Each year we hate hearing about the more and more bike that are being stolen. Every type of cyclist seems to suffer from the potential of a bike gone missing. From childrens bikes left in the front yard and commuter bikes in a down town setting to mountain bikes and dare I say eBikes on racks attached to vehicles. With professional bike thieves out there and tools just for beating bike locks, it’s not so much about if they can get through a lock, but how hard can you make it on them. There are more and more extremely durable locks coming out on the market that slow down these bike thieves, hopefully enough to detour them from stealing your precious bicycle.
Recently, Bike Radar did the most extensive lock testing ever done in a head to head test across hundreds of locks. This is well worth your time to watch and really fascinating.
One of our favorite locks that we use daily is the OnGuard 8000. We opted for the larger U lock because of the different lock applications. The Brute Series from OnGuard is their toughest locks with the highest security rating. These locks are heavy, but great for locking bikes up in a garage, or on a rack if you get creative. The OnGuard 8000 LS measures 4.5 inches wide and 10.2 inches long. Comes with 4 standard keys and 1 key with a light, which is nice, but I didn’t care for the added bulk of the key size. I suppose a nightly commuter could really benefit from this key, on the dark streets not fumbling around with feeling for the key hole. Some additional features of this lock are the added rubber bumpers around the U shape. It’s a little softer plastic that reduces the chatter against a bike frame.
We found ourself getting pretty creative trying to lock a road bike up to a Kuat rack. This defiantly isn’t secure, but it would have slowed down someone enough that we had time to run into a store to grab some food. These locks are pretty intimidating looking as well, which I would hope would scare off some of thiefs.
We used the lock primarily to lock the bike up in a garage, and don’t carry it around much. It was great piece of mind when the garage door is open knowing that someone isn’t going to walk away very easily with the bike from my garage.
The video below is another great review on YouTube that talks a bit more about the lock, and it’s features. It also talks about the benefits and downsides such as the cracked plastic casing.
The double rubber coatin gon the cross bar takes away some of the worry when constently rubbing up against a carbon frame. It’s soft and giving to the touch but hard enough to last for years.
The OnGuard U Lock comes with a mounting bracket, but this lock just seemed too heavy for it. For someone that casually rides a beach cruiser it might be a good option, but I like to have too much fun when I ride bikes, which usually involves jumping a few curbs. Don’t put too much faith in it, or look at some of the Chrome bike packs and clothing that are designed to hold a U lock against the body.
The design of the 8000 Brute U lock, and most other OnGuard U locks is that it has a “Quattro” bolt locking system. The lock engages on 4 sides of the U lock. This prevents a lot of the common attacks such as twisting with a crowbar, car jacks, etc.
You can see below the lock engaged on the left and right side of the hole.
Here is a better angle of how the lock engages on both sides of the U lock.
With the lock open the two locking pins retract back into the lock.
The OnGuard U locks are some of the best on the market. While it’s scary leaving thousands of dollars of bikes strapped to the back of an RV when heading to Moab, Utah. The use of a good lock provides some good piece of mind. OnGuard also offers an Anti-Theft program where you can cover your bicycle up to $5001 for a nominal fee. The keys also come with a code that you should keep in a safe spot. They can send you new keys if you have the code in the event you ever loose all 5 keys. Overall, one of the best U locks we have used, it’s easy to open and close, and offers some great piece of mind.