Lezyne Matrix Air Cage

Hiding an AirTag compartment in a bottle holder, the Lezyne Matrix Air Cage is a tidy bit of extra security for your bike.

If you need a place to stash an Apple AirTag for a chance of recovering your bike if it's stolen, the Lezyne Matrix Air Cage is just the job.

Lurking in its plastic body is a concealed compartment; an AirTag fits snugly, with an o-ring to help keep out the elements. Best of all, at first glance the cage looks just like any other cage.

The Air Cage lets through the radio signals an AirTag uses to do its thing, because it's basically plastic. As we discussed in a previous review – the Muc-Off Secure Tag Holder – wrapping an AirTag in metal reduces the range. Though of course it does make for a robust shell.

Nevertheless, the Matrix Air has proven itself plenty robust without aluminium. After several months on my bike, the AirTag still works, and it lets me know if I leave the bike anywhere but at home.

The Matrix Air is similarly shaped to Lezyne's Matrix Team cage, and made from the same Composite Matrix material; I'm going to guess that's the marketing department's name for some sort of fibre-reinforced plastic. I haven't deliberately tried to break it, but it seems pretty tough. The stuff Lezyne uses for its mighty Power Lever XL tyre levers has the same name, and feels similar to the fingernail-scratch test.

Lezyne supplies a pair of T25 security screws to mount the Matrix Air Cage to your bike. These are the Torx screws with a tiny protrusion in the middle so you need the right hollow-tipped bit to turn them; Lezyne includes one of those too. These bits are freely available (it turned out I already had one in my Wera Zyklop set), but they're an extra level of inconvenience for a casual thief who's wary of trackers.

On the other hand, they're a bit of a flag that there's something unusual about the cage, so if you don't want to tip your hand, you'll use standard hex screws to mount it, or get some more security screws for other parts of the bike.

Lezyne claims the matrix Air Cage is 'dual side-loading' and that's sort of fair. It's a bit easier to get a bottle in at an angle than some regular cages, but you can't shove a bottle in completely sideways the way you can with, say, a Bontrager Side Load Water Bottle Cage. Those cages are VERY handed, though; Lezyne makes angled bottle insertion easier from either side.

My only specific misgiving about the Matrix Air Cage is that it's outside the bike. I think Muc-Off has the right idea with the Stealth Tubeless Tag Holder, which stashes the AirTag inside your tyres. No doubt a savvy thief would find it eventually, but it's a lot less obvious than any other AirTag holder.

Unfortunately the size of an AirTag means the Muc-Off only works with 38mm+ tyres, so it's useful for mountain bikes and many gravel bikes, but not so much for most tarmac-only road bikes.

But how useful is it really? While the Matrix Air Cage undoubtedly works as a place to stash an AirTag, the bigger question is just how viable is the AirTag as a post-theft recovery aid?

Apple stalks

Apple has received trenchant criticism of the way AirTags can be used for covert tracking and even stalking, and that's led to some tweaks in the way they work. If you have an iPhone, you get an alert if an unknown AirTag is following you around. In fact this happened to me when I borrowed an acquaintance's Brompton, but since I wasn't a thieving scumbag I just thought 'Oh Morrie's put an AirTag on this,' rather than 'Argh, AirTag, must find and destroy!'

But to arm themselves against AirTags, thieves don't have to use iPhones. Tracker Detect is an app for Android phones that similarly detects AirTags.

Apple doesn't say how long it takes for someone to be alerted that a strange AirTag is moving with them, but with that borrowed Brompton I got an alert in a matter of hours.

For a tech-savvy thief with an Android phone, Apple says that if Tracker Detect 'detects an AirTag ... near you for at least 10 minutes, you can play a sound to help find it.' There are any number of how-to videos out there showing how to disable an AirTag speaker.

Core functionality

To protect people against being covertly tracked, then, Apple has reduced the amount of time available for tracking a stolen bike (or anything else) with one. However, people are still finding them useful – as in this story from April – so it's definitely worth fitting one. You just have to be ready to move fast if the worst happens.

There are other uses for an AirTag on your bike other than post-theft bike recovery. If you're lucky enough to have a large bike parking facility like Cambridge's 3,000-capacity Cycle Point, the Find My app will guide you back to your bike if you've forgotten where you parked it. Or maybe you've parked up in town and then had a few... an AirTag will help you and your hangover find your bike the next day. You're still going to need a serious lock though, and please don't ride under the influence.

And as of iOS 17, you can share an AirTag's location with other people (it was previously a single-user device). That means you can have a friend or loved one track you when you're out on a ride and, if you crash, they'll still be able to find you even if your phone battery's flat.

Rivals

The only widely-available direct rival I can find is Topeak's Ninja Cage Z With AirTag Mount. It's a lot cheaper at just £12.99, but lacks the Lezyne unit's sealed compartment; it just holds the AirTag between the cage and your frame.

There are loads of other AirTag mounts out there; we like the previously mentioned Muc-Off Stealth in-tyre widget, which is £15. Accessory-maker Topeak has its own Cage Mount For Airtag that fits under your bottle cage and costs £9.99, and Lezyne itself does something similar as an under-seat mount with the £18 Matrix Saddle Tagger. Search for 'AirTag bike mount' and you'll find dozens more.

Conclusions

Being mindful of the limitations of the AirTag as a security device, this is a relatively inexpensive bit of extra security that does a really good job of concealing an AirTag.

Who should buy the Lezyne Matrix Air Cage? If you want the extra security to track your skinny-tyred bike should it get stolen, this is about the tidiest option.

Verdict

Useful bit of extra security, and an elegant combo of cage and AirTag holder