Bikers: Beware the Bic

A few days ago when I was leaving school I started unlocking my bike and found, to my great surprise, that it it was already unlocked. Apparently, that morning, since I was late to class I had rushed in locking the u-lock and I hadn‘t properly seated the u-bolt w/in the lock before I turned the key. So all day my bike sat outside the school in downtown D.C. unlocked. It looked locked, but if anyone had grabbed the u-locked and pulled, the lock would have come right open. Luckily, no one tried it. Also, I use a cable lock in addition to the u-lock, so a bike thief would have had to get through that, as well, before taking my bike. I don’t trust cables completely because I think they‘re too easy to cut. I’ve had three nice bikes stolen in my life (two came back to me—I‘m a very lucky guy!), so I try to be serious about locking my bike. After I discovered that my lock hadn’t really locked, I also discovered that it seemed to be locked open; I could no longer get the key in to open the lock and insert the u-bolt. I guess when I turned the key w/out the u-bolt being fully seated, I basically broke the lock. So the next day I went to the bike shop and bought a new lock. I didn‘t want to spend an arm and a leg, but I wanted a good lock, so I got the cheaper Kryptonite they had, a $35 standard Kryptolock u-lock. I was bummed about having to spend $35, but glad to know I had a quality lock. And then I saw this: Your Brand New U-Lock Is Not Safe!

As you guys might remember, I recently had the nicest set of wheels I’ve ever had stolen from me. Today I was hanging out with a friend and we got to talking about that - he said his friend showed him just recently how to open a U-Lock with a ball point pen. Of course I didn‘t believe it. That is until just thirty seconds ago when I opened my own Kryptonite Evolution 2000 with a bic ball point pen! This has to be the most absurd thing I’ve ever seen. Try it. Take the end off the pen, jam it in the lock, wiggle around and twist.

Is this for real!? It kind of looks like it. The above site links to videos of people actually opening Kryptonite locks with Bic pens, and Kryptonite responded and did not deny that this was possible. The owner of City Bikes (where I got my lock) even chimed in yesterday saying he‘d found the Bic trick quite easy to replicate. Some lock owners are talking class action. And I just bought a new Kryptonite lock. Crap.

Posted September 16, 2004 11:07 AM | life generally