Insurance and bike security

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tom73

Guru
Location
Yorkshire
next time my insurance is up I will be looking for a replacement carefully
Yellow Jersey seem a bit over specific regarding how to lock things up at home - means they have a shed loads of things to moan about in the event of a theft from the shed
Of course - they might be very reasonable about it - but then you never know unless you make a claim!!

Never found them to be cheapest or provide most inclusive cover.
 
Never found them to be cheapest or provide most inclusive cover.

They were when I frst needed it - I had just discovered that my home insurance didn;t cover an ebike
covered a road bike worth far more - but even the cheaper ebikes were excluded
Yellow Jersey were the cheapest at the time - but I think I need to do a proper check around next time
I now always check the Home Insurance and check the T&C for bike cover before I sign up for it!
 

sevenfourate

Devotee of OCD
Currently paying less than £2 a month extra onto home insurance: having just added two new bikes of just under £1000 value each. Only real proviso was a Gold standard lock being needed when left bikes are left standing outside the property……

When policy is due for renewal I’ll reconsider cost of separate insurance versus a claim on house policy blah blah
 
It amazing that a car costing £20k is less to insure than a bike costing £5K and yes, I've heard all the reasons to justify this,
 

froze

Über Member
First of all all locks can be cut in 30 seconds or less by an angle grinder including the one you bought. Watch this video and then decide what lock you should have bought:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mEDjaZka10&t=278s


I doubt bike registering works, but why not, it can't hurt.

Up until now the bike tags had very limited range, in a city maybe one or two blocks tops, even if they made one to track 1,000 miles, all the thief has to do is remove and throw it in a trash dumpster.

You didn't say where the bike was stolen, had home or at school or work, if you're commuting to school or work it would be better to buy a $350 or so bike and lock it up with a $45 lock, then to buy a expensive bike, expensive lock, expensive tracker, blah blah blah, because if the thief says "gee this bike is tasty, but that lock, heck I'll strip the parts and leave the rest locked up", so now you're going to need pitlocks to prevent that. Another reason to vote for the $350 or so bike.
 

Dadam

Senior Member
Location
SW Leeds
It's a good 1v1 comparative test. But as the reviewer mentions on the page he links underneath the video, a corded angle grinder on a lock clamped in a vice is not a real world indication. It would take longer than than 30s to defeat the lock using a cordless grinder and especially where the lock is off the floor e.g hanging off a bike frame, so difficult for the attacker to immobilise.

It's about the relative risk. When I commute, the bike is locked to a sheffield stand right outside our office's main door, which is down at the end of a cul-de-sac with no public right of way, overlooked by about 100 windows from ours and 2 other businesses and monitored by security who are fairly proactive. Anyone getting tools out and attacking a lock on this stand would be seen inside 30s. I'm currently using an Abus Granit 540 but looking at getting a big thick chain lock that I can leave on the stand. So would I leave my expensive ebike locked to a stand at a station or public stand in a city centre all day? No chance! At my office, yes I'm reasonably happy with that and it's insured.
 

froze

Über Member
When you lock up your Ebike make sure you take your battery with you; for one, if someone does manage to take off with it, well they're not going far very quickly, and for two, the battery is worth around $700 new, so doubtful they would want to spend the money to get a new battery plus the charger.

Abus also makes the best security chain, they are heavy as you stated, but you'll be leaving it at the rack. Abus makes what is called the 6ks chain, I have this chain, and even though it is the lightest weight one of the KS series it's still a heavy chain and would take quite a bit of effort to cut, even with an angle grinder they would have to cut two sides, a good bolt cutter could cut it in about 2 minutes, so if you want something stouter the 8ks should be the one to get as it will take about 5 minutes to cut with a bolt cutter, but for me the 6ks is plenty.

Battery-powered angle grinders are quite effective with a very good blade, I watched a lot of You Tube videos of bat angle grinders chewing up all nature of locks, and the vast majority of locks on the market took less than 15 seconds to cut. So I wouldn't sell bat angle grinders short.
 
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