Magnum CCL3 Coil Cable Lock

Magnum's CCL3 Coil Cable is a pretty standard 10mm cable unit that offers the kind of protection you might expect: not that much, really. At £15 you shouldn't expect miracles and you won't find any here; it's fine for securing your pub bike to the railings for a swift half but that's about the limit of its powers.

The CCL3 is 1.85m long and has a 10mm wound steel core with a PVC outer. It's the kind of lock that shouts out 'snip me!' when you're eyeing it up with a selection of handy tools. To be fair to the Magnum it put up a decent fight as cable locks go, lasting 40 seconds, although 20 of those were spent faffing with the bolt croppers which decided to stick at an inopportune moment.

You get five keys and a frame mount, so as a fit-and-forget option for a hack bike it's not a bad shout, assuming that a) you don't think anyone will want to steal your hack bike; and b) you don't care that much if they do. Any standard cable lock can be cut pretty easily, though, so don't rely on this to protect anything you care about.

Verdict

Not bad as cheap cable locks go, but then you wouldn't want to rely on a cheap cable lock either