Bicycles aren’t getting any cheaper and with electric bicycles costing upwards of £1000 there’s an ever-increasing need to keep them well protected.
Well one Indiegogo project hopes to have the perfect solution, a smart bike lock that when tampered with emits a powerful and utterly repellant smell.
It’s called the SkunkLock and it’s the brainchild of two inventors from San Francisco who decided to take matters into their own hands after a friend’s expensive electric bike was stolen outside of a Whole Foods.
Despite having two $100+ locks on the bike, the thief had no trouble getting through them and making off with the bike.
How do you, legally, create a bike lock then that’s more than just a large metal barrier?
Well the pair realised that there was absolutely no way of stopping thieves from cutting through modern bike locks, so what they did was hollow out the U-shaped lock and fill it with a pressurised gas.
The moment the thief cuts through around 30 per cent of the lock the gas is fired out in the direction of the cut, spraying the thief with a powerful chemical agent.
So how powerful is this chemical agent? “It’s pretty much immediately vomit inducing, causes difficulty breathing,” said creator Idzkowski to the Guardian. “A lot of similar symptoms to pepper spray.”
Prospective bike thieves will be sad to hear that the lock has already raised $28,000, exceeding its minimum required backing and will start shipping to customers in June 2017.