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Video: "Unpickable" Forever Lock is picked Forever lock pick.png

Video: "Unpickable" Forever Lock is picked

Video shows lock being breached with a bump key
by Mat Brett
Fri, Jun 13, 2014 12:51
6

The Forever Lock ‘unpickable’ bike lock: someone has stuck a video up on YouTube apparently showing them picking it.

We showed you the Forever Lock a few weeks ago. The reason that the lock is described as unpickable is that you can't see the keyhole or easily access it because it is hidden internally.

Here’s the original video.

We said at the time, “Of course, saying that it’s impossible to pick this lock is just asking for someone to come along and prove you wrong.”

And whaddya know? Someone has apparently done just that.

The man in question has made a bump key to pick the lock. A thief would obviously need a certain amount of time and knowledge to do this.

In truth, the ability to pick a bike lock is a bit of a red herring because the vast majority of bike thefts rely on breaking the lock by force rather than picking.

pick lock
Forever Lock
Mat Brett

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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6 comments

Avatar
kide | 9 years ago
0 likes

Bumping is very effective with regular pin locks. Use Abloy!

Avatar
Beaufort | 9 years ago
0 likes

If a Key has had to be made to 'pick' the lock, then it's hardly 'picking' I think. These locks look pretty secure to me, I'd consider one.

Avatar
bikebot replied to Beaufort | 9 years ago
0 likes
Beaufort wrote:

If a Key has had to be made to 'pick' the lock, then it's hardly 'picking' I think. These locks look pretty secure to me, I'd consider one.

It's the wrong metric. The right one is how long it takes to cut through it with a hacksaw or how big a set of bolt cutter you would need.

Avatar
Nick T replied to Beaufort | 9 years ago
0 likes
Beaufort wrote:

If a Key has had to be made to 'pick' the lock, then it's hardly 'picking' I think. These locks look pretty secure to me, I'd consider one.

It's not a "key" it's a "bump key". Most locks are pickable with the bump method, It's how a locksmith gets your door open when you're locked out. That one bump key he made will open any one of these locks, over and over again.

If the maker of these locks makes "unpickable" claims without realising that's it's actually very easy to pick, I'd be worried about any other oversights they may have made. That U bar is probably made of cheddar.

Avatar
pants | 9 years ago
0 likes

Of course none of this is relevant because in the history of bike theft, not one lock has ever been picked.

Avatar
bikebot | 9 years ago
0 likes

An analogy from the world of IT security - http://xkcd.com/538/

Thieves don't pick locks.

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