RockyMounts Hooligan Chain Lock - Hardened Steel - 40" Long

Video Transcript for RockyMounts Hooligan Chain Lock Review

AJ: What's up everybody, it's AJ with etrailer.com. Today we're going to be checking out the RockyMounts Hooligan. This is a heavy duty bike chain with a nylon sleeve around it to protect your bike, that'll help you lock it up wherever you need to leave it. Let's check it out.The Hooligan spans 40", so you have plenty of room to wrap it around our stand here and the frame to get it locked up. But one thing I do want to point out is this nylon sleeve. You can hear that heavy duty chain in there, but you can see with that nylon sleeve it didn't mark up our bike stand at all.

So when you go to throw this on your bike, you put it around the frame, you won't have to worry about it damaging anything. I got two bikes set up today to try it on. We got our mountain bike and our aluminum bike. And now the reason I did that is the mountain bike, on all the locks we've tested today, the tires are a little bit further away from the frame so sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The aluminum road bike seems to work every time, but let's try the mountain bike first.My plan is to run it through the front tire and go around the frame, that way the front tire and the bike are secure.

I could spin it around and go through the back tire and the frame, but then somebody can take the front tire. And my bike's not very useful without the front tire. So I'm going to try and lock them all up.Let's run through the spokes up front here. Snaps into place. It's that easy.

Over here on our road bike, we're going to do the same thing we're trying to go through the front tire and get to the frame. If I didn't have a problem with the mountain bike, we probably won't have a problem here, but I just want to test it anyway. Plenty of room. It's going to be nice and secure. It's not going anywhere.

I really liked the silicone coating on it. You don't have to worry about it, scratching or denting your bike frame. If it is laying there, you can put the nylon there if you want. But I think the silicone is way more cushiony. So you have less to worry about. I also like the simple fact that when it's unlocked, let's throw the keys down there. It's unlocked. You're already reached around here trying to get this locked into place.It automatically locks. So you just push it in and it's locked. You don't have to use a key to re-lock it when you go do that. It's pretty hassle-free. Overall, I'm really impressed with the hooligan. I've worked with some different ones today and this one actually does seem like the most versatile. I think the only thing going against it, it is a heavy chain. So when you're carrying it with you, you're going to have that extra weight, but it gives you plenty of length to work with both of these bikes, which I've had problems with that one the other day and some of the other locks, and this one's been fine. But I think this will work, if you have a bike stand, maybe if you're out in the city and there's not a bike stand, you need to stop somewhere. You can find somewhere to tie down with this gives you plenty of options.Now, if you're still on the fence on like what different kinds of locks we have from RockyMounts, check out this discussion I had with a rider earlier today.Today, I'm going to be taking a look at some of these Rockymount locks with Aiden behind the camera and Brian Riders joining us too. Brian Riders: What we're looking at here is you're going to have the curly, which is the smaller version. And then the Lester is the bigger version there you have in your hands. This is really a kind of a step up from your basic steel braided cable. You're going to see it as the nice four digit programmable lock on there. Little bit easier than a key system, definitely saves you the hassle of having to worry kind of where you left the keys or making sure you have them on you at the time. It's cool that they actually have a self-coiling design. So they're going to fold up nicely on their own. You're not going to have to help them a lot, which can help remove some of the hassle of handling them and getting them in position. And again, that's going to be cut resistant much like the braided steel previous version. AJ: Yeah. I mean, it seems like they get compact. That way you can just throw it in your backpack, way easier than these here. There are a little cumbersome. If you we're taking it with you, you'd have to, I guess you could coil it up yourself, but it's not going to stay like that when you're throwing it in your backpack or whatever. This one better example, I'll talk about that because that's a bunch of cable you have to jam your backpack. Brian Riders: Yeah. That one you're really looking at some maybe outdoor patio furniture, secure your grill. Maybe use it at a camping site to just bring some extra security to your setup. AJ: Yeah. Okay. I guess we'll talk about the Hooligan max. We had that one on the table. We've got two more installed. We'll go over and talk about those in a second, but. Brian Riders: Yeah, so the hooligan max here is actually a pretty cool design. We're going to see a step up in security on this one. It's made with a plated steel. So not braided, it's actually going to be whole pieces of steel in there, much better in terms of providing that set resistance. Another interesting kind of fact on this one is the sheath that covers it is the nylon braid or weave. So what you're really going to get there is it protects the metal. So you don't have to worry about it rusting or weakening over time. Also protects your equipment from rubbing, dings, any kind of abrasions. Some other kind of nice features we have here on this one is it's got the spring loaded block. So it's going to come together, unlock, really easily, going to have that nice, tactile response. And you're also going to have, of course, a nice little dust mold cap there. Just keeps the lock clean, prevents any kind of debris from entering the system. Just keeps you safe down the line there. AJ: Yeah. This one seems pretty heavy duty. Like I said, it's a legit chain on the inside of that seat. So unlike a braided 10, which there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't know, that puts my mind at ease a little bit that a legit chain kind of, like I said. Brian Riders: Yeah, you're going to have a tough time getting to whatever's holding that in place. AJ: Yeah. The only thing I guess I worry about is just the nylon is nice, but it's kind of thin. So if it does hit like a soft frame of your bike, it's probably going to dent it or something like that. If you're not careful with it yourself, but it seems like these had a little bit of more of a pushing around them, but I guess that's what you get when you get the higher security and you're going to be more careful with it. Brian Riders: Yeah. It's going to be a bit of a trade off there. You know, I think the covering will mitigate a lot of the damage, but you're going to want to be mindful. Of course. AJ: Cool. And it's not too cumbersome to me. They're like, you can get it nice and throw it out there, throw it in your backpack like I keep saying, I know. But I mean, that's what they're going to do when you're carrying an extra lock. All right I guess we'll check out the ones we have locked to our bike rack here. First we have the U-bolt or I think they call it the u-lock too. As I heard it was called. Brian Riders: Yeah, right here. We're looking at the Maddox. Pretty cool design for a u-lock. Works a little different than some standard u-locks, that'll have the pivot shackle where only one end will come loose. Here on the Maddox you get a clamp style. So just like that it'll fully detach comes out real easy. Just makes the process of locking and securing the gear that much easier. Sometimes when the shackle pivots, you can have accessibility issues and tight spaces are with odd designs, this really limits those. Again, you're going to have the rubber coating on it on both the lock and the shackle. That's just, again, going to protect your equipment, make sure everything stays nice and protected. And really it's a good, I think, general purpose lock, great design. It's got the spring loaded lock again. So you get that real tactile response, you know, when you're secure, you know when it's going to come apart. Yeah. Very dependable, great day to day lock. AJ: It's also got the part in the middle, you can turn to kind of protect your lock in there. So it's not exposed all the time either. I like that. We're seeing that like a lot of people have their bikes in the city. They might not have the bike racks like that. Sometimes you kind of just got to use what's around. So the fact that it doesn't pivot like the other ones, you said that it kind of detaches gives you more options of attaching it to random spots, like a stop sign or something like that. Rather than I guess you said that the bigger ones would just do this, wouldn't actually come off. Okay. Yeah. So that's definitely way better than inaudible 00:08:41 Brian Riders: Yeah. Just a cool little take on the design. You know, it's nothing groundbreaking, but just when it comes to usability, it's nice to have. AJ: Yeah. Sure. Okay. I'll step over and talk about this one then. Speaker 3: Yeah on that last one, does it have a mount to attach to the bike frame AJ: Yes, that's over on the table. Sorry. Speaker 3: That's all good. AJ: It looks like you could mount it to where you'd have a water bottle. This one doesn't have one or on the down tube here too. If the holes lined up, it looks like the holes don't line up on this one. Brian Riders: Or wait, I see it opens up. Yeah. So loosen those screws and that'll open up that to wrap around like the tube and then it'll hold the- Speaker 3: Makes sense, yeah. Brian Riders: -lock kind of in that opening. That'll just kind of clamp it. AJ: And you put it there and then it would, oh, this part slides in here. Brian Riders: Yeah. So that's kind of how it secures to the actual mount there. AJ: Okay. Brian Riders: Yep. And so it kind of stores right in there. If it'll fit on this particular bike, it looks like it'd be kind of a squeeze. AJ: Yeah, I think you're right on that. Speaker 3: Yeah, I think on a road bike. You're going to have a lot more room. Brian Riders: Yeah. Like over there on the other one. AJ: Yeah, I'm going to try on the other one. There's a nice push button to release. I like that. Brian Riders: Yeah. AJ: Slide right out. Brian Riders: So you can easily take it off, lock it up. AJ: Okay, start on this other one here.So you got way more room. It would be in the center too, if it was actually mounted. Well, it looks like it's going to hit that. Brian Riders: So yeah. I can definitely propose a few clearance issues like with the water bottle holder and stuff, but it is nice that it gives you at least some way to store it on your bikes. So you're not having to carry around a backpack with a lock or something like that. AJ: Do you have any questions on that one Brian Riders: No, I think yeah. That's definitely going to be good in terms of having it easily accessible around town. I will plan. It's not unusual for RockyMount to include some type of mounting bracket with some of these more day to day kind of style locks where you would want to transport with you. Generally, either be the kind of same post variety we saw or there is one that's also designed more for a water bottle now, which I think we have here. Speaker 4: Yeah. That's the one we're actually Aiden actually has got the mount for it right now. AJ: That's going to be another, this is the Hendrix, right Brian Riders: Yes, sir. We're looking at the Hendrix folding lock here.Probably one of the nicer ones from the lineup. While you're going to see it's got the really defined hardened steel plates and we'll be able to see those a little better here once we get this popped off, but it does come apart really easily. As you can see there, one end just disengages goes into kind of just a rope style that's cable lock look almost, but you can see there that each plate is essentially just a hardened steel plate bound together. Interesting collapsible design there, folds down really small, could fit in your pocket. Easy to carry in your hand. You got the spring loaded lock, pretty consistent with a lot of the RockyMounts products. So, stays together, comes apart when you need it to, really easily, good tactical response there. One of the nice things I thought of this one was the rubberized coating and just the way it was done, I think the lock overall feels really good in your hands, feels strong. And this is one of the locks that comes with a higher rating in terms of security from RockyMounts. So great lock for urban areas. AJ: Yeah, it does feel like a sturdy, heavy lock. I'm impressed how much it folds down into itself easily. It wasn't complex to do that and then folds up in its own mount too. That way, if you didn't want to throw in the backpack, you can actually attach it like we're talking about here and it looks like this would have no problem fitting on there with the water bottle. Wouldn't have to sacrifice water or a lock. Brian Riders: Yeah, just a really nice one of those kind of add on features. It's just there to make it easier to keep on you, keep security a priority, really. Speaker 4: This one was probably our favorite just for how well it folded up. And you know, it's really easy to keep on you, but just overall, I feel like it felt like it was just built really well. Speaker 3: I agree. Brian Riders: Yeah. I know. You know, when we first got these in RockyMount's makes great racks. I was excited to see kind of what they could bring to the security aspect of the industry. And I think the quality is there. It's definitely got some great features across the line. I think no matter what you're really looking to secure, there's going to be an option there for you and just kind of depends on your location, what your sensitivity towards locking your stuff up is and how heavy duty you want to go. AJ: Cool. That's all the locks we had today. Was there anything else, any other ones or any other questions Brian Riders: I didn't have anything off the top of my head, really. I think you guys pretty much walked us through them and yeah, I think you really can't go wrong. AJ: Awesome. Well, thanks for your help. Brian Riders: All right. Always a pleasure to drop in and see you guys. AJ: Have a good one. Brian Riders: Yeah, take care guys. AJ: That about does it for our look at the RockyMounts Hooligan. I hope this helps.