Lockt ad: What a 79-year-old biker told me about my new bike in the MOT waiting room

I Met a Man in the MOT Waiting Room Who Was 79 and Still Riding Every Day. What He Said About My New Bike Made Me Put My Tea Down. I was at the MOT centre last spring. I'd been there over an hour. I had a tea from the machine and the kind of long, flat afternoon only an MOT waiting room can give you. There was an old boy two seats along from me. White hair, trimmed beard, a checked shirt tucked into his cords. He had a helmet on the seat beside him and a folder on his knee with every MOT certificate he'd ever had, in plastic sleeves. We did the small talk for a couple of minutes. His bike was in for its MOT. So was mine. He'd been bringing bikes to this garage since 1979. I told him I was 62. He told me he was 79. I said, "You don't look 79." He laughed. He said, "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week, but I've earned every one of them." I told him about the bike. I couldn't help it. Everyone I know was already sick of hearing about it. 3 years old, one owner, 4,000 miles. First MOT. I'd been looking for the right one for years, and it'll probably be my last. It's the newest bike I've ever owned, by about 15 years. I'd had it 5 weeks. He asked what I'd done to look after it. I said all of it. A chain the insurer asked for. A ground anchor. A garage with a proper lock. A tracker. And the lock the dealer gave me with the bike. "Good," he said. "And how many times have you stopped on it?" I started to answer. Then I didn't. 5 weeks. I'd done 900 miles on that bike. Out of the garage, 60 miles, straight back into the garage. Not a café. Not a petrol station if I could help it. I'd told myself I was running it in. He smiled. He said, "I thought so. I did the same. My last new one, 2011." He said it's a funny thing. You leave an old bike anywhere. Spend what you've spent on this one, wait as long as you've waited, and you've got a bike that's too good to leave. He said he'd spent a long time thinking about the difference between how safe a new bike looks on paper and how it feels to own one. His security had been spot on. His insurer was happy. His dealer was a good dealer. But he'd bought that bike to go places, and he'd stopped going. Not all at once. Slowly. Click by click. The café stops never really started. Then the evening rides went. Then his willingness to go anywhere he'd have to leave it out of his sight. In the end he'd go out and come straight back into the garage without stopping. "Boring, really," he said. He said the paperwork was always fine. The insurer was always happy. But the bike was just being stored. He said one morning he'd looked at it, 2 years old with 3,000 miles on it, and had a thought he couldn't shake. He said, "I realised the chain's job, the insurance's job and my job were 3 different jobs. The chain's job is to hold the bike. It was doing that beautifully. The insurance doesn't protect you, it replaces. I had one stolen in '94. They paid what the book said, less the excess. It won't find you the one you looked for all those years, will it? And my job was making sure someone knew if anyone ever tried. And nothing on that bike was doing my job." He said the thought had bothered him for a year before he did anything about it. He'd phoned his insurer, and asked them plainly: is there anything I could add alongside the chain, beyond more steel? The lady on the phone said to keep using the chain exactly as the policy said. For the rest, she said, there were sensible things he could add. He said he started reading. He wasn't a fast reader and he wasn't a technical man. But he read for a long time. What he kept coming back to was an alarmed disc lock. He said he'd had one before. It came with the bike, from the dealer. Cheap thing. It had gone off in the wind for a fortnight, so he'd taken the batteries out, and after that it was just dead weight on the disc. I thought about the one in my garage, still in its packet. He'd assumed alarmed disc locks were overrated. What he hadn't known was why the cheap ones fail. They run on little button cells that hate the cold and go flat without telling you. And their sensors can't tell a gust from a person, so they cry wolf until the owner switches them off. What works, he learned, is a smart sensor that gives a couple of warning beeps if you touch it and only goes off properly when someone's really at the bike. And a battery you charge, so it never dies on you without warning. He'd settled on one from a small UK company called Lockt. The DiscGuard. He said he phoned his insurer before he ordered it, and asked if there was any reason not to. They said no concerns at all, and to keep using his chain just as the policy said. He said, "I never took the chain off. I didn't change a single thing my insurer asked me to do. I added one thing. And I phoned them first. That phone call was the most important step of the lot." He said that twice. I wrote it on the back of my MOT receipt. I asked him what happened after he started using it. He said the first few weeks, nothing. Then, somewhere in the second month, he stopped at a farm shop on the way home, for a pork pie he didn't need. It wasn't dramatic. He just started stopping. By the third month he was riding in the evenings. By the time his policy came up for renewal, he'd done more miles that summer than in the 2 years before it put together. The bike had a stone chip on the tank by then. He said it was the best thing that ever happened to it. He looked at me across the row of plastic chairs. He said, "I'm going to tell you something, because you look like someone who needs to hear it." I waited. "You looked for that bike for years. Don't spend the rest of it keeping it nice. The chain and the insurance will do their bit. There's a part of owning it they can't do. Whether you stop for a cup of tea or come straight home. That part's yours." He smiled. His name got called a minute later. He picked up his folder and his helmet. Tipped an imaginary cap at me. I watched him walk out to the bay. 17 years older than me. I sat there another 20 minutes waiting for mine. I thought about 900 miles without a cup of tea. My name got called. The bike passed. I rode home with the back of that MOT receipt in my jacket pocket. I rode straight home. Old habits. After tea, I sat with the laptop and looked up the DiscGuard. I read everything on the site. I read it twice. A couple of beeps if you touch it. 110 dB when someone's really at it. USB-C, about 6 months a charge. Fully waterproof. Plain words. No grand claims. The next morning, I phoned my own insurer. The policy was 5 weeks old, so they knew who I was. I told the young guy who answered exactly what I was thinking of adding. He put me on hold for a few minutes. He came back and said there was no reason at all, and to make sure I kept using the chain my policy asked for. Don't skip that call. Keep everything your policy asks for. Add one thing. 4 minutes. I ordered it the same afternoon. The dealer's lock went in the bin, still in its packet. The first few weeks, nothing I could point to. Sometime in the second month, I pulled in at a burger van in a lay-by for a cup of tea. I didn't think anything of it. I noticed about 3 rides later, when I realised I'd stopped every time and hadn't hurried back out to the bike. Then I rode it to work, which I'd sworn I never would. By the spring I'd booked a week touring the Highlands with my brother. By the summer, my wife and I were planning the trip to the Dolomites we'd bought the bike for in the first place. It's done 11,000 miles now. It's got a stone chip, a scuff on the pannier, and a dead fly in the headlight I haven't got round to. It looks like a bike someone rides. I still use my chain every night. The old boy in the waiting room was right about the job. P.S. If you've just bought the bike you've been waiting years for, and you've been going out and straight back into the garage, and telling yourself you're running it in, don't wave it off. It doesn't stop by itself. P.P.S. If you decide to try it, phone your insurer first, like I did. Then put it on the front disc every time you park, and loop the reminder lanyard round your handlebars so you never ride off with it on. Don't change anything else. P.P.P.S. Lockt gives you a 90-day money-back guarantee. If it isn't for you, you send it back. P.P.P.P.S. It's £33.99 for one, down from £56.99. Lockt is a small UK company, they only sell from their own site, never Amazon or eBay, and stock's limited, so I'd not leave it too long. They do two DiscGuards at 50% off for £56.99, which is what I went with, one for me and one for my son-in-law's scooter. Three are £76.99. If your disc has a hole or a slot that'll take a 7 mm pin, it'll fit. P.P.P.P.P.S. I don't know his name. I never asked. But I hope his bike sails through its MOT for years yet, and I hope it's got a few more stone chips on it. Nobody's paid me for any of this, and I've no connection with the people who make it. The link's below. https://trylockt.com/products/lockt-discguard