Lock ratings, an attack with named tools

What a rating actually records

An attack. The lock is worked on with a defined set of tools, for a defined time, by people whose job it is to open it, and the rating is the level at which it held. It is a real, repeatable measurement — and like every other marking on this site, it describes a test rather than promising an outcome.

Why there is no single standard here

Unlike helmet approvals, lock testing is not one document. Several bodies run their own schemes, mostly tied to national insurance markets, and each publishes its own levels and its own tool lists. A lock can carry more than one rating, or one that is unfamiliar where you live. What they share is the principle: a named attack, held for a named time.

Why shackle diameter classifies nothing

A thick link of soft steel is cut faster than a thinner one of hardened steel. Hardening is published where it exists, and it changes the outcome more than millimetres do. A listing that quotes only a diameter has quoted the measurement that is easiest to take and least informative — and a lock with no published rating has been tested by nobody, whatever it looks like.

The part a rating cannot cover

What the lock is fastened to. A chain around a wheel is a chain that leaves with the motorcycle; the same chain through the frame to a ground anchor is doing something else entirely. No rating of the lock describes the anchor, which is why anchors belong beside locks rather than in a footnote.

Where to read the scheme

Each body publishes its own levels, its tool lists and the list of products it has rated. That publication is where a question about a specific level belongs, and it is also where to check that a rating cited in a listing is current — schemes are revised, and a product page is not.