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  • Security Tracking Devices for Bikes
  • Ax3M4n
    Free Member

    Seen lot's of stuff about theft and D-locks on here – nothing about catching the bastard's after they've had it away with you're bike.

    The Police? They'll take your details, and Frame Number, give you a leaflet about crime-stoppers and wish you good luck in finding your bike.

    I searched Google for some kind of "Electronic Bicycle Tracking" – doesn't exist. Anyone know why?

    Last October – mine and 7 other bikes were all spirited away from a communal lockup in our Flat's basement. Since then extra security, and personal security (Wall anchors, £70 D-Locks and Chains etc) failed to stop another 6 bikes getting nicked last Saturday night. They left the cheap bikes were they were – untouched. Obviously professional theives, they cut through the chains and D-Locks without anybody noticing a thing until Sunday Morning. Probably aboout £5k's worth of bikes in one go.

    This is pretty serious shit.

    timwillows
    Free Member

    There are transponders you fit into the frame which identify the bike when interrogated by a 'wand'. Trouble is the police have not bothered to buy the wands!
    Are you after something more sophisticated that links to satellite tracking? Might be a bit big and stolen bikes probably spend a lot of time indoors

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Cost of a GPS £100+

    Cost of fitting that electronics into a niche product £thousands

    Finding a way to hide it in a frame £priceless (impossible, they'd just remove it or break it to stop it transmitting)

    Look at EPIRIB's for yachts/sailors, theyre hideously expensive for what they are, and still dont have a GPS, they just transmit a radio code that satelites and rescue boats can home in on.

    And you've got the problem of powering the thing, say you want it to be transmitting fro a good week, thats 7x the life of a normal GPS battery, and it still has to transmit that data. And the battery has to keep its charge for years without going flat.

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    crashdummy
    Free Member

    The police hase some – they leave some bikes poorly locked bikes around and go pick them up later in the hope they will be in some garage with lots of other stolen stuff.

    Although GPS trackers are quite common for motorised vehicals the probablem with bikes is a) making the system small enough and b) keeping it charged.

    There are systems out there that claim to work for bikes, but in general they are quite easy to remove and through away and it is quite difficult to hide anything on a bike.
    In addition, there is the constant worry about weight – why spend £3k on bike to save a few kgs only to add half of it back on in some GPS system.

    tron
    Free Member

    I've thought about it as a potential business in the past. There are huge problems in packaging and powering the device.

    In particular, there are very few places where you could actually hide a transmitter or transponder on a metal bike (tyres, bar tape, saddle). Carbon frames open up more possibilities but then you're restricting the market even further. What's possible at the moment is more or less equivalent to an electronic frame number – a dog style microchip. Scan it, your address comes up. It's a complicated way of going about it, and easily foiled by a thief if it were commonplace.

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    Just had an intresting chat with the old bill who are in our place promoting bike security today. He said the following:

    Immobilise tags (the shuttlecock type things you shove down the seat tube. Not all Police forces know about these or have readers. The readers are a bit fragile, break and are expensive to replace, so not really worth it. Also not all policemen /women are aware of this

    Micro dot / smart water. Not all forces have the kit to read them and they can get 'washed' off over time. Also not all policemen /women are aware of this

    http://www.immobilise.com/ All police are aware of this and it's the first thing they check. Generally fram numbers are not ground off frames and they have a good record of reuniting recovered stolen bikes to their owners who have registered them. Unfortunately, only about 5% of recovered bikes are on teh register.

    Other stuff (as is happening in London at the moment)
    Aside from the obvious using proper locks correctly.

    Bikes have been seized from people riding them if they are stopped and they find that the frame number has been ground off

    There is a lot of proactive plain clothes operations at the moment and they are nicking quite a few people using decoy bikes

    The scroates know that there are a hell of a lot of £1k bikes as a result of the bike to work scheme and are targeting bike racks inside office garages, etc. They just stroll in wearing hi viz or suits, go straight to the racks and help themselves! Apparantly last week a £7k bike was nicked from a solicitors office like this 😯

    Brick Lane. The latest thing is people buying a bike in the market for whatever and then as they ride away, there are two huge blokes who stop them, ays 'Oi! that's my bike' and the victim (seeing the size of the guys) has preety much no choice but to hand over teh bike. The bike then gets wheeled round the corner to be 'sold' again.

    Stay safe & locked up out there people!

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