Hiplok AX1000

£349.99 The toughest, smartest ground anchor available

UP UNTIL NOW A GROUND anchor and chain have been the best way to safeguard your bike in your garage or shed, but with that has come the risk of dropping a tough, heavy chain onto your bike, causing damage.

This is why UK brand Hiplok set out to make a ground anchor that’s as user friendly as it is tough. The result is the AX1000 with its 19cm round base and 43cm-long extending arm.

It combines a two-piece reinforced base with eight anchor points that hold a 360 ˚ rotating arm that can also pivot 180 ˚ , allowing you to angle it to fit everything from a lightweight race bike to gravel bike, electric bike and even a small-wheeled utility ebike. Once in position, you lock the arm in place and slot a D-lock through the eye in the end, then to your bike. The eye perfectly fits Hiplok’s super-tough D1000 or D1000X locks (but other locks work too). Like them, the AX1000 uses Ferosafe material, in the base and extending arm.

Ferosafe is a graphene composite that’s welded to the metal core of the anchor. It’s claimed to resist highpower angle grinders and drills at a much lower thickness (and therefore weight) than traditional hardened metals. In fact, in order to get a traditional metal to resist cutting as well as Ferosafe, it would be too big and heavy to use as a home anchor. Not that the 190 x 190 x 430mm AX1000 is light, at a solid 6.3kg!

Fitting it into a solid-brick or concrete wall or floor requires some care, and a power drill, with eight anchor points on the base (all expander-bolt hardware is included). Once the bolts are fitted and the anchor base secured, you fit the top plate, bolt it down and hammer the included ball bearings into the hex bolts to prevent them being removed.

Hiplok even rate the AX1000 for outdoor use, so it could be used with a waterproof cover to keep your bike secure outside too.

The rotation and swing of the arm allowed me to lock a bike through the widest part of the frame, filling the shackle of the D-lock well and making it even harder for a thief to attack.

To properly test the anchor, I broke out my trusty lock-killing portable angle grinder complete with tough metal cutting discs. Fifteen minutes later, the portable battery had died, I’d gone through three discs and I’d only managed to cut a slot of 6mm into the arm of the AX1000. It was also a very noisy undertaking! It’s no surprise then that the AX1000 has achieved the highest Sold Secure Powered Cycle Diamond standard and comes with a lifetime warranty.

It’s the king of ground anchors, cleverly designed, impressively tough, and it comes with everything you need to fit it correctly (bolts, bearings, and even the correct-sized drill-bit). It’s pricey, but if you’ve spent many times that on your pride and joy then it could be a very good investment. Warren Rossiter

“To properly test the anchor, I broke out my trusty lockkilling portable angle grinder complete with tough metal cutting discs”