Brussels has a website where you can register all your bikes (if you live in Belgium of course) with their serial numbers, photos, main colour and other details.  You then get an unremovable sticker (no, I don’t know either) with a code number so if someone gets offered the bike they can check if it is stolen or if the police find it they can find you again.

The important part isn’t the sticker really but rather having a central record of all the bikes that you have.  I like the idea as it’s free and means there is one central place where people can go to check.  To me it’s also ripe for hacking as it would be a fabulous source of info. on which houses to go to to steal high value bikes.  It would probably be better to keep that info. myself ready for the day that stuff gets nicked.

Is anyone using this sort of service already or am I just being paranoid.  The site doesn’t record your address but certainly you can get straight to my address online with my surname so not having an address recorded makes almost no difference

No, I have insurance.

Immobilise.com does exactly that, and not jut limited to bikes. Must be working because I’ve never had any stuff nicked!

*touches wood*

edit – I also have insurance, but that doesn’t increase the chance that the bastards who pinched your stuff will get bubbled. I think the important thing that Immobilise also has is that it is supported by most police forces.

I’ve got datatag on a couple of bikes.

Going to buy a couple more for my brommie and new hardtail. £25 each seems worthwhile as a stickered deterrent and maybe a chance to get a nicked bike back…

Thanks for that, it looks almost exactly the same as the Immobilise.com site which suggests why I might want to register my stuff in advance rather than after the fact:
”

<b>The power of the combined Immobilise/NMPR system is best demonstrated by way of an example:</b>

A Police patrol indentify an individual acting suspiciously near a carpark often targeted by thieves. They perform a stop and search on the individual and find the suspect to be carrying several mobile phones and MP3 players. They radio through the serial numbers of the devices to their control-room that search the numbers on the NMPR.

The results come back instantly; two of the phones were reported as stolen via Immobilise only a few hours earlier. The suspect is arrested and taken to the station for interview. The possession of the stolen phones gives reasonable grounds for the Police to search the suspect’s home where they find numerous items, which again are checked on the NMPR.

The searches reveal several more items that are associated with crimes, one of which was involved a serious assault providing the team investigating the assault with a fresh lead to pursue.”

Datatag looks similar except with extra super secret squirrel UV marking.  Immobilise makes a point of how secure they keep the data which is nice.

It’s free so might do it if I can work out somewhere less visible to put the stickers as they are a little ugly

Is the sticker not meant to aid as a visual deterrent? If so, the uglier the better…

I use Bikeregister.com
Seems to offer the same service as above. I use the Stealth kit on mine.
It has a visible sticker as usual but you also use UV paint to put the number permanently on the frame. Then you get to go wild dabbing microdots (in UV paint) in every nook & cranny (so up the fork stem, under the headset cap etc). All places that your average lowlife won’t think of looking.

You get to upload loads of pics & a description all in the hope that if it does turn up in a haul, someone can identify it.

That plus a ****-off great chain & ground-anchor and insurance for when all that fails!