit of fun some picolax (seriously powerful laxitive) that will have any potential theif crapping their pants in more than just a metaphorical way.
https://www.skunklock.com
Apparently their next product is a 2 meter long lever to get your chain back on.
Looks like someone took one of Baldrics cunning plans and made it into a business proposition.
What! This just makes no sense.. But how does it even work? I'm just waiting for the Darwin Award for someone being crushed to death by their own bike lock..
The company currently only has one product, albeit, using two different alloys. I wonder why they didn't include that in the angle grinder tests?
I also have a beef where current companies use the publics money to effectively pay for the R&D costs of new items. Isn't that surely what profits are there for (along with tax implications/breaks for R&D expenditure)?
I'm guessing the "SAF" acronym is meant to sand for "Secure As F***" but if you ask me it's Stupid As...
1. Too heavy to carry
2. Too big to fit between spokes (unless on Tuff's as pointed out above)
3. Too easy to attack a weaker point in the system (bike stand/railing/the bike itself) instead
4. Too bloody expensive
"While all bike locks on the market that we've tested were cut in under 45 seconds..."
Well that puts it all in perspective. Assuming thieves know this (doh!) should I bother with an expensive lock? Surely 30 seconds against £12 Kryptonite Keeper is just as use/less as 45 seconds against a £85 uber-doober-supa lok?
You don't buy a lock because it's hard to cut. You buy a lock because it meets the requirements of your insurance.
Just cut through the bikestand. Then you can melt the big u-lock off at the lock-up where you keep all your stolen halfords bikes.
Why would you not just make the alloy shroud hollow so that the disc blade couldn't reach the inner steel lock. It would still be stupidly big (and not go through your spokes) but it would be hellava lot lighter.
If it was just an aluminium shell, you could cut away a section with an angle grinder to then be able to reach the inner steel lock, so it has to be solid to be effective.
They could probably have gone for some other material (plastic with some kevlar fibres?) but that would probably be a lot more expensive than a lump of aluminium.
It's neither fully hollow nor fully solid - there's some sort of moulded structure inside the outer diameter and then a more conventionally-sized shackle buried inside that - I think there are more pics etc on the funding page. It does look insane.
Yes, it is worth at least seeing their pitch. At least it does appear to do what it claims, and they specifically acknowledge its downsides. For some it will answer the call for a lock that can't simply be sliced through in seconds. They are not pretending there's no trade off.
I carry around a pile of bricks and build a small garage to lock my bike in wherever I go
I bet the Lock Picking Lawyer could get through that with tin snips
Does not look like it will go through my spokes, so how do I secure my wheels?
What are you supposed to lock it to with that thickness?
Seems ok if you're running Skyway Tuff IIs?
No way am I down-sizing from my current lock:
padlock2.jpg
Dom Jolly would use that lock.
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