Secure Motorcycles In Transit With These Anti-Theft Devices

We know the drill well: You’re on the way to a race or track event—or maybe just going dirt riding—and need to overnight in a motel. At the front desk, you always ask, “Is there a room where I can park right by the door?” Then you back your truck in and hope nobody hits their head on your jutting loading ramp or barks a shin on your trailer hitch. With your motorcycles and gear right outside the door, now there’s a fighting chance of catching a theft in progress. Another step you can take is threading a super-duty chain or cable through the bike frames and locking it down tight. That extra step just takes a few moments to do and will absolutely slow down or thwart a thief—or else encourage them to go elsewhere. Here are three great solutions that stow easily and can help save your bike.

Here is a super-easy way to secure your motorcycles. This Master Lock Python 5/16-inch braided-steel cable and lock assembly can be secured in any position from 6 inches to the end of the 6-foot cable. This makes them ideal for locking irregularly shaped items, such as a bike frame to a pickup-bed loop on one side of your truck, and two bike frames together in the center of the truck with no slack in either cable. Vinyl covering on the cable resists scuffing the components you’re securing, and this cable lock comes with two keys.

Made of case-hardened steel, this 3/8-inch chain cannot be cut with bolt cutters or hand tools, claims the maker. As such, more serious tools such as a cutoff wheel or oxyacetylene torch with a cutting tip would be required to defeat it—a noisy invasion indeed outside a motel or in a campground at night. Such tools are probably low on the probability list for common thieves to carry, rendering your motorcycle(s) all that much safer during your travels. At 6 feet long, this Vulcan Premium chain is bulky and heavy, but if you’re traveling by truck you’ll never notice.

There are padlocks, and then there are gorilla padlocks. Far from the cute wannabe locks found alongside the laundry soap and light bulbs at the grocery store, this is a Big Bertha-grade padlock. It features hardened-steel componentry, a commercial-grade six-pin cylinder with antipick pins, and a drill-resistant keyway cover. It also carries an ASTM International security grade of 5. Bottom line, no common thief will defeat this lock. Just make sure the cable or chain you use with it is of the same high caliber.