Motorcycle Accessory

A few years ago, UltimateMotorCycling.com contributor Chris Cullins was coming home from a day of riding and pulled into a 7-Eleven for refreshments. When he emerged a minute or so later, his beloved motorcycle was no longer in the back of his truck. Gone in 60 seconds-literally.

Certainly, there are great products from companies such as Kryptonite that will secure your motorcycle. The catch is, you have to actually use them. Dragging out a heavy lock and chain every time you transport a bike gets old quickly. There is nothing like combining two products into one that facilitates consistent implementation.

Lockstraps are tie-downs with twin locking carabiners built-in, with a steel cable running through the strap. The design is intriguingly simple, making one wonder why we had to wait so long to get this now-essential product.

You install Lockstraps as you would any standard tie-down with integrated soft-ties. Once the bike is cinched down, all you have to do is spin the rollers on the spring-loaded combination lock and it is secure. The carabiners cannot be removed and the double-nylon straps conceal a steel cable that is difficult to cut.

In addition to locking down your motorcycle, they can also be put into service to quickly lock anything with a hoop. Have a gas can in the back of the truck and need to stop at the store on the way back from the filling station? Run a Lockstrap through the handle and lock it to your truck. When transporting multiple bikes, all you need is one Lockstrap per bike to keep them on your hauler.

To be sure, someone with the right tools can defeat Lockstraps, so they are not a replacement for a tempered and hardened alloy steel chain paired with a sturdy lock. Instead, Lockstraps are designed to foil the criminal of opportunity that nabbed Cullins' Italian exotic.

For that, they are perfect. You don't have to carry around anything extra and they work great as tie-downs, even if you forget to spin the combination roller.