Three Juniors at MIT Invent An Unbreakable Bicycle Lock

An unbreakable bicycle lock invented by three MIT juniors may help keep down this spring's rash of bike thefts.

Dennis Intravia, one of the inventors, said yesterday that the steel alloy used for the locks has to be softened when it comes from the mill. The material was developed originally for government use and when hardened is impossible to cut, Intravia said.

"We got the best hacksaws we could find and had people try to cut the bars off the lock. They worked for half an hour and literally could not scratch the metal," Intravia said.

Norman S. Sidney, chief of the MIT police, said yesterday that the three students had also tried to cut the lock with bolt cutters from the police department and were unable to do so.

"We lengthened the handle on one bolt cutter to six feet, and tried as hard as we could to cut one of the locks. We broke the jaws of the cutter," Intravia said.

Problems To Solve

"We started designing the locks in January," Intravia said. Tom Lyndon and Wes Grandmont, two of the other inventors were looking for a problem to solve and started trying to develop systems for winning blackjack and roulette.

"The three of us went to Las Vegas but they weren't too happy with us there, we came back to Cambridge and worked on the bike locks. It seemed ridiculous that there was no safe way of keeping a bike around here," Intravia said.

The lock, which is made of two semicircular bars, hinged at one end, can be used to lock both wheels and the frame of the bike to posts or racks. Because of the design, the lock uses less metal than link chains and weighs only about 4 pounds.