How To Lock Your Bike Securely | Urban Cycle Security Tips

Locking your bike securely and properly is the best way to deter and stop bike theft, especially if you are leaving the bicycle for a long period of time in a town or city. We’ve teamed up with Kryptonite to explain the best way to safely lock your road bike up, and the different types of locks, cables and chains that are available.

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How do you lock up your bike?

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Speaker: Bikes are brilliant, they’re a fun, 
clean, and efficient way to travel around urban areas and commute as well. As an added bonus, 
they make you fitter. As many of you will know, they can be a very attractive target to 
thieves or, as I like to call them [beep]. To try and stop your pride and joy becoming 
a victim of thieves, we’ve teamed up with Kryptonite. In this video, we’re going to go 
through the dos and don’ts of bike security. Whether you’re commuting to work or just 
popping to the shop or visiting friends, we’re going to go through how and 
where best to lock up your bike. How best to use locks to secure your 
bike, and also the different types of locks so that you can determine what’s 
best for your needs. [background noise] Bike locks come in all sorts of different shapes 
and sizes. The different types have relative advantages and disadvantages. Also, bigger isn’t 
always necessarily better. Now, before we go into the specifics of how and where to lock up your 
bike, I’m going to go through the different types of locks that are available. Bike locks are often 
graded in terms of their unbreakability. That’s a word I just made up, but you get the point.
For example, Kryptonite grades its locks between 1 and 10, 1 being the least secure kind of secure 
lock they make and 10 being the best of the best. The absolute gold standard in bike lock 
security. Now, all the locks we have here start at 5 but you can see on the packaging, the 
security rating is labeled on there. Something that’s less than 5 would typically be used as just 
as a slight countermeasure if you were stopping at a cafe in a rural location, or perhaps just to 
secure your bike if you were travelling on say a train or something like that.
[music] The first type of lock to be aware of is the 
D-lock. They range from something like this, a basic D-lock designed for use in a rural 
area, to this, an absolute beast of a D-lock, designed to stop the most notorious thieves in 
a major metropolitan area. Think of Gotham City, after Bane has taken over and you’ve got the 
right idea. Also, we’ve got a few in-between as well. Anyway, D-locks are regarded as the 
strongest and most secure bike locks you can use. They vary in strength and well, durability and 
solidness of weight, and a few other features as well. This is reflected in the price. 
Something like this is more expensive than something that’s lighter and less durable, this.
D-locks also vary in size. You get small ones like this and bigger ones like this. They’re designed 
to either lock your bike to an immovable object or to lock, say, your frame to another part 
of the bike such as wheels or panniers. A common tactic and it’s a good tactic is to use a 
D-lock in combination with another lock such as a cable lock to secure other parts of the bike 
such as wheels and, well, whatever you’ve got on your bike.
[music] Speaking of which, cable locks are another popular 
type of bike lock. They are generally lighter than a D-lock, meaning they can be a bit more appealing 
for travelling around and lugging in a backpack, but they’re less secure. Now, they come with 
different locking mechanisms. You get them with combination locks on them or key locks or 
ones with loops on like this, that is designed to be used with another lock, usually a D-lock. 
Cable locks can stop an opportunist thief but they’re much less secure than a D-lock, and bolt 
cutters will make quick work of a cable lock. They usually are steel cable such as this, with 
a plastic coating on the outside to help prevent corrosion.
[music] Next, we have chain locks. Guess what they’re 
made from? Well, again, they have different locking mechanisms. This one has a combination 
lock on it, but there’s also ones with keys as well. They come in a range of different 
shapes, sizes, and strengths. They’re generally more secure than a cable lock but less strong 
than a D-lock. They do, however, have the added advantage over a D-lock, that they can be a bit 
more maneuverable because it’s a chain wrapping round and securing different parts of your bike, 
whereas because the D-lock is static and rigid, that can sometimes be a bit more difficult.
[music] Another type of lock we have which is less common 
than the others we’ve shown you is a folding lock. We’ve got one here. Now, folding locks can be 
pretty useful because they can take up less space in your bag when you’re transporting them 
than a D-lock because they fold down. Again, this can be really useful depending on where 
you’re locking your bike up and what kind of bike you’re locking up. They’re regarded as being more 
secure than a cable, but once again, less secure than the trusty D-lock. This is because 
while they can resist bolt cutters very well, a tungsten tipped saw or angle 
grinder can make short work of them. At the higher end of locks, you’ll see 
features like thicker, hardened steel shackles, double deadlocks and higher pick-resistant lock 
barrels, as well as smaller openings in the locks themselves. All these things make it harder for 
someone to break the lock using brute force or to lever it open. At the lower, end these features 
are pared-down slightly. That’s not to say the locks don’t work, but they are less resistant 
to a skilled thief or higher brute force, using narrower gauge steel and smaller lock barrels.
[music] The lock or locks you use depends on a number 
of factors. The type of bike that you have, where it is that you’re going to be locking it up, 
the time of day or night, and also how long you’re planning to leave it for. All these factors 
contribute to the amount of risk associated with how likely your bike is to be stolen. 
Location is really important. Certain areas can be bike theft hotspots such as train stations. We’d 
also recommend that you’d avoid, if possible, putting your bike in a quiet side street such as 
this. In a quieter area with less people around, it can often give the thief, potentially 
more time to work on the bike. Consider other things too such as; is there CCTV 
where you’re locking up your bike? This can often act as a deterrent to thieves. Areas where 
there’s lots of footfall and people either sat at cafes or walking around that are busier, can 
also be a deterrent. Think about unconventional locations to lock your bike. These railings are 
a good example. I’m going to lock my bike then, not on this side but on the other side overhanging 
onto where there’s a road. This kind of location is going to make the bike much more difficult 
to work on for a thief and makes it a much less appealing target. There’s also, in this location, 
a security guard that’s placed over there. He’s there most of the day. There’s a chance 
that if a thief were working on the bike, he might notice it as well. All things like 
these make your bike a less attractive target. This is going to be quite an unattractive location 
for someone to try and work on this bike. Also, a subtle detail, I’ve put the actual lock where 
the key goes on the this side and not on this side. A subtle detail, but it makes it that little 
bit more difficult to work on a lock if you were going to try and pick it. Always lock your bike 
to an object that can’t be cut. It sounds obvious, but a wooden post might look nice and 
secure, but a saw will make short work of it. Around here, we’ve got a number of options, 
you’ve got a drain pipe. Some people sometimes lock their bikes to drain pipes, but again, they 
can be cut quite easily. If they’re plastic, you can just simply rip them away from the wall 
if you really want to. We’ve got a lamppost here. Lamppost can actually be really solid and a decent 
thing to lock your bike to, but it can be at risk from being damaged by people just walking past it 
and knocking into it. There’s also some classic Georgian railings over here, which are made from 
cast iron. These are okay, but again, an angle grinder or a saw will make short work of these.
This is much easier to cut through than the hardened steel that you’ll get on a good quality 
D-lock. I’m now going to show you how best to lock your bike up and the technique that I would use. 
There’s a few tips that will make it more secure. Firstly, this is a good area. It’s a nice street. 
There’s not many signs of criminal activity, also lots of footfall. It’s well-lit and lots of people 
around. We’ve got dedicated bike railings here which are really nice and secure. No one’s going 
to able to just lift the bike of this like it was a bollard or a tree stump that they 
could cut or something like that. I’m going to lock the bike in order of its value 
of the respective parts, the frame being the most valuable part followed by the rear wheel, and then 
the front wheel. You want to secure in this order if possible. Now, I’m going to use a D-lock 
to secure both the frame and the rear wheel, with the D-lock placed through the rear wheel and 
the frame. I’m also going to use a cable lock as a secondary measure to help secure the front wheel 
as well. Simply passing that through the D-lock shackle, through the frame, and 
then through the front wheel, and then back into the D-lock like so. Next, 
I’m going to put the end of the D-lock back on. Ideally, if you can, you position the locking 
mechanism of the D-lock pointing down because that will make it harder to work on. Also, this 
is where I talk about big’s not always better. If you have a massive D-lock that was then going to 
be quite loose on where you’re locking your bike, that can allow space for people or thieves to get 
tools in so that they can prise the D-lock open. You want minimal space between where you’re 
locking your bike and the bike itself. That’s why smaller, more compact D-locks, such as this 
one, can come in handy in those situations. It sounds obvious, and to many of you 
it will be obvious, but I have seen people lock their bikes in this way.
They attach it to what appears to be a really solid object that’s just immovable, it’s 
not going anywhere, but they lock it in a way that makes the bike not secure at all. Classic 
example is something like this bollard that’s sticking up. You can just locking it like this; 
you’re just going to lift it straight off. All right, I’m away with the bike now. See you 
later. [chuckles] In addition to using a cable or perhaps instead of using a cable, you could 
use another type of lock to secure the front wheel to the frame. This could be a D-lock, 
or a chain lock, or whatever you like, but again, don’t put it through this way with the lock 
facing upwards. That makes it easier to work on. Instead, put it downwards, like that.
[music] Generally speaking, the more locks the better and 
it makes your bike less appealing to thieves. If you’re going to be locking your bike up in the 
same place every day such as at a work location, then you can actually leave locks like this. Just 
simply lock to the bike racking down the bottom, that way you don’t have to lug them when you 
commute every time because locks like this are very secure, but they are quite heavy. 
They do have special covers on them that you can slide across to stop water ingress 
and damage to the lock from weather as well, which makes them ideal for this purpose.
You may notice that some locks come with a second rating in addition to the manufacturer’s 
own strength rating, and this is Sold Secure. Sold Secure is a third-party testing and certification 
body that rates locks based on its own standards. Because of this, it’s often the only rating that’s 
recognized by insurers. In summary, it’s all about weighing up, how you want to lock your bike, 
what locks you’re prepared to carry with you, how secure you want it to be, and where you’re 
going to be leaving it. If you weigh up all the points that we’ve discussed in this video, you 
should be well on your way to properly securing your bike. That said, no amount of locks 
is going to stop a really determined thief. With that in mind, if your bike is super, super 
valuable, I’d think twice before locking it up in a public space. For example, if you’ve 
got really expensive components on your bike, it doesn’t matter if the wheels and frame are 
secured because the thieves might just strip off the components off your bike and leave 
you with the wheels and frame left behind. The aim of the game is to try and make your 
bike as unappealing to thieves as possible. Think of it a bit like lions chasing antelope, 
you don’t need to be invincible to lions, you just need to not be the weakest antelope.
Another tip. If you are going to be picking a bike that you’re going to be using in an 
urban environment and locking up, it’s a good idea to have a bike that is less valuable. 
It’s just a tool for getting from A to B. Sticking with the antelope analogy; you don’t want 
your bike to be the plumpest, tastiest-looking antelope, nothing too flash. I hope you enjoyed 
this video and found it informative. Armed with