The Portable Pitbull

WHAT: Kryptonite New York Fahgettaboudit w/ NY Disc Lock

WHERE: www.kryptonitelocks.com

HOW MUCH: $119.95

When you lock up your bike, what exactly are you trying to do? You’re locking it up so someone doesn’t run off with it, right? Well, hopefully, you’re doing something more than that. Hopefully, you are also deterring someone from trying to run off with your bike in the first place. A seemingly subtle distinction, to be sure, but a very important distinction all the same.

Picture this; you lock your bike to a lamp post, walk into a coffee shop, haggle with Barista-Girl-Sporting-A-Nose Ring-Number 367 for five minutes about what exactly a “tall” cup of overpriced coffee should look like, and by the time you finally walk out to your bike, it’s still there, but now it looks like King Kong wiped his ass with it. Dented tubes, gouged paint, bent wheels—it’s amazing what a monkey wrench, a pair of bolt cutters and a garden-variety meth habit can do to a set of paper-thin aluminum tubes.

Clearly, there’s no foolproof way of stopping someone from trying to jack your bike (or jacking it up in the process). You can, however, reduce the odds that your bike will get mauled by locking it up with a device so burly, that it deters people from even trying to mess with your ride. Enter Kryptonite’s New York Fahgettaboudit.

This chain and lock combo is essentially the equivalent of a portable pit bull. For starters, it features a six-sided hexagonal chain made of triple heat-treated boron manganese steel. The 11-millimeter thick, hexagonal links are incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to cut with even the largest of bolt cutters and each link is narrow, so that it is also incredibly difficult to wedge and lever something in between the links. The chain on the Faghettaboudit is three feet, three inches-long—plenty long for most lock-up situations. A longer, five-foot version is also available, but its weight makes commuting with it a fearsome proposition and also boosts the price tag thirty bucks.

Of course, a burly chain is useless if it’s not secured with an equally stout lock. The Fahgettaboudit sports Kryptonite’s New York Disc Lock which, in turn, sports a 13-millimeter thick steel shackle, a hardened steel sleeve over crossbar (for extra security), a double deadbolt, and a pick and drill-resistant, disc-style lock cylinder. And no, the Fahgettaboudit does not use a tubular-cylinder style key, so you don’t have to sweat that whole “Is someone going to pick my lock with a pen cap?” drama (actually, this is true for all of Kryptonite’s locks these days anyway).

There are a bunch of other niceties here, such as a sliding dustcover and a key that sports its own little light (useful when unlocking your bike at night), but if you are still reading this Tolstoy-length review, it’s probably because you’re interested in the take-no-bullshit-nature of this lock. To that end, Kryptonite gives this particular model its maximum security rating and backs the Fahgettaboudit with a $3,500 insurance policy (just register the lock with Kryptonite when you buy it and you’ll be covered).

I’ve personally used this lock for a solid year and a half. In that time, no one has even laid a finger on my bike….which is saying a lot since I frequently left my bike locked up in a neighborhood where people routinely steal garden hoses, cars, fish (my neighbor back in Buffalo got his koi lifted several times) and stone Buddha statues (same poor bastard with the stolen-fish problem).

I’ll be honest, I can’t tell you with 100 percent certainty that it was this lock alone that kept my bike safe from thieves' fingers, but I will tell you that I also had a muddy test bike knicked from my side yard in under a minute (no exaggeration here) when I wasn’t using the Fahgettaboudit.

The downsides to this product? Well, it’s expensive, no doubt about it. Then again, forking over $120 is a lot better than replacing that $2,000 bike you scrimped and saved for. The Fagettaboudit is also one heavy son of a bitch. You're looking at just under eight and a half pounds of angry chain and lock. Commuting with this bad boy is not a walk in the park.

Personally, I figure that if the price of security requires me to get all Conan during my commutes, so be it. I might feel differently if I faced a 40-mile daily bike commute, but my trips are in the 10 to 20-mile range. In short, I highly recommend the Faghettaboudit.