Installed a C.L.M. lock on Swing.

So I was ordering parts for my Piaggio Liberty and noticed the site (scooterpartsco.com) sells C.L.M. locks. For those (like me) that are curious, they perma-mount to the scooter below the seat and, when used, connect the removable end to a special end on the grip making the scooter locked with the bars turned to the left. Sorry for the lame description. I'm sure our European friends will have something to say regarding the quality and security level of said seat-to-handlebar style locks, but I'm not in D.C. or New York, and this is a triked Silver Wing. Review:

You remove the seat and mount the brackets between the seat and bracket. Corbin seats are HEAVY! And the lock brackets were made for a stock seat, but it fits the Corbin fine.

The lock rest across the floor when stored. Gonna stick a puffy sticker under it so it wont mar the surface.

You do replace the left bar end with the lock mount. Its silver and not to ugly.

I had trouble with the key lock. Wife is smarter than me and can lock/un-lock it no problem. Comes with 2 flat style sturdy keys.

Ref # for C.L.M. is 5726775 for a Swing. You Tube has videos of C.L.M. locks in action.

Overall quality/first impressions are good. 7 out of 10 stars. Might get one for my Liberty as well. Wife was the quinea pig because she complained about her hands getting dirty with the wheel lock. This eliminates that BUT she liked the combo lock from the wheel lock. One less key. To dumb for pictures. I'm still a Luddite.

Based on several year's ownership and over 90,000 miles with them, including 48 US states/Canada----nobody is going to steal them. My advice, use the standard steering lock if you are worried.

It's for his wife's bike. Two rules.


Happy wife-----Happy life.


Thanks for sharing the information.

Mr Grinsel, I think that you might be unaware of the hight theft rate of scooters in the UK. If Silverwings were immune to the curiosity of miscreants I’m sure that the Silverwing community would be aware of it.

Its not that the Silver Wing holds any value in the theft underground, its that I live in an area were bored kids steal stuff for fun. Just to do it. So I, and others in my area, try not to slip. It makes the kids go to other neighborhoods to look for stuff to steal. I also lock everything in the garage when not in use. Keeps things simple in that I dont have to deal with the police and insurance companies. Literally take 30 seconds to lock my scooters and bicycles. Takes much longer to deal with the cops and insurance companies.

In the UK Silverwings are not common and probably not high on to be stolen list.

john grinsel wrote:

In the UK Silverwings are not common and probably not high on to be stolen list.

How do you know John, you'll have been about retirement age when the Silver Wing went on sale in the UK. Even if you have spent time here it'll have probably been on a secure US military base which is hardly the same as 'on the streets'.

Yes they're not all that common, and like the 650 Burgman they were usually bought by older riders who'd moved to maxi scooters from motorcycles.

Scooters do get stolen for any number of reasons, the most extreme example being the gangs of so called 'moped thieves' that raid high end jewellers and watch stores in London on stolen scooters.

So any rider with an ounce of sense uses a minimum a disc lock, and carries a heavy chain, or U lock. It won't prevent determined or organised thieves using a van or or power tools, but an opportunist thief will hopefully move on, so lock it or lose it.

At least if you do have your Silver Wing stolen, you can prove to your insurer you've taken some measures to prevent theft, simply relying on the OE steering lock isn't enough.


I carry under the seat and use an Abus chain I've had for many years and used on a variety of bikes and scooters. I have another even longer and heavier one in my garage. Even the Kryptonite cable and lock I used even longer ago is now in daily use on my Dutch push bike.

Where we live in the UK and our post/zip code reflects how much we pay for our motorcycle or scooter insurance. You'll obviously pay more in a high theft area. You're encouraged to Datatag and security mark your scooter, they want to know if it's fitted with an alarm or immobiliser, and where it's kept overnight.

When I bought my Forza in late 2018, Honda were offering a free Datatool TrakKING Adventure tracker fitted to all new models. I pay a monthly sub for 24 hours monitoring, and I get occasional text messages from them.

There's still plenty of used Silver Wings fo sale too, there's 17 of them on a website I was looking on just a couple of days ago.

If these low-life's knew how good the Silverwing was, more would be stolen

Lenny wrote:

If these low-life's knew how good the Silverwing was, more would be stolen

  Hush up!  I've heard a couple of them know how to read.  

My limited time in UK=at overpriced hotels or friend house. I retired at 71.

In the few years I've read this forum, I've noticed a high frequency and variety of anti-theft measures discussed by our U.K. readers. This has always been a bit of a head-scratcher for me. Motorcycle theft, generally speaking, is not a "thing" in the U.S.

From this thread, I did some Googling and found some interesting numbers, all from reputable sources and fairly recent (2017 and later). All numbers are rounded; this is for conversational purposes.

Monthly scooter thefts in London: 1,500 (London Metropolitan Police)

(Good luck even finding annual scooter thefts in the U.S.)

Annual motorcycle thefts in England: 30,000
Population of England: 56 million

Annual motorcycle thefts in U.S.: 41,000
Population of U.S.: 327 million

Multiply the population of England x 6 = 336 million (apples to apples with the U.S.)
Multiply annual English motorcycle thefts x 6 = 180,000 (apples to apples with 41,000 in the U.S.)

Now I get it. If my bikes lived in an environment like that, I'd lock the heck out of them.

By the way, in both countries, the top 4 stolen motorcycles are the same, the "big 4" of Japan: Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki.

In England, the most stolen bike is the Honda CBR 600.

In the U.S., it's also a Honda, but I couldn't find the model.

Apparently, thieves like bulletproof reliability, too.

Yes motorcycles and scooter do get stolen because a far bigger percentage of the population use them than in the US. But looking on the bright side we don't have a never ending cycle of nutters with guns running amok in high schools, shopping malls, clubs, synagogues, colleges, music concerts, military bases etc.

Chip, meet shoulder.

For what it's worth, my view on the thing is this;

Any extra and visible security cannot be a bad thing. I've had too many bikes stolen off me over the years to skimp on locking up my pride and joy.

One bike, a GPz750, was taken from a back garden... well out of sight from the road and behind a 10 foot wall. I came downstairs one morning to find the bars pointing the opposite way. Steering lock broken.
There were disc locks on both wheels, plus U-locks going through the wheels and a big chain and padlock through the frame, looped around a steel pole-type anchor on the wall which had obviously put them off.
I put as much extra security on it that night as I could lay my hands on and went to bed.

The following morning, the bike was gone. Everything. The only thing I found in the area was a piece of pipe about 3 feet long in the grass. I hadn't heard a thing.

The very morning after, when I went to walk off to work I looked in my mailbox and there were the broken remains of the bloody padlock!
The little oxygen-thieves had come back a 3rd time to post the bits of my lock back to me. Just to really piss me off. I moved 3 weeks later. I knew I couldn't get another bike and leave it there. So I moved to the other side of the city and bought a GPz900R.
Put it in the back garden in a locked shed. Only way into the garden was through a locked 10 foot high gate at the side of the house. Hedges and fences all the way around, at least 20 foot high, so no way to see in.
Came out one morning to go to work and saw the shed door open, ignition barrel on the floor. Police reckon it was kids, going from garden to garden, looking for garden tools or whatever to steal. They'd used tools from next door to get through the shed door, then cut through the chains, followed by the side gate. Had a phone call from the Police the following evening to tell me they'd found it in an alleyway 2 miles away with the petrol tank smashed in, all the plastics destroyed and the radiators blown. Insurance weren't interested in paying out saying that the bike wasn't "properly secured" and it had been recovered anyway. Most of it anyway.

Fast forward a few years to my present location. After moving into flats and deciding to get some wheels again in 2018, I bought a Piaggio MP3 500 on a whim. I'd been introduced to the world of scooters a year earlier (Burgman 650) and loved it, but wasn't too impressed with the overall build quality and comfort, despite the fancy gadgets and when I saw an MP3 500 come up for the right money, I thought it looked cool and should be easy to ride.
Straight to the bike spares place and bought the thickest and best rated chain they had that would fit through the narrow wheel spaces.
Got it back to the estate and wheeled it in to the locked enclosure they had provided for motorcyclists and chained it around the council-style security loops they had installed into the concrete. Engaged the nifty locking handbrake lever that can only be released once the key's in the ignition, covered it all over with a nice, new bike cover and toddled off to my flat.

Following morning, the trike has been pulled as far as the chain would allow towards the locked gates, which had also been pulled at, and the cover's balled up in the corner of the enclosure! 12 hours!
I asked the office to report the attempt to the Police and asked if there was any CCTV footage from the camera directly opposite, only to discover that it was out of order. It was at that point that I almost lost my temper and explained that if I caught anyone messing with my bike in that enclosure, they will be removed by ambulance. Not long afterwards, I'd replaced the Piaggio with a lovely VFR1200F and it wasn't long before that had been interfered with too.
Back to the office again.
"Has the CCTV been fixed?"
"Yes"
"Good. Phone the Police."
They never told me what happened next, because miraculously a garage had suddenly become avaiable! (Turns out it was being used by the groundskeepers for storage)
The VFR went in the garage the following day and was quickly bolted down to the floor with a 19mm Pragmasis Protector chain and Roundlock, through a "Beefy Bridge" ground anchor.

Nowadays, thanks to that behemoth of a chain just squeezing through the much smaller back wheel of my Silverwing, I can sleep a little easier.

But I know it won't stop a professional thief. Very little will. It'll slow them down though... and they'll be making a racket trying to cut through that chain.
And that might put them off taking my scoot.

But that beast of a chain is very heavy to cart about and I don't know how strong the underseat storage compartment is!

So the idea of a nice quick and visually effective lock like this CLM lock seems a great idea. I've seen quite a few of them in Amsterdam and Paris, and although it's nothing compared to a lot of other security options, when combined with a decent disc or U lock, it could make the potential thief think twice and aim for an easier target.

I don't know anywhere where there isn't a thief who won't take a bike, scooter, car or whatever if it looks like an easy grab. Doesn't matter if it's a Fireblade or a Forza, they'll have it away.

My brother's garage got broken into last year - they were after his BMW. He had the same Pragmasis chain through another of their ground anchors... They didn't touch the bike. Just left it once they saw what security it had.

For me, it's a no-brainer.

Dave where do the stolen bikes go? sold out of country, moved elsewhere in the country and used, parted out? I've covered the lower 48 states here and a couple of Canada's providence's and never had a bike stolen. Once I had my shop broken into and they took every tool and tool box even the wheelbarrow but never touched a bike. It sounds like the bike thieves are out shopping there.

A lot of the smaller scooters get used to commit other crimes, snatch and grabs... or they'll go two-up on a stolen scooter, follow someone on another bike or scooter and try and rob them of their wheels. Nearly had it happen to me when I had my Hayabusa - I realised what was happening just in time and blew threw a red light when I saw three scooters trying to cut me off. I don't care if I get done for a red light if I keep hold of my bike!
A large number of bikes are stolen by joyriders and they'll just thrash them before burning them out or dropping them in a river or canal. The Police said it looked like they'd tried to torch the Ninja, but couldn't break the tank, so just dumped it.
The "nicer" sports machines, like the Ducatis etc, will often be chopped up for parts.
Maybe it's different over there, but we seem to have a very unpleasant subhuman outbreak of scumbags over here who'll just do it for the sheer hell of it.

All I know is, if I catch anyone messing with my bike, I'll maim them.

So, I'd rather entertain installing a relatively cheap and easy handlebar lock like this if it gives the little bastards a harder time and makes them think twice.
Apparently, installing either explosive devices or pneumatically powered underseat spikes is still somewhat frowned upon in the UK... Who knew?

In my younger (and dumber) days we had a small gang of hot-rodded Zuma's. Cheap to purchase and easy to make go fast. Got up to 6 at one time. So all 6 of us go to our local oceanfront for fun and drink. We get to the bar and proceed to lock-up. We all had those Master Lock CUFFS that look like gorilla hand cuffs. But one of the guys said "No ones going to mess with a bunch of mopeds." and just locked his steering. At closing time we come stumbling out to 5 Zuma's. Guess what one was missing? I've always been proactive on security.

To add my 2c. Theft is an industry in Africa and I've now had 2 scoots stolen. They got clean away with my first. Luckily the Swing is such a big girl that they could not get it over the security fence and she was stuck there when we went out to investigate 'things that go bump in the night'. This in a gated/patrolled estate.
Now she has an motion sensor alarm which beeps the minute there's the slightest movement! A bit more and all hell breaks loose! Hopefully next time I can catch them in the act.
Chains and steering locks are useless as they are just cut or smashed.

Dave, I C, disposable 2 wheeled Uber's / Lyft's so to speak.

As so many others have said on here regarding scooter & moped thefts, these are mainly done by "Low life, drug taking scumbags" stealing them for raids, bag snatching, parts or just a gang dare thing" I can't see those scrawny little tax dodging scum trying to lift a Silverwing off it's stand even, and visible locks do deter them, I have a handlebar brake lock, thick chain & alarm plus data tag. Many years ago I made a system from parts of an old mp3 player & a shock sensor, so that when the bike was moved or tampered with, would emit through a hidden speaker (loudly)........ "F@ck Off, Help i'm being stolen", whether it worked on stopping them I don't know but it was never stolen, though once it did go off outside my house in the daytime to my embarrassment with my neighbours.....Ooooops