Halfords 23cm D Lock

The Halfords 23cm D Lock is the cheapest lock we’ve tested this year. It’s a good performer and punches above its weight as a Sold Secure Gold rated lock, meaning most insurance companies will be happy with it. It’s easy to use and has a rubber coating to reduce the chances of scratching your frame.

If you’re after a cheap Gold standard Sold Secure lock, then this is a good option from Halfords. Its 23cm D Lock is a sleek and understated lock which doesn’t draw attention to itself and it provides a great level of protection against potential thieves.

The lock comes with two keys – a nice touch – and using it is about as easy as can be. There’s a slot on the bottom of the lock, with a slidable cover over it. Putting the key in and giving it a quarter-turn lets you take the entire bottom section of the lock off.

Putting the main section of the lock through your frame is simple, and then you just do the above steps in reverse to lock it up. Having the slidable cover means you can reduce the amount of rainwater that will get into the locking mechanism, which should help with longevity.

The lock also comes with a simple frame mount, although I wouldn’t necessarily choose to use this on a frame with nice paint. A simple pair of plastic straps wrap around the frame and then the lock slides onto the mount nice and easily.

If you do decide to use the mount, I’d heavily recommend making sure your frame is protected with some form of tape to make sure it can’t damage the paintwork. The main body of the lock itself has a soft touch coating to help reduce the chance of damage to your paintwork when in use.

Security

We recently tested a whole range of locks with the same method: by giving our ‘thief’ a minute with a pair of bolt cutters and then two minutes with an angle grinder to see how long it would take to get through the lock – if indeed it were possible.

> Cheap vs expensive bike locks — will spending more keep your pride and joy safe? We deployed an angle grinder to find out

This lock survived the minute with the bolt cutters, which is reassuring and means an opportune thief couldn’t swiftly make off with your bike without making much noise.

When it came to the angle grinder, the lock put up a fight for 33 seconds. This is a solid result versus the competition, and for the cheapest lock on test it held up impressively well. It lasted longer than several other locks, costing up to £124.99.

While it did eventually break under the use of the angle grinder, that duration of noise and obvious criminal activity would give some time for any bystanders to possibly intervene and could dissuade a potential thief.

Halfords is also clear to advertise the use of a double-bolt locking mechanism, meaning that if someone cuts through one leg they can’t just rotate the bar to get the lock off. They would have to cut through both legs.

The main reason I think that this lock did well in the test with our thief was just the sheer amount of material present. It’s a 1,095g lock (with another 40g for the mount) and that’s simply quite a lot of metal to cut through to steal a bike.

The fact that this lock has a Sold Secure Gold rating also means that most insurance companies should be happy with it being used to keep your pride and joy safe, and they should be happy to cover your bike being left outside too – but obviously you should check this before committing.

As already mentioned, the lock comes with a pair of keys, which is handy if you’re someone who happens to misplace things, and to add to its great value, Halfords offers free key replacement should you lose both, which is pretty awesome for this price. You’ll need to register the lock and then if you request a new key it’s said you’ll receive it within 30 days. 

Another great value lock we’ve tested recently is the Halfords Advanced 23cm D Lock,  which can be looked on as this one’s big brother. It’s a similar design, but a bit more heavy duty, resulting in an impressive Diamond Sold Secure rating. It comes in at £50, so a bit more than this one, but a lot less than most other Diamond options, which top out at a whopping £289.99.

The Master Lock U-Lock is much the same price as that one and also Diamond Sold Secure rated. It didn’t fare quite as well in our angle grinder test though, lasting only 42 seconds versus the 94 seconds achieved by the Halfords Advanced.

Conclusion

You can obviously get cheaper options from places such as eBay, but with the inclusion of the Gold rating, the impressive resistance to theft, and the big brand name, this lock is really impressive and has done an excellent job. If you’ve got a nice bike and want the easiest option to try to keep it safe, the Halfords 23cm D Lock does an excellent job, with the added benefit of its credentials being recognised by most insurance companies.

Verdict

Great value and hardy lock that functions well – and comes with a Gold Sold Secure rating

All the deals displayed on our review pages are pulled from a constantly updating database feed of the best affiliate deals available. The criteria for deciding on what are the best deals is who is offering the lowest, delivered price. In most cases we will be showing the very best deal available online, but sometimes you may be able to find an item cheaper. If you can please feel free to post a link in the comments box below. To find out more about affiliate links on road.cc click here.