Theft prevention

[oneear]

Having unwillingly donated two bicycles to thieves it occurred to me they wouldnt be nicked if there was no market for them or their parts. I avoid second hand for that reason when it comes to bikes (pedal or motorised). Surely with all the IT around now a system of traceability from manufacturer to store to customer to second hand could be worked up. It should be voluntary but I bet it would be taken up a lot at the higher price brackets. Even though I run a cheapie roadie I would take it up. Reducing theft would then get more people on the road as at the moment thaft is a massive deterrent to commuting on a bike, do we have any techno geeks out there? could be money in the idea!

 

[Haitch]

Batavus, a Dutch bike maker, fits nearly all its bikes with a chip that can be read by the police. The data on the chip and the bike owner's details are both stored on a national database.

 

[oneear]

thats a good idea

Sounds great,are there any bike shop owners or manufacturers in the uk willing to take up the challenge...........

 

[Night Train]

My bike is chipped and registered. It was a service offered to me when I bought my bike at Mike Cooksons in Bury in 2001. The chip was housed in a barbed disc that was pushed deep into the seat tube and is very difficult to get at or remove.

There is a microdot system that can be used with cars and motorbikes where millions of microdots are sprayed on the vehicle during manufacture coating everything. Though theives can try to remove them it is unlikely that every one would be removed on every component. It makes vehicles and spares very traceable.

I think with bikes there also needs to be a way to make it much more difficult to remove a bike, or its parts, even if there is no value in the bike or parts to the thief. Proper bike parking boxes or steel wire nets like those used on rucksacks but stronger.

 

[Riding in Circles]

Sounds great,are there any bike shop owners or manufacturers in the uk willing to take up the challenge...........

We Datatag the two top of the range trikes now as standard and offer it as an option on the others.

 

[ed_o_brain]

Electronic tags such as datatag can be bought independantly from retail outlets such as wiggle.

I have all my bikes datatagged. Including a mountain bike stolen earlier this year. I've reported it stolen using datatags website. So far I've not had any news to say its been found. It's probably lying at the bottom of a canal somewhere.

 

[Bad Company]

Mine is in the top tube, through from the seat tube.

Thanks for the info. I now know how to nick your bike when I am next in Brum.

 

[summerdays]

Thanks for the info. I now know how to nick your bike when I am next in Brum.

Now you need to get him to tell you where it is locked up

 

[johnmacintyre]

cycle tagging

Sounds great,are there any bike shop owners or manufacturers in the uk willing to take up the challenge...........

We have teamed up with immobilise and now market a cycle tag as the Trovan immobitag. You can buy it on the website www.immobilise.com
I have visited all police forces in the Uk and demonstrated the technology and at present we are involved in 30 locations around the UK with the police tagging cycles. The technology is identical to Datatag and the Trovan readers will read both tags. The police in every force have these readers but some are more proactive than others.

The small grain of rice tags are OK but should only be used on cycles with the split frame. Our main tag is in a housing that will go down the seat tube and pushed down as far as you can. It is extremely difficult to remove it.

The website shown above allows any one to resister the details of their cycle free of charge. What is really good is that when the police are checking a recovered cycle then it can be easily identified by the tag number or the frame number and it searches thjis database.

What have come out of the many crime reduction initiatives we have done with the police is that a cycle is 10 times LESS likely to be stolen if tagged.

If you want any further information then either visit the website or reply to me.

Thanks

John Mac

 

[Bodhbh]

Last couple of weeks had been keeping an eye on eBay for a 2nd hand MTB. Some vendors fairly blatantly flogging stolen bikes on there: selling multiple bikes, v low feedback, all photographed at night down some alley, cash on pickup only, some bidders which look incredibly like shills, bike specs and discriptions all googled, etc.

eBay won't take action on stolen goods unless reported to them by a copper or a laywer - fair enough in a way or people would use this to greif. No sure if reporting to the police would do much use. Easy enuff for them to bid on an auction and turn up and check out the bikes or maybe even just check out the pictures to see if they match any reported stolen, but I would guess they have better things to be doing.