Saturday, December 20, 2008

D Locked



My bicycle D Lock refused to open after I'd been shopping in town. Fortunately I hadn't locked it to anything. Unfortunately, I had to carry it two miles home, stopping along the way to wrestle with the key and get my breath back.

YouTube has lots of videos of people opening locks like these with pen tops and a friend told me they were easy to open with one tap of a hammer. I broke the end off the first key while holding it with pliars, but had two backups. I oiled the lock and barrel and twisted the key for a couple of hours, getting nowhere. I watched more clips on YouTube, exasperated as people put the end of a Bic biro into the lock, twisting for at most a few minutes before opening it. One video showed someone with an angle grinder taking a few minutes to cut through. (Where are all those noisy builders when you need them ?)

I read somewhere that it would take an hour with a hacksaw. I only had a small one with an old blade, but got comfortable on the floor and started sawing, imagining that it would take more than an hour, but having no choice. My day had been scuppered and I couldn't go anywhere without sorting it out.

Happily, it only took 20 minutes.

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