"The timeless pick-up line, 'Hey lady, you make me wanna wrap my sausage round a pole!' is as debonair as it is disarmingly effective. The Party Frank is that sausage wrapped around that pole 24-7 and it wants all the ladies to know that nothing's gunna break its hold". So says the Knog website of this silicone-coated cable lock, and the packaging suggests that you can trust it to keep your bike safe at the train station or other medium risk environments. And can you? No, in a word.
I wouldn't trust any light weight cable lock to keep my bike safe at the station or anywhere else it was going to be left unattended for long periods, in my experience none of them are up to that particular job. It also has to be said that many British railway stations are probably somewhat closer to a war zone than the corner shop - London Bridge station was the hottest of bike theft hotspots in an admittedly not very scientific insurance company survey on bike theft last year.
Knog have done a bit of lateral thinking for their cable lock range, including some microfilaments inside the cable in the hope that it will make them more resistant to bolt cutter attack. When it comes to the Party Frank It's a vain hope, sadly: the test model took one look at our 30" chopper (sorry, went all Knog website there for a minute) and put up a paltry 20 seconds of resistance. To be fair Knog aren't claiming that the Party Frank is any sort of maximum security device. They give it a security rating of 3/10 but unfortunately even that's being generous. I'd give it a 1/10.
You wouldn't need croppers as big as ours to make mincemeat of this lock, It's just not very strong. If you're desperate for a silicone-covered lock in a gaudy colour then one of the beefier Knog units might turn a trick down the train station, as it were. But I wouldn't rely on this.
Verdict
Pretty, but not up to the job.
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road.cc test report
Make and model: Knog Party Frank lock
Size tested: Gold
Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?
Patented seamless overmould using medical grade UV stable silicone.
Braided loose bound steel cable with fibre core (making cable more secure in the event of bolt cutter attack).
Includes 3 colour-coded overmoulded keys with wrist coil.
1000 combination blade style lock cylinder.
8mm Stainless steel locking shackle.
No leverage points.
Cable Diameter 12mm, Steel Cable Diameter 5mm.
Non Mark / Scratch surface.
Available in 12 Colours.
Did you enjoy using the product? No
Would you consider buying the product? No
Would you recommend the product to a friend? No
About the tester
Age: 38 Height: 190cm Weight: 98kg
I usually ride: whatever I'm testing... My best bike is: Genesis Equilibrium with SRAM Apex
I've been riding for: 10-20 years I ride: Every day I would class myself as: Experienced
I regularly do the following types of riding: time trialling, cyclo cross, commuting, sportives, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb, Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling, track
Dave is a founding father of road.cc and responsible for kicking the server when it breaks. In a previous life he was a graphic designer but he's also a three-time Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling world champion, and remains unbeaten through the bog. Dave rides all sorts of bikes but tends to prefer metal ones. He's getting old is why.
2 comments
Hi - Mike here from KNOG ...
First up thanks (as always) for the review of the Knog Party Frank.
As an everyday rider, who has also been lucky enough to ride in a lot of cities - that when it comes to locks - would be rated as 'bike lock war zones' like London or ... Budapest (where i would never leave my bike alone with anything short of a killer shackle lock - like the KNOG Strongman) - to cities that i would rate as one pedal short of 'bike lock heaven' - like Tokyo where you can leave your bike locked up with a piece of string and it will still be there one month later. I subscribe to the mantra - 'the right tool for the job'.
In this case the Party Frank is the right tool for locking;
- Any bike in any city in Japan
- My sons Freeagent at his primary school
- As a back up lock for your wheel, seat or helmet
- My 50 buck bar hopper outside the Great Britain Pub or..
- For after dark games with my 'ol lady (biker term gents!)
Basically if you have a job that a cable lock is suitable for - the KNOG sausage locks are up for it. They are beautiful, have a seamless complete silicon over-moulded construction that ensures it will never mark anything, the lock mechanism will never rust and the way we have designed the fiber core cable makes it tougher than your standard similarly 'specked' cable lock.
In summary - the Party Frank is the smallest of all the Sausage locks and there are two others that are fatter and longer .... at the end of the day - always choose the right lock for the right job - then we can all sleep peacefully through the night.
-
Hi Mike - thanks for responding. The right tool for the job is a good mantra. We're a UK website though, and we're testing things in UK conditions. So if a lock says it's suitable for a train station, we're thinking King's Cross, not Tokyo. Like I said in the review, we wouldn't expect any cable lock to fare well in that environment, generally speaking we don't recommend cable locks at all. But that's how it is over here...
The microfilaments seemed like a good idea but in the end they were a bit disappointing in that they didn't significantly extend the lock's crop resistance.
Looking forward to getting our hands on a Strongman, btw