BRANDS
After not getting the business off the ground initially an old friend, Will Riley, offered to give Barron the cash he needed to set-up a lightweight lock brand - and Litelok was born. The first Litelok product, Litelok Gold - funded through a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 and manufactured by automotive giant Continental - was met by enormous demand. “It just went ballistic,” said Barron. “We went from completely unknown to kind of known within a month really.”
Home made Litelok has transformed rapidly since those early days, now with 26 employees, and for the past two years the brand has been manufacturing its own locks in-house, in its factory in Swansea. Following the coronavirus pandemic, some cycling businesses are now exploring ways of near-shoring and on- shoring aspects in order to avoid future disruption caused by global events, but Litelok is ahead of the curve. Barron said: “I am committed to employing people and
producing what I consider to be excellent products, as good as we can make them.” Litelok has also just installed solar panels at its facility in South Wales, to power its production lines and minimise the environmental impact (and also help save some money during the energy price crisis in the UK). The brand hopes that these details - UK manufacturing, the
relentless design process, and the focus on sustainability - will help retailers share the Litelok story with customers, to help drive sales.
The priority for the brand is helping to get more people
cycling, and to help them protect their bikes, as between 25 and 30% of people that have a bike stolen never ride again, according to Barron. “To me that is kind of appalling. I guess it’s my job to try and give people the tools that will protect against the thieves,” he said. “We know that thieves are largely opportunists. There
46 | January 2023
The new Litelok X1 anti-angle grinder lock
are some gangs and organised crime, but I think we would try to do our best for any customer that would back our product to protect their bike in any situation.”
The product Litelok’s current product range stems from the Go Flexi-O super lightweight lock, rated Sold Secure Bicycle Silver, which retails for £79.99, to the Litelok Core Plus wearable lock, which is Sold Secure Bicycle Diamond rated and Motorcycle Gold, and retails for £139.99. Barron said: “What we’ve done with the Core product is shaped it in kind of an oval, lozenge shape that hugs your hips, which allows us to make a universal wearable lock which adjusts to any body type. You don’t need a small, medium, and large size, so with that product you can reach a big range of people.” But the latest development in the Litelok catalogue is
the release of the Litelok X1 and the Litelok X3 - the newest additions to the anti-angle-grinder bicycle lock market, launched earlier this year. The Litelok X1 is a relatively lightweight (1.7kg) D-lock, designed to offer even better security than the best-selling D-locks on the market, offering a claimed five-times more resistance than its rivals. “What we’ve come up with is basically our own technology, which uses ceramic composite material that is fused to a hardened steel construction for a D-lock,” said Barron. “We’ve tried to take every single thing about the D-lock that we didn’t like - rattling, possible damage to your bike, corrosion, sticking locks, not being able to see the lock in the dark - and we’ve addressed all of those.”
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