Previous to hearing about the Zovii Alarmed Grip Lock, I was apparently naive when it came to motorcycle theft. At home, I always lock both my ignition and fork. What I didn’t know is that fork locks are relatively easy to break, albeit noisily. The noisy part is helpful if your bike is parked at your house, but what if you’re not home or you’ve taken it on a ride? Thieves can also lift a bike into a vehicle in a matter of seconds and take it elsewhere to disable security measures.
To address these issues, Aerostich offers the Zovii Alarmed Grip Lock, a waterproof nylon-construction lock with a 10mm carbide-reinforced hardened steel locking pin and a built-in 120dB anti-theft security alarm. For comparison, most emergency responder sirens range from 110-129db.
The lock is lightweight and compact. It weighs 8.7 ounces, about half an ounce heavier than my iPhone and case, and at 6 x 2.25 inches, it fits easily in the interior pockets on my leather jacket.
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To activate the alarm, clamp the lock around either grip and front lever on your bike and depress the lock button to arm it. No key is required to activate.
Unfortunately, the width of the stock grips and levers on my Harley Heritage Softail doesn’t allow the device to clamp entirely shut, so I tried it on a friend’s BMW R 1200 RT. The Zovii clicked on his grip and lever easily. However, when we took the bike off the centerstand and rolled it, I was surprised the alarm didn’t make a peep.
Here’s where a slight design flaw exists. The instructions say the unit beeps twice when you unlock it; however, we discovered after tinkering with it that two beeps means the alarm is disabled, even when it’s locked shut. Seems to me when you clamp the unit together and push the lock in, you also want to activate the alarm. However, you must make sure you hear a single beep (followed about five seconds later by a longer tone). If you clamp it together, push the lock in, and get two quick beeps, you must unlock it with the key and push it in again to get the single beep indicating that the alarm is activated. Slightly annoying, but I can see certain circumstances where this might be a good feature, primarily if you’re carrying the Zovii around and have to clamp it shut to do so.
Once we figured out the beeps, a slight jostling of the handlebar was enough to sound the warning tones. If we kept messing with it, we got the whammy 120 decibels, which is disarmed by unlocking the unit. The warning tones are nice in case you accidentally bump the bike or are concerned about how gingerly you have to unlock it when it’s armed.
So besides the minor inconvenience of the single vs. double beep – and the much bigger inconvenience of not fitting my bike – the Zovii is an inexpensive product (just $60) that’s loud enough to send a would-be thief scurrying back to the shadows.
The Zovii Alarmed Grip Lock is available at the Aerostich website.
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