My first guess is that they did some actual testing and didn’t get very good results… although that didn’t stop them from releasing their other model colo[u]rful plastic-covered cable locks with the supposed tough core. I just finished watching a YouTube video where the guy took a standard 3/8-inch braided steel cable and – using a brand new pair of chinese-made cutters – proceeded to cut through the steel cable in ten seconds. Then, with that benchmark established, he used the same cutters (now presumably dulled a little by the cable) to cut through the blue Knog lock in SIX seconds. Three or four seconds for the outer silicone cover and the woven steel, and a couple more seconds to worry the tough inner cord and there it was, no longer a lock, just an expensive piece of plastic with a bit of metal inside.

I could see those locks being of some value if it took a standard, cheap bolt-cutter of the length that thieves conceal down one pant-leg, maybe a full minute to work through. SIX seconds, though, is not any kind of deterrent.

Could the cool-looking Knog Strongman with its fancy unlocking mechanism (with the risk that other people have highlighted) be $150-worth of better? I’ll wait for some reviewers who give it a real-life workout and hit it with some standard bike-thief tactics.

Meanwhile, my yellow-and-black Kryptonite New York lock weighs four pounds, is ugly with my red bike, and its cheap-shit plastic mounting bracket broke in the first week (so now I bungee the lock to the pannier-rack), but the lock is rugged and hard to defeat. Oh well. Coolness will have to wait.

Ride on, y’all.