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I'm not sure why you found it difficult to find the dimensions on our chains
I was looking at the product page, the "Detailed Info" link which goes here: http://securityforbikes.com/proddetail.php?prod=P19-x.x
I'm not convinced of the value of 19mm chains on bicycles in general as the advantage they give over 16mm is basically down to angle grinder resistance, and realistically an angle grinder has a chance of getting through anything.
Very true, I've cut a few myself. However the deterrence of a 19mm chain compared to a 16mm adds a little to the risk mitigation.
My bike is custom. It's rather ridiculous, the majority of motorcycles cost less. I'll be locking it on a London street during the day, and the bike screams high price tag. I'll go for every insane option I can, especially as even though it is fully insured the money is totally irrelevant... what matters is that I'm not sure the framebuilder is even making new frames any more. If it gets stolen I will never get an equivalent replacement. A 19mm chain for a usability headache is fine... and the chain will do the frame and rear wheel... Kryptonite mini for the front wheel, Xena alarm on the front disc (most likely to move).
Does that help?
Yes.
I'll still go for the Abloy PL362 though.
Velocio-
Ah, that product detail page is just inside our shopping cart, whereas our 'Info' pages have the main guff on our products. It is on my to-do list to restructure the site to make all this easier to navigate. Apologies that it is not as easy to find info as it should be. Most people come to our cart via the info pages, but if you bypass that then you may think there is a dearth of detail. Checkout the other pages (at the top of the navbar) if you want detail on any of our stuff, and we always try to answer questions ;-)
I'll still go for the Abloy PL362 though.
Fair enough, but PM me separately with an address and we'll send you a 13mm offcut link and an 11mm link as well, FoC. If you put one or other of those in the gap next to the chain, whichever is the tighest fit, you should be able to obstruct access to the shackle and get the best of both worlds, hopefully. I'd be interested to know if this works as we've got loads of offcuts from the smaller chains and it might be something of use to others :-)
Pragma
Hi Velocio,
Sure, I want to sell my product, but more than that I want proper information and to allow people to make reasoned decisions. I will actively encourage people to buy products from other companies if I think they are better suited to their needs.
I said 'thin' re Almax's chain because it is less than 19mm across the 'flats'. It is not round but is slightly square. This gives them a commercial advantage in terms of campatibility with the standard SS65CS lock as their chain fits and ours doesn't so we have to get Squire to make a special version with a slightly wider opening (only 1mm clearance, though). However, my point here is that their flattened shape means there is more clearance inside the opening on the PL362 lock, and that could be significant for croppers and grinders. With the SS65CS, it is insignificant, but the PL362 is a different thing altogether.
You say the shackle on the PL362 is 25mm but that is actually the vertical clearance, which is not that important. The horizontal clearance is my main worry as that is 30mm, so lots of room for croppers or grinders to get in there next to a chain link. I was also talking about the thickness of the shackle itself, which is only 15mm (so far less than the 19mm chain). Hence our concern that the shackle is very exposed and at 15mm thickness could be a major weakness when partnered with a 19mm chain. I would not do it if I was you.
The video you quoted is made by a chap called Adrian Weber. He has also made several videos on our chains and other products, e.g. :
http://youtu.be/LFafq-u7wqQ
You could ask him what he thinks about the chains in comparison and whether the shackle clearance on the PL362 is a concern.
The Squire keys you photograph are the Quick-Change/standard profile. I think Squire dropped the QuickChange option last year. We never used it. We don't use the standard profile and our 'restricted' keys are different. However, these Squire keys are 'conventional' profile keys and I would agree that the Protec cylinder (which is the one to have in the PL362 - beware not all PL362 have the same cylinder inside!) probably is harder to pick. That is theoretically speaking as we've not heard of anyone ever picking either of them, including 'Bosnian Bill' who has done a lot of work with Adrian - search YouTube for l-o-t-s of videos from someone that really does know his stuff and can pick almost anything and his videos are genuine! We checked the restricted cylinder with Adrian and with Bosnian Bill before we switched to it last year. As far as I know, he has never been able to pick it. Even so, picking virtually never happens in real life: Thieves like far more reliable types of attack, such as hammers, croppers, jacks etc. Hence, the concern about shackle vulnerability is a far bigger issue than the pickability of high-grade cylinders in our opinion.
I'm not sure why you found it difficult to find the dimensions on our chains as we quote this for our whole range:
http://securityforbikes.com/security-chains.php#linkdimensions
Does that give the information you were after?
Personally, I'm not convinced of the value of 19mm chains on bicycles in general as the advantage they give over 16mm is basically down to angle grinder resistance, and realistically an angle grinder has a chance of getting through anything. The usability disadvantage of a 19mm on a bicycle, however, is huge. I'd rather see a 16mm chain looped through multiple parts of the bike than a 19mm just around the top tube, for example. We have seen multiple cases where frames are cut in order to separate a chain, and the bike is gone. Your multi-part strategy should have a major deterrent against attacks like that and I applaud that type of approach. Every deterrent is a good deterrent :-)
Does that help?