chucky

Yeah, why not just use a titanium chain with a steel padlock? Ti will make the chain resistant to bolt cutters and steel will make the lock resistant to prying/drilling.

A versatile design with the primary weakness of each subcomponent addressed.

Titmawz

is that a slim jim ?? it being made of titanium sound appealing but it lack in volume. Great for locking the wheel round the frame but will still need a Ulock to post it up.

SCI 

If anybody's interested the TiGr Titanium bike lock is now up on www.kickstarter.com here's the URL https://www.kickstarter.com/e/8Xsul/p...l-as-your-bike

meanwhile

Did you consider bottlejack resistance at all in this design? B-jacks are the way that most high end u-locks are defeated now. Because your lock leaves a space in the middle where a jack can easily be placed, it looks as if it is impossible to be used safely. Unlike a conventional mini-D, which can be used like this:

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html

..so that the central space is filled.

So -

- Have you tested with a b-jack?

- How many tons of force will the lock take before failing?

- Have you repeated the testing with a loop of decent rope tied to each side of the jacking point to reduce lock flex? Or a strong security chain could work even better, ironically..

Sold Secure is a joke verging on a scam. "Gold" locks command a premium for extra resistance to tactics that aren't the real threat, while the methods and hardware that skilled thieves use are kept safely away. I'd love for your lock to work as well as a 2kg mini-D, but unless it can survive a bottlejack attack then it is just going to provide an easy target to thieves.

But I'd love for this to work - good luck!

meanwhile

Probably because the chain will be worth more than the bike. I'd anglegrinderize the lock, take the chain, and leave the bike - why bother with a crappy Cervelo, Rivendell or Roubaix when people are giving titanium chains away???

(Well, at least if you apply the normal "Bicycle industry Tax" for upgrading to ti...)

RI_Swamp_Yankee

Too long - the lock is unwieldy for anything that doesn't have straight and long top-tubes.

This would make an ideal U-lock replacement, at a foot to a foot and a half - tamper-resistant wheel skewers can protect the front wheels, and the slender, semi-flexible nature of the shackle means it can be more easily stowed than a U-lock, while resistant to bottle-jack attacks (too narrow a gap even for a stubby.)

How tough is the locking mech? Can it hold up to a few minutes of attack with a professional-grade cordless drill?

badrad

just the other night happened to see a guy with a length of pipe shoved in between a U-Locked bike and just cranking on the pipe. the owner came running out, the would be thief took off. the U-Lock had already started to bend, but the worse of it was the frame and his front rim. probably a few more cranks of the pipe, the U-Lock would be done for.

it looked like that thief didn't care too much if he beat the crap out of the bike in his attempt to steal it, i guess he could still get a few bucks for parts if he got the bike away. when we took a quick look at the guys bike, it looked like he will have to replace the rim, and not sure how he would get the dent out of his frame.

SCI 

Other lengths will be available in the future, both longer and shorter. The lock does hold up nicely to drilling attacks (in-house testing). We plan to use some of the funds raised on the www.kickstarter.com project for 3rd party testing. The lock body is fairly small, 1.0" diameter x 1.8" long, so the attacker might be reluctant to drill the hand that's holding the lock during his attack.

The pull strength of the lock body/titanium bow coupling is in excess of 6000 lbs or so.

colleen c

Since the band thickness is only 0.125" thick, have it been tested to withstand a carbide grit hacksaw blade cutting down on the band through the thin side?

SCI 

I've tested hacksaw attacks with several types of blades including carbide. Because the bow is not well fixtured (not in a vice) the 'springiness' and cut resistance of the titanium bow make a sawing attack very tedious and time consuming. A 1.25" x .125" bow cross sectional area is equal to a circular cross section with a .44" diameter. There is are well defined tests for various violent attacks and we plan to have them done by a creditable 3rd party.

fuzz2050

I think one of the problems with this lock is that it just doesn't look that secure. While titanium does have some remarkable strength, it does look like it could be sliced open with a pair of scissors. If I had this lock, I would certainly have the fear that a thief would try to break open the lock with such voracity that they might damage the bike by accident.

Any chance you could make the lock look bigger and scarier? Maybe add a few spikes or something; make it clear that this is not a bike lock to be messed with.

motobecane69

whoever said you can cut and bend titanium is totally mistaken. The titanic was built from it and was unsinkable.

That lock looks like crap, can't wrap around anything, it wouldn't even fit around a parking meter post. i wouldn't be able to lock to anything here in nyc. at best it's a good second lock to lock the wheels to the frame while i use my regular kryptonite lock to lock the frame to something else.

jccaclimber

I think you need to try a cutoff wheel on a battery powered angle grinder. It seems like it would be susceptible to that. I've cut ti with a hack saw before, but the springiness in this would likely make that hard.

math is fun

I used this lock for 3 months and I found that SCI's claim of being able to lock to a post 5" in diameter to be true. Something that is impossible with most Ulocks

SCI 

We’d like to offer the “James Bond” solution to bike security as an alternative to the ‘Mr. T” products.

colleen c

Thanks for that info. Honestly speaking, I have a change of faith for this lock. The lock itself looks weak and inviting to thieves and I probably will not replace my Ulock with it. Putting aside the grinder with a 3/64" cutoff wheel which is the mother of all lock breaking tool, luckily it's also the most attention attractor. I think this lock can add another level of security if it is used in conjuntion with a Ulock.

Sheldon Brown mentioned having to use two separate tools to make it inconvience for thieves and surely this device is hopefully better than a cable if it is used in place of a cable/Ulock setup. Let say if you locked the frame and rear wheel to a post with an Ulock than use this through the frame, front wheel and post. With a setup of this, beside an angle grinder, you will need a bottle jack and lots of hacksaw blade and time or cut the post. It will be easier to bottle jack a ulock and hack a cable.

Dunno, depending on price, it may be worth it. The only thing I think will help it is if you can put some label on it stating something like "Titanium Cutproof Band" or something like that just to make a statement to those who may want to try hacking it just from the non heavy duty apperance.

Joshua A.C. New

Cutoff wheels have a very entertaining effect on titanium: they throw a ring of white-hot sparks in a broad overhead arc. It's awesome. The only thing that might work better is if it spelled out "THIS GUY IS STEALING ME" in fireworks.

himespau 

I like the idea, but think I agree with a lot of the other posters who say that the fact that it looks like an easy target to beat (even if it isn't) would make my bike a target. I am looking for something that's easier to carry though as my full sized U lock is a pain. Have been thinking about switching to a mini-U and a chain a la Sheldon, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

fietsbob

OK, have you done a let's get out a new, sharp , Nicholson Hack Saw blade
and see how long it takes to cut thru the band of Ti flat-bar
You know Destructive testing?

jccaclimber

So does a hacksaw on a big chunk of ti if you drive hard enough, although not anything like a cutoff wheel. However, a cutoff wheel will also probably go through that in a matter of seconds. By the time someone has gone to their window to look out, you're done.

Joshua A.C. New

Yeah, but a Kryptonite fails with a cutoff wheel, too. The TiGr, on the other hand, being titanium, will shoot an arc of white-hot sparks all over the sidewalk, not to mention the thief.



Of course! John's shooting some video footage today, in fact. I hope to get it up on the website in the next day.

If you like, you can get yourself a Palmy. Looks tough, but is made of aluminum soft enough to bend with your hands. And if you want to lock both wheels, it still weighs more than a TiGr.

Here's the thing: this is a new design, so when I show prototypes around to bike shops and stuff, they ask these same questions. What amazes me is that, because John's a very serious lock engineer, and he really thinks out the security implications of an engineering decision, he's had an answer for me every time I've asked him about an attack.

I'm a designer and a cyclist, by comparison. It's my job to make sure using the lock is pleasurable. It's his job to make it a pain in the ass to steal your bike. The TiGr is for people who want a really good, light, elegant lock. If you want to carry a 2.7 Kg chain to protect your 8 Kg bike, that's fine! You're not interested in what the TiGr does. But if you care what your bike weighs and want it to be a pain in the ass to steal, you're the people we're looking for to back the project. We're making what you want.

Because a chain, by its nature, is more than twice as much material (approaching 4x!), and therefore twice as heavy. Similarly, very little of a padlock is actually holding parts together at a time. They're both very heavy solutions.

To give you an idea, the Kryptonite M18WL, the New York "Titanium reinforced!" lock weighs four times as much as the heavy 40mm TiGr bow with the heavier stainless steel lock. It's more secure than the 20mm bow, but if you use the 20mm bow with the Ti lock, it weighs a sixth as much as the New York and half as much as a water bottle.

Here, lemme show you...

Joshua A.C. New

Good news, everyone!

I've just posted new videos of both use and destruction of the lock on tigrlock.com!

The Kickstarter is going spectacularly. Thanks so much for the support.

himespau 

wow that looks really promising

Joshua A.C. New

Thank you! John engineered a really clever thing. I'm doing what I can to live up to his engineering with my industrial design.

sjt78

What brand and model name of U lock was used in the video?