Bike security away from home - compromise

[DonDino]

I'm looking to find the best chain that is less than either 1.5m or 8mm thickness...

Basically, my current chain is an Oxford whatever (don't think it has a model name) 1.5m x 8mm.
After a few attempts at different ways of ferrying it along everywhere I go (tying around handrails, hanging on shoulder, etc), I found it barely just about fits under the seat, but with a lot of messing about every time trying to arrange it in the correct way so the seat will snap into place - and then it doesn't completely go all the way down so there is risk of water getting under there to the battery, etc.

So, I need to find a good chain that is just a bit less bulky than this one, so it can fit snuggly under my seat.
Any suggestions?

I know one normally asks for the thickest chain, but at the end of the day, a compromise has to be made for convenience at some point. This way I can still keep a thick chain at home, and keep something more lightweight for when tying it up in town.
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First bike: CBF125, Feb. - Oct. 2012
Currently riding: ER-6N since Oct. 2012

[P.]

I could bite through an 8mm.

Do you like owning your bike? I had scrotes cut through a 16mm chain to get at a £400 road legal pit bike in a garage. An 8mm chain wouldn't stop anyone.

Compromise, get an Almax/Pragmasis, leave it where you intend to park, if its a partners, leave it there. If there is somewhere secure, leave it there..

Failing that, carry it with you. Loop it somewhere on the bike, J.M. carries his round the rear grab rails down to near the shock. I stick mine in a top box if I need to park elsewhere.

I park in town and use a 19mm and a 13mm, you should really consider keeping something hardcore with you. Bungee straps/cargo net on rear seat wouldn't be that bad.

All I see here is you losing your bike and having a moan about it later on. An Oxford is as strong as a shoe lace, so you don't have a fantastic start. Is your bike convenience for you? If so... use your head and try and keep hold of it...

[J.M.]

[DonDino]

[Bikermice]

Just a thought - is a chain your only only option? If you're concerned about the size/weight why not carry 2x heavy duty disc locks and a D-lock to the frame? My D-lock cost £52 and had the highest security rating according to my insurance company. IMO if a scrote sees a chain then it's a 50/50 worth a crack, but if they see 2 or 3 obstacles then they might not want to bother. If it's a pro then nothing is going to deter them, but as you say it's all a case of how much you are willing to lose and the balance between security and convenience.

[Joncrete Cungle]

Get a tail pack and something under it to stop the chain / padlock scratching your paintwork. An 8mm chain? I wouldn't even leave my push bike locked up with an 8mm chain. Get something proper from Almax or Pragmasis and stop messing about.

I wouldn't leave a chain locked up outside where you park. Scum bags could weaken it while you are not there then come back, snip the last bit and steal your bike. Or superglue your padlock so you can't open it and lock your bike up.

[i.p.phrealy]

half decent chain and a D lock on my bike, and it's a £600 Chinese bike I don't want to lose, because I've already lost 1 bike and dealing with the insurance is such an absolute ball ache I don't want to have to do it again.
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it is impossible to lick your own elbow...
and if you just tried you need professional help.
Finally allowed a big bike 19/03/14!

[J.M.]

My chain probably takes less time to loop around than it takes for you to put under your seat.

Also my chain is already 50% on when I come to chaining up the bike. I quickly throw it through the frame, through the wheel and then around a pole and it's sorted. Probably takes me the same time to do that as it takes for you to put your chain on.


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2004 R1 & 2018 XSR900

[P.]

Just for your info... when I had a supermoto I used..

A cover.
A 13mm and 19mm chain through frame, wheels and big metal gate.
A solid 28mm D lock through the rear spokes and brake disk.
A rape alarm under the cover attached to the fork guards so any twisting of the handlebars set the alarm off.

That wasn't enough security in my opinion.

My CBR is inside a shed currently which would probably take 3 or 4 people to get it out of there, then up some stairs, then through an alley way. That is away from my home also...

I had a bike stolen from outside my ex's house which is apparently one of the safest areas in Kent/East Sussex... so just because the view of where you live is "ok" the scum that inhabit the place will keep a watch on your bike..

[Mattaria]

[P.]

I love the people who are bothered by carrying some additional weight for a bike they care so dearly about

[pinkyfloyd]

I'm with Padster on this one. I had an 8mm chain and he ate it for breakfast. For lunch I had to drag him off a lamp post. He'd gnawed his way through 3 steel fence posts to get to the thing!

But on a more serious note. It does come down to how much you love your bike. Do you love it enough to carry an extra 10KG of chain around so Padster cannot chew through it? Or do you love it enough to leave it with a small disc lock and hope for the best?

Paddys seen where I park my bike around the back of my flats and theres bugger all access to it and it is out of the way but I still use a disc lock and a whacking big chain and the bike gets chained to an 8ft concrete washing line post.

At work it gets parked in a private drive with another whacking big chain and a disc lock.

Put simply is your bike worth carrying a tail pack/ruck sack with 10KG extra in?
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illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[Teflon-Mike]

It's the on-bike storage that's the problem, here, I think as much as the chain bulk, but always going to be a compromise.

If you are parking 'away' in the same spot every-day, and for longer periods, then more critical than if you are leaving it outside a shop while you pop in for milk, bread & fags, too.

When commuting, I used to have Oxford Hard-core, I think it was in top box. Work-mate had injeniouse solution; he had a BMW R80 as commuter hack, and had Krasuer paniers on it, but rather than put lock on paniers, he attached a bit of 2" PVC drain pipe behind the panier rack with a hole filed in the top, so he would drop the end of the chain in the tube, and lock end to hole in the top.

For popping to the shops; I have 5m of 10mm cable. Its not the most toe-rag proof in the world, BUT, it's long, and can be doubled in effective length by lassoing the ends to make a 'teather' to go round inconveniently distant street furnature, rather than just wrapped round the back wheel, an over weight disc-lock; & good enough to detur the opportunist.

Question is, at what grade of chain, will you go from deturing toe-rags to merely slowing them down? 'Something' is better than 'nothing', and if it stops an opportunist wheel away, because its locked to something immovable, job-done. And anything stronger than a bit of string, that actually needs tools to break is probably good enough. Beyond that, when they need tools, you are dealing with tooled up scroats, and at that point, if they are tooled up for the job, then chances are they will be tooled up for whatever you have used, whether its a cheap £10 market job, or a £100 Almax, and it's merely a question of how long it will take them to tool through it.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[Rogerborg]

I get you about the convenience thing, I can't be doing with faffing around for 5 minutes at each end of a journey.

Serious solution: get a worse bike. Any of mine get nicked, le shrug, worse things happen at sea. I don't buy cheap bikes because I'm a cheapskate (although I am) or a pov, I buy them for "peace of mind", and that's priceless.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[map]

For the deterrent effect why not also add something cheap and cheerful like the Cyclone V2 alarm?

Effective when just popping into shops for shopping (as Teflon's example above) and also adds to chain deterrent. Talking one if you want to be posh rather than rely on toe-rag spotting a flashing alarm led.
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...and the whirlwind is in the thorn trees, it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks...
Gibbs, what did Duckie look like when he was younger?

[stevo as b4]

It's quite an interesting subjet to hear views on, based on people's experiences, places where they park and what level of security measures they consider adequate, safe, excessive ect.

From Paddy's almost extreme security measures for his supermoto, to other people with an 8mm chain or a disc lock etc.

Personally when i've got my KMX back on the road, i have thought about security and what to do, but there are lots of factors to think about.

Just as an example if i've suck £2000-2500 into my bike and got a few nice trick looking bits on it, then it's not only going to be a trail/supermoto bike that shouts nick me to all the chavs in the area, but the parts on it might be quite desirable to the same kind of scrotes who have bikes like it or want to sell on aftermarket nice parts etc.

Leaving your bike locked up to a big solid gate/post in twon with a fuck off big chain is about the best you can do. But if they see it and can't nick it quickly and quietly, then they might be tempted to come back and unbolt a few easy to get off parts etc. You can't stop that whatever you do.

Personally with a bike that screams nick me like nearly all trailies do, then id be looking at a DIY immobiliser so that there is no chance of them getting it started if they cut your chain etc.

And if you need to get serious or think that your bike will walk from your parking location whatever, then you need some form of pager or way of alerting you if your close by and can get back to it quickly. Not very practical if you work on an 11th floor office etc. So some form of tracker has to be the No.1 device you can fit IMO. That way you should in theory be able to locate the bike to a smallish area, which ok in town is not much help, but in rural areas it can be very good!

But above all Rogerborg is spot on in that if you have to leave a nice bike parked in a shitty area on view in the street, it's time to change bikes or get a cheapy for the job. In fact remember bikes like Mugenseki's trick DTR125 motard, things like that just can't be left on view in public streets/carparks if you have any sense at all, and the only time you've got any change of keeping them is when you riding it.

That kind of bike would only have a chance if it was inside your house locked up at night.

[mysterious_rider]

I had a cable lock from halfrauds, basically an oxford cable one, about a large finger thickness, which you would curl up and slip onto a mount on the side of the frame where it would hand out of the way. Great idea, not that I ever use it.

[Bikermice]

[johnsmith222]

I carried an almax series 3 on my CG125 daily for 2 years.

I fail to see why there's an issue carrying one on an ER6.

Get a 1.5m almax series 3.

[DonDino]

Thanks for all your replies, really interesting to know so many different viewpoints.

The issue with carrying a chain is that it's awkward to store/tie it on the bike before setting off every time. I don't know if Roger was being ironic there, but I just can't be bothered having to fidget about for 5+ minutes every time I set off, with finding the correct position under the seat so the seat will latch on, or finding the best way to tie the chain round the rear handlebars so that it doesn't hang off the back and get rubbed on the wheel (yes it happened).
The current chain I have has a fixed lock integrated on the ends, so it's fixed length - perhaps if I get a different one I can lock it at different links and so tighten it more around the rear bars/seat.

As Teflon-Mike says, it depends where you take your bike to and at the end of the day, you're just deterring rather than making it 100% secure.
80% of the time I take my bike to Manchester town centre and lock it at the bike rails, next to other bikes. Other bikes there seem to have chains like mine, or thinner, and some are not even chained at all. So they can go for one of those before trying to nick mine. Plus with so many people going by, surely it adds to the safety factor.

I also have a disc lock. It was alarmed but the electronics got damaged by rainwater - I am getting a new one, alarmed once again, so there is yet another deterrent, surely the alarm going off will attract interest from passers-by and make aspiring thieves go away.

You say do I love my bike? Of course I do. That's why I don't currently commute to work on it. I work in a crappy area where chavs make a habit of breaking into our cars for fun (especially during the school holidays) just to see if there is anything in the glove compartments. There is a rail outside our building where I could chain the bike, but if I left it there unattended for a whole day, it would probably get scratched, pushed over or burned to bits. So I don't take it there at all.

But where I will commute is places that are 'safe' within a certain degree - that's where a compromise needs to be made, security vs. convenience, because if I need two disc locks, two almax chains, a d-lock, an alarm and a cover just to park my bike when going for shopping, I might as well give it up and stick to the car.

Again as Teflon-Mike says, it's about on-bike storage - if I could just throw a 20kg chain on the back or under the seat and ride away, I wouldn't mind at all, but there is just no space or flexibility for this.
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First bike: CBF125, Feb. - Oct. 2012
Currently riding: ER-6N since Oct. 2012

[J.M.]

[BravoCharlie]

when working the nightclubs earlier this year, i used to carry an almighty chain about with me, weighed a good 10KG.

i used to carry it in a rucksack at the bottom, with all my other crap on top as my 125 never had a top box - it was definitely worth it - last thing i wanted was a stag do picking my GZ up and carrying it down the street!

it had good enough reach on it that i'd either put it round a pole, or if i couldnt tie it down, at least wrap it tight around the back of the wheel so it couldn't move if they tried pushing (lifting is the issue with a 125!)

i am guilty at times for parking up in a bike bay with nothing more than a steering lock, but the majority of the time i see no harm in bringing my chain!

EDIT: i should also mention that within one month of starting my new job, running late for a meeting, i threw my cover over the bike disregarding my chain or disc lock, and the GZ was stolen to be found the next day in a wreck. careful, it cost a bit to get going again!
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Current: Kawasaki ZL600 Eliminator
Past: Suzuki GZ125, Kawasaki GT550, Kawasaki GPX600R, Honda vrx400,Kawasaki Zephyr 750, Suzuki SV650 K5
Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.

[johnsmith222]

[anthony_r6]

Finding somewhere on the bike to put it is definitely the better option. Like one of the above posts - I used to carry my chain around my back/shoulder. Come off with it there though and you could end up doing some damage to yourself, especially when you land on it. Not to mention the weight of the bloody thing.
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Ted : "Maybe he's agoraphobic."
Dougal : "Jack scared of fighting? I don't think so, Ted."

[BravoCharlie]