E-Bike Locks: Sold Secure, Angle Grinders, and What to Actually Buy

An e-bike lock is a D-lock or a chain that a thief has to cut, not a cable that a thief folds into a bag. Sold Secure Diamond is the highest grade that lab publishes. Powered-cycle testing is stricter than pedal-cycle testing, because the bike is worth more. Diamond is not a force field. In Cycling UK’s five-minute angle-grinder test, every Diamond lock on the bench took damage, and one was through in just over a minute.

Why the commuter cable is the wrong part

A 50–80 lb e-bike does not get carried off the way a 20 lb road bike does. The theft that matters is a cut. Bolt cutters, a battery angle grinder, and a second person. The bike is also worth more than the bicycle the cable was sold for, and the battery is a second item with its own street price. A removable pack left in the frame is a theft that does not even need the lock to fail.

This desk already tells a new buyer to budget 10–15% of the bike’s street price for two locks, a helmet, and a first shop visit. The grinder-resistant lock is the expensive one of the two. The second one is there so a wheel does not leave while the frame stays. A $25 coil is not that first lock.

What Sold Secure is actually scoring

Sold Secure is a UK lab. BikeRadar’s 5 January 2026 explainer is the plain-English version this desk will use. Four grades: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond. Bronze is the cable and the folding lock that stop an opportunist and fail a determined one. Silver trades protection for price. Gold is described as holding a wide set of attacks for durations of around five minutes. Diamond is the top published grade, meant for prolonged attacks. BikeRadar says the attack battery includes angle grinders, drilling, cutting, levering, and lock picking. There is no separate public badge that says “angle-grinder proof.”

The line that matters on an e-bike is powered cycle versus pedal cycle. Sold Secure used to reserve powered-cycle testing for motorcycles. BikeRadar says the definition now includes electric bikes, and the powered-cycle test is stricter because the machines are worth more. A lock can be Diamond for a pedal cycle and only Gold for a powered cycle. Read both lines. “Diamond” on the box, with the pedal-cycle line only, is not the same claim.

Cycling UK’s tester, in the December 2025 / January 2026 Cycle magazine test, wrote the caveat the badge does not: even Diamond has no separate anti-angle-grinder specification. That is why a magazine can still cut a Diamond lock on camera. The rating is a lab rank. It is not a promise that a disc will bounce off.

The grinder test, with the numbers

Cycling UK took a portable angle grinder to six Sold Secure Diamond locks and stopped each attack at five minutes. Prices are the UK prices in that test, not a U.S. street price this desk has re-checked. “Through” means one side of the shackle. A thief still has to deal with the other side, the noise, and the discs.

In that test the Kryptonite New York Diamond Standard lost the least metal. The OnGuard, the lightest lock on the bench, was through one side in 66 seconds. Litelok’s own claim, quoted by Cycling UK, is that the X3 is about four times as grinder-resistant as the X1. The X1 was through; the X3 was not. Same badge. Different minute.

These locks are grinder resistant, not grinder impervious. Any lock will fail, given time and enough cutting discs.

That is Cycling UK’s line, and it is the line to buy with. A different tester ranks them differently. Cycling Weekly’s February 2025 attack, a different protocol, called an OnGuard RockSolid its most resistant of five and got only partway into a Hiplok DX1000, a Litelok X3, and an Abus Granit Super Extreme 2500. Do not average the two tables into a winner. Buy the lock whose certificate says powered-cycle Diamond if you can find one, then judge it by a named cut test, not by the word Diamond alone.

Powered-cycle Diamond is the e-bike line

Sold Secure’s own listing for the Hiplok DX1000 calls it approved to pedal-cycle Diamond and powered-cycle Diamond, with an ART 4-star rating beside that. Hiplok’s page puts the lock at 2.6 kg, with an internal opening of 205 mm by 112 mm, a square shackle, and a graphene-reinforced steel claim. The square section is the practical point: a round shackle can be cut once and spread; a square one wants two cuts. Hiplok’s “20 times a standard D-lock” line is the maker’s line. It is not this desk’s test.

ART is the Dutch rating, stars rather than metal names. ART 4 is the top of that scale and shows up on the same heavy locks. It is a second lab, not a second miracle. If a product page shows Sold Secure pedal-cycle Diamond and is silent on powered cycle, ask. Silence is not the stricter test.

What to lock, and to what

The shackle goes through the frame and through something that does not come out of the ground. A sign that lifts off its pole is not an anchor. A wooden post a saw can drop is not an anchor. Fill the shackle. A loose lock is a lever. If the opening is too small for your rack and your fat tube, the lock you cannot close is not a better lock. The OnGuard in the Cycling UK test was the lightest and the narrowest. It also failed the fastest. Fit is part of the spec, not a courtesy.

Take the battery with you when it comes off without tools. A locked bike with the pack still clicked in is two things to steal, and the pack is the one that fits in a backpack. Charge it where you can see it. The UL 2849 page is the fire rule. This page is only the theft rule: the pack does not sleep on a downtown rack.

The second lock

Wheels and a saddle leave while the frame stays. A second lock on the other wheel is the cheap half of the budget. A cable is acceptable there, as a delay, if the frame is already on a Diamond D or a rated chain. A cable as the only lock is how a $2,000 bike becomes a Facebook post. A folding lock in a jersey pocket is a coffee-shop lock. It is not the overnight lock.

Two locks also means two keys you can replace. Keyed-alike, if the maker offers it, is the version you will actually carry. A lock in a drawer at home did not fail. It was never in the fight. If the bike lives in an apartment, it lives inside the apartment. A stairwell is not storage. If it lives outside, the lock is the whole plan, and the plan includes a rack you trust in daylight, not a tree.

What not to buy

Do not buy a lock because the listing says “military grade” or “grinder proof.” Those are not Sold Secure grades. Do not buy the lightest Diamond on the rack and assume the badge equalized it with a 2.4 kg Kryptonite. The table above is the counterexample. Do not spend the lock budget on a phone mount and a bottle cage. The beginner’s guide already put the lock ahead of the accessory aisle.

Florida does not make a Sold Secure lock a legal requirement the way some states make a Class 3 helmet one. Nobody is writing you a ticket for a cable. They are also not replacing the bike. A Brooksville rack and a Manhattan rack are the same physics problem at different prices. The helmet and light kit is the other half of the unsexy purchase. This half is the metal. It will not stop a person with ten minutes and a stack of discs. It is there so they do not get ten quiet minutes.