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Video: Hal Grades Your Locks site gives scores A+ to F for Bristol cyclistshalgradesyourlocks.com-screen-grab

Video: Hal Grades Your Locks site gives scores A+ to F for Bristol cyclists

The rozzers down our way have called in the A-Team
by nick_rearden
Sat, Nov 19, 2011 13:26
4

The Avon and Somerset Police and Cycling City have made a series of short films featuring NYC "supreme expert" Hal Ruzal offering advice on locking your bike as well as safety and maintenance tips.

The boundlessly enthusiastic Hal Ruzal rides his bike 10,000 miles per year so reckons in his 30 year cycling career has ridden 300,000 miles. During that time he has worked at top New York City shop Bicycle Habitat as a mechanic, obviously picking up a fair few tips on how not to get your bike or components stolen.

In recent years Ruzal has enjoyed a second parallel career with the New York online cycling community with his Hal Grades Your Bike Locking videos and it didn't seem to make sense to reinvent the wheel, as it were, when Avon and Somerset Police were looking at ways to combat an epidemic of cycle theft in Bristol.

It was a case of fly in Hal, point him at the Bristol bike racks and 'Action'; the results are some priceless New York humour as well as advice - such as making sure the pole you're securing your bike to is itself secure - that will hopefully sink in with cyclists all over the UK. 

Details: halgradesyourlocks.com

Hal Ruzal
Cycling City
Bristol
Avon and Somerset Police

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4 comments

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jimmyd | 12 years ago
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Good advise for people who don't know how to lock a bike. I use 3 locks in total on my bike. Like the idea of threading a cable through the bottom of the seat.

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horizontal dropout | 12 years ago
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At 3 minutes in he says you can steal a wheel that is locked through the frame by cutting a few spokes. Could you? Surely you would have to cut the rim.

Anyway why oh why didn't they use the late wonderful Barry Mason's video: http://youtu.be/oPDHPpnXPv8

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nick_rearden replied to horizontal dropout | 12 years ago
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horizontal dropout wrote:

At 3 minutes in he says you can steal a wheel that is locked through the frame by cutting a few spokes. Could you? Surely you would have to cut the rim.

Depends how it's locked, hd. In this case both arms of the D-lock pass through just some spokes meaning that you *could* just snip those spokes to get the wheel but, as he says, it's unlikely they'd bother for the hassle if there are easier pickings nearby. To be super-secure, if the arms passed either side of the rim as well as the frame then both are safe with the added bonus that the inside of the D-lock is that much more inaccessible to being 'jacked' on account of being all full of big fat tyre as well as the frame stays and all the spokes. Beat the f*****s!

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a.jumper | 12 years ago
0 likes

wow. A good use of some cycling city money?

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