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Even if you used the best locks available they’re only going to slow them down. In your position I’d be looking to make the garage painful to be in, the loudest siren possible inside the garage
I can’t make the link work, but a Klaxon Masterblaster 127db.
In the shed, out of reach. I used to fit them from time to time in a previous life as an Intruder alarm Technician.
I’d fit a basic wired alarm system with no movement detection, just door contacts and maybe tube and batten/wired doors.
@daveyboywonder they have traveled about 35 miles to come and get it.
@daveyboywonderthey have traveled about 35 miles to come and get it.
Yikes, so hardly opportunistic then. Wonder how they knew about it... and if those scrotes know about it and you've been targetted before, how many other scrotes know about the bikes. As others have said, I'd be beefing up security even more (more locks and a far stronger door) and definitely getting an alarm fitted and motion sensing cameras/flood lights etc. Scrotes won't like being illuminated by millions of lumens of spot light whilst theres alarms going off...
Alternatively, move house.
Mint advert for airtags though...
Blimey, well done with the recovery, but ballsy too! I hope you can come up with a solution to allow you to rest easy but I can imagine it’s unnerving.
I keep my bikes in a garage that is alarmed with the sensor aimed at the bikes. (Plenty of false alarms due to mice,) The thought (hope) is that however they get in, as soon as they approach the bikes, all hell will break loose and they won’t hang around. The alarm siren is on the house gable end high up so shouldn’t be tampered with and it’s incredibly loud.
This is my strategy as I don’t think I can make a sectional concrete garage intruder proof.
I am a bit paranoid too, so when I have workmen in the house, or even at the neighbours house, I try to trigger an alarm by opening the garage having”forgotten” to disarm it. Again, stupid logic is that if anyone is scoping the garage or bikes, under false pretences of being a legitimate visitor, they know I have an alarm.
A big sign on the door would also do the trick? Stick a "beware of the dog" up while you're at it.
My wife’s somewhat brutal solution to anti-social shit like this is to snip off the little finger starting at the distal phalanx. Nick another one? Nip off the rest. Had my beloved bike stolen a few years ago. Still miss it. So many memories attached to it.
My bafang converted cove hummer was stolen from outside my mums house (kirkcudbright) back in 2018 and I knew who would have stolen it (local addicts) so I phoned the police and told them but they wouldn’t knock on the door so we waited in the car outside the flats till one of them came out with the bike and as he attempted to ride out of town he fell off breaking his arm and wrist in the process
Alarm you garage with a very very loud alarm so when they return it wakes up the entire neighbourhood and hopefully gets them to run off
Use this sort of alarm, it's not designed to warn people of a break-in, it is designed to make it totally unbearable for the thief:
https://www.pr-alarms.co.uk/sound-emitters/
A Sound Emitter is a device which creates noise so disorientating and unbearable resulting in intruders being physically unable to stay in the premises.
The lady who answered made out like she didn’t have a clue (probably didn’t) and said her lads were good lads and wouldn’t steal anything. To her credit she showed us the outhouse and shed and the bike wasn’t there.
I'm no expert but I don't think professional thieves keep "stock" where they live, precisely because of the threat of the premises being searched by the police - it's much harder to prove theft if the stolen items haven't been recovered.
I suspect that the lady in question knew the craic and was happy to show you the outhouse and shed for that reason. Refusing to let you look would have been of no benefit to her/them, it would have just maintained your suspicions.
Great news that you got your bike back, well done!
Surely the police will now have whoever lives at that address you knocked on on their radar now, if they didn’t already.
LOL at the idea that they aren't already on first name terms.
Great result. My hunch is the same thieves are unlikely to bother you again, they now know you have pretty decent security, trackers and are willing to pursue them, good work. Thieves are in the main opportunists, it won’t take long before they find an easier target. They can just follow a commuter/weekend rider home who’s riding a nice bike, much easier and less risk. There was a spate of people being followed when leaving Bike Park Wales and in Bristol. The thieves will be operating on a basic mental risk assessment too, they encountered the police, you turned up at their house and they lost their spoils…. So they may conclude there are easier targets to follow instead.
Main thing is to go out and enjoy your bikes, you worked hard to buy them and everyone is entitled to enjoy their purchases. UK really is full of scrotes these days, got much worse with the backlash and rule breaking in Covid, it’s led to a **** you attitude in many and a loss of manners.
If there were no police ,the shits would walk into your house steal all your property , rape your family and in general run amok
Trying to bring a morsel of humour to this frightening thread...
Is it too late to make a 'user name checks out' claim on "nippy" from page 1?
Glad OP is riding again and our police are meeting expectations.
(punctuation is not my forte)
Glad our police are living up to
I’d fit a basic wired alarm system with no movement detection, just door contacts
Is that for budget reasons or are movement sensors not as effective?
@dmorts for false alarm prevention. If you’re going to have a stupidly loud siren, you don’t want it going off in the middle of the night when a spider gets inside a movement detector or a storm sets off a vibration sensor.
Garages and sheds tend to be poor environments for movement detectors.
Tracked them down miles away and probably got them in trouble with their mum, indeed as has been said maybe they'll think twice in future.
I would now put a large sign up next to the bike saying "I know where you live"
The scrotes had probably been released early from prison earlier that day, courtesy of Kier Stalin...
To add to reeksys suggestion, I would get a picture of their front door made into a big poster with ‘I know where you live’ on it and stick it on the wall by the bikes. Might make them think twice.
If they now know that you know where they live there is a chance they might leave you alone as they know if they nick your bike again the cops will know where to start looking and most thieves pick the easy targets and don’t want to make their own life hard.
great work by the way
We've had I think three but maybe four attempts on our shed, after the first one they've all failed as I've made it progressively harder. More secure locks, beefed up the door and door frame and finally an alarm. The last one set off the alarm and since then nobody has been back, that was a good few years ago now. Hopefully as others have said you've made them think again about coming back.
Garages and sheds tend to be poor environments for movement detectors.
Get some smart ones then.
Mine have a delay programmed in. So you need ~5 seconds of sustained movement before it registers. Then you test it with a light (rather than a siren) and see how it goes. Either change the delay or the sensitivity until it works. Then add the siren into the equation.
The latest mmWave sensors can detect multiple items movements as well, which adds some interesting options. Like if it detects one person, take the maglite next to the back door to the garage to see whats going on. If it detects more people, call the cops!
as he attempted to ride out of town he fell off breaking his arm and wrist in the process
Purely accidental I assume 🙂
Get some smart ones then.
Mine have a delay programmed in. So you need ~5 seconds of sustained movement before it registers. Then you test it with a light (rather than a siren) and see how it goes. Either change the delay or the sensitivity until it works. Then add the siren into the equation.The latest mmWave sensors can detect multiple items movements as well, which adds some interesting options. Like if it detects one person, take the maglite next to the back door to the garage to see whats going on. If it detects more people, call the cops!
Things have certainly moved on a bit since I was in the trade, but I’d still go for simple old school vs tech on an outbuilding.
All my bikes are insured. The only bikes I keep in my garage are those I don't mind getting nicked. Tbh I wouldn't be heartbroken if some scrotes stole 8k worth of mtbs I haven't sat on for 2 years and I can't sell for peanuts
The stuff I want to keep is safely tucked up in the spare room
Good result op. Bigger balls than me knocking on the door of some scumbags house in (presumably) a less than salubrious part of brum accusing them of theft...wouldn't have been how I'd have played it!!
I’m not condoning this, but I know of a local bike thief who was caught and discovered that a regular sized Kryptonite NY D Lock can easily fit a neck and street sign post inside it and still be locked.
I cannot divulge the names of the 3 (very) angry MTBers how showed him this, but it was on a quiet industrial estate one Friday night over a bank holiday weekend when no one would be around until Tuesday.
Things have certainly moved on a bit since I was in the trade, but I’d still go for simple old school vs tech on an outbuilding.
Some of my smart motion sensors are 10+ year old designs. Is that old school yet 😉
Mine are mostly battery powered as well, so snipping the power to the garage doesn't actually do much as far as triggering an alarm, except make it dark in there! And good luck spotting something the size of a matchbox on a shelf in the corner in the dark and then working out what it's for... (If you set the system up properly the mains powered devices will also be flagged up as being powered down when they go out!)
Scary stuff renton.
I too would go with noise and lights as deterrent as much as locks and bricks. Thieves will do anything and be tooled up to cut anything. But a proper noisy alarm, even for a few seconds before it is smashed, will wake you and the dog. As will PIR flood lights.
I had 4 bikes nicked in Sheffield from an outbuilding - they just kicked the door through and cut the cable through the bikes to ground anchor. I fitted a really noisy PIR activated sound alarm on a remote control and PIR activated light high up where it could not be reached. A few months after the 4 bikes were nicked our shed alarm triggered when someone kicked the new door really hard at about 1am...We found footmark on the door, cracked door, but nothing gone.
Purely accidental I assume 🙂
The police were satisfied as to my explanation, and my brothers (he's a retained firefighter so knew them when they turned up), shame the judge only gave him 90 days.
He broke into a fishing boat in the town back in 2021 and smeared shit everywhere (why?....just why?) big mistake as the boats are all alarmed now and the skipper really went to town on him.
Stake them out and nick useful things of theirs…. As often as you can ?
if you can’t beat them, join them.
I’m joking but the only way they learn is if something significantly causes them problems, but then of course things escalate and people like that have no filter. However…airgun the car tyres. Every month.
While we are at Kirkcudbright as a seething hotbed of criminal behaviour.... Back in 1997 we had all the energy saving lightbulbs, one staff bike and a waterproof jacket stolen from Barcaple outdoor centre, which being Kirkcudbright in the 1990's did not have locks on most of the doors.
The local police drove into Kirkcudbright, visited the 'usual' flat, which being Kirkcudbright did not have a locked front door, and discovered a box of bulbs on the table and a dripping wet jacket on the door, as the perp had ridden home with his treasure afterwards...Sadly the bike never turned up.
If there were no police ,the shits would walk into your house steal all your property , rape your family and in general run amok
If there were no police they'd be walking through the door and be met with both barrels of a shotgun at about chest level.
And you don't think they would be carrying firearms themselves?
My wife’s somewhat brutal solution to anti-social shit like this is to snip off the little finger starting at the distal phalanx. Nick another one? Nip off the rest. Had my beloved bike stolen a few years ago. Still miss it. So many memories attached to it.
Along the right lines but thumbs are where it's at. Take the secondary one first to show how difficult things could be if both are gone and a pint can not be gripped and lifted easily.
While we are at Kirkcudbright as a seething hotbed of criminal behaviour….
That sounded like a “jim johnstone” theft, he’s kinda normal and well behaved now but not known for his intelligence. He’s the product of two parents (brother + half sister) with severe learning difficulties.
Kirkcudbright is a really quiet wee place with practically zero crime to honest, I’ve never locked my bike up and never felt the need to lock my front door/shed or close windows when I go away.
If anything does get stolen it’s always the 3 dumb addicts in the station flats across from the Johnston school, they regularly get their door kicked in by the locals and bounced around a bit.
Last time i was around Kirkcubright the locals had the road wheels off the tank!
Being serious though, reality is, you have insurance, they're covered, everything else nowadays is just a mess with bike thefts and so on, i'm just outside Bristol, had a couple nicked about 5 years ago, since then just got proper insurance and made sure it's not simply a case of walking in and picking the bike up, if they want it, they'll have to put a bit of effort into it, but if they do nick it, well that's what insurance is for.
As for the police, it's a non-violent crime, it's usually something that has little evidence, and resource is limited for them and when they do catch them, they're usually out with community service, same thing happens with watch thefts in London and so on, the sad reality is you can't have nice things and show them off.