4 Types of Home Security Bike Locks
It is easy to store your bike in your garage at home, but what about your personal security as you travel on the road? Home security extends beyond the house. Your equipment and tools help to supply your steady income. Many of us today are choosing alternate transportation to the motor vehicle, like the bicycle. Bicycles are environmentally sound and save your precious, hard-earned dollars from being wasted. The man-powered wheels dodge the expenditures of gas and the heavy cost of car repair. And what if you do not have a garage? Another important home security factor to consider for your bicycle is storage space. Many people simply do not have adequate space to store a bicycle inside their home. You may live in a cozy cottage that has no garage, or you may rent a room on a high-up floor, so the only proper option for you is to store your bicycle on your porch, or locked to a rail in front of your home.
According to the National Bicycle Registry, 4110 bikes are stolen every day, and that’s over to a four thousand hard workers without reliable transportation. If someone steals your bike, your life will be changed in a major way, either sentimentally or financially. You will have to replace your stolen bike with a new one, and all the previous effort you spent on keeping your bike in shape will be lost. That is why with every bicycle purchase, you must consider its home burglar alarm equivalent: a hard-target bike lock, or even a bike alarm.
There are at least four types of bike locks:
-Cable Guards
-Chain Locks
-U-Lock
-Alarm Locks
Each of these locks, if used properly, can provide a hefty amount of security against bike thieves looking for an easy steal. Cable guards tend to be a thick braid of steel that is encased by plastic to make the sturdy lock easier for you to handle. Chain locks are usually oval rounds of thick metal linked together and can run from thinner, lighter chains, to depths as thick as 12-inch links—for city areas where theft rates are higher. Both chains and cables can be secured by combination lock or tamper-free key locks. U-Locks are as their name says; they are hard, immobile U-shaped locks that are near impossible to cut through. They are often opened by key, and sometimes combination. The Alarm locks are generally battery operated, and can be triggered by a sensor. An example is the Xena lock (http://www.greenspeed.us/bike_alarm_lock.htm), which at $85, adds a little more protection than its silent lock counterparts. All of these alarms can be hooked on your bike while you ride, making it just as easy to secure your transportation and protect your bike while you are away from your alarm-secured home.
Photo via green308
