I used to feel a little insecure...

[0ddball]

....but not anymore. I thought i'd stick up a pic and a little review about my new toys.

After hearing nothing but good about them i called Almax with my credit card in hand. The guy i spoke to (never caught his name but probably Alex) couldn't be more helpful. I expected it to be the typical 30 second "tell us what you want and give us your card details" type of call but he genuinely seemed to care about making my bike secure. He asked what bike it was, to try to give me specific advise about the best way to lock it and gave me other good advise such as a way to make sure they couldn't just take the back wheel off, the best way to fit the ground anchor, ect. Free postage and arrived exactly when he said it would. All in all, great service.

I got the 1.5M series IV chain, the Squire lock and a Hardie ground anchor for £209 delivered. Fairly expensive but if looked at relatively, it's not. If i use it for 10 years it's only £20/year which is nothing compared to insurance, tyre cost, petrol cost ect In fact i'm thinking about buying another.

https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i204/SpannerMonkey/almaxgear.jpg

CHAIN: As expected, the chain is very sturdy and heavy. I've put a 1p next to it in the pic to give perspective of the link size (14cm x 7cm x 1.9cm). It is steel but feels and sounds different to normal carbon steel, almost like a titanium alloy. Supposed to be impossible to bolt crop which i'll accept unless i see it proved otherwise (hopefully not by a scally) but i'm slightly tempted to have a go at one link with an angle grinder, just to see how long it takes to cut through should i get a very determined tea leaf.

LOCK: Pretty heavy and looks like it would take a good few minutes to cut with a grinder, let alone a hand saw. The shackle is probably very hard anyway but with the 19mm link of the series IV chain there isn't really any room to get at it with croppers anyway. An ingenious idea that i haven't come across before is the 3 colour key system. You use the green keys normally but if one of the green keys is lost/stolen the security of the lock is at risk, instead of throwing the lock away and getting another, you open and close the lock with one of the yellow keys. This changes the lock combination so that the green keys no longer work and the yellow ones are the new master keys. And if a yellow one is lost/stolen you can do the same again and the red keys becomes the master keys and the yellow ones don't work anymore.

Ground Anchor: It's an expanding bolt type and looks very shiney shiney. A drill bit and allen key are included. It's hard to judge how secure these things are untill you get them in front of you and have a fiddle with it. Now i have i feel confident in it. The outer part that the chain attaches to swivels while the centre is fixed fast. After drilling the hole the anchor is secured using the expanding bolt and the small cap in the centre which is a very tight interferance fit is hammered into place flush with the outer face of middle section. This is the critical point because it would very very difficult to get that back out to get to the allen head bolt.

I'm not one for posting everything i do/buy/see in a day but i like to praise good service. Also i ordered on reputation not knowing exactly what i'd get so i did this in the hope that it helps others who are looking at options for some decent security.

[extreme3d]

That is one well thought out lock. Really must look into a decent ground anchor and chain set-up for my bikes.

Good post to