Garage defender- good idea for security or just advertising bikes inside?

Hi,

New house! Yay! It comes with a garage with an up and over door. It doesn’t look secure.

Is it worth £100+ to put a garage defender on the front?

Or Will it just advertise there is something inside?

Eventually I plan on bricking up the wall, but that is quite a way down my list of priorities.

Cheers!

To me it would advertise something worth stealing inside. What about door bolts instead?

It advertises value inside. My garage looks tatty but it has a serious ground anchor inside it to lock everything to.

Some garage doors really aren’t very secure so it is worth doing something. Do you have a pedestrian door as well? If so I’d do something internal. More secure and less obvious. Mine has a couple of extra brackets held shut with a g clamp. Less faff for me but secure from the outside.

The advertising value bit Is my concern.

anything external would be obvious from the road.

There is currently a pedestrian door with a glass panel. I’ll go for something internal instead.

Thanks!

I’ve got a motorised roller door but it might as well have been a velvet curtain when it came down to it.

I want to beef it up before I replace the bikes.

Following for any tips.

I fitted these to my garage when I lived in a more vulnerable area. Easy to fit and use and don’t advertise anything on a casual walk past.

I used to rent a garage in a series of lockups that were always bring broken into.

I put a garage defender on it and installed a ground anchor with a hefty chain to lock round the bike inside it.

Sure enough the garage got broken into, but they couldn’t remove the garage defender (they really did try though, the defender was a right mess) , so they ended up folding a corner of the garage door up, and cutting through the ground anchor chain, but the entrance they made through the garage door was too small to get a bike out of so they didn’t get it.

Tracey off here has an internal security shutter/screen thing fitted across the garage which would be my preference.

I’d go for a welded steel cage inside the garage and then put blockwork around the cage and a concrete lid on it.

+1 on internal and a ground anchor.

Just blockwork it across behind the garage door?

I would also look at keeping main door closed and always using a side entrance/something more discreet…

My moto is make as many deterrents as possible, so good locks to garage door, garage alarm and ground anchor in garage, chain to ground anchor chain all bikes together etc etc, the more deterrents the more chance they will move onto the next house that’s not as secure as yours

I’d still be trying to make it as hard as possible to get into the garage. If they can get in easily and quietly they can work on the other stuff without being seen. I don’t have a garage, just a shed but I’ve made the door as secure as possible with two chunky locks and beefed up internally and since putting the extra lock on the door nobody has touched it. I only put that lock on after the last unsuccessful attempt when they set the alarm off.

Edit. What he said^^^

Side doors need to be well protected too. We blocked ours up after the second break in in 3 months (hoping to get the replacement bike) and fitted enfield bolts to the up and over door as boriselbrus pictured above.

+1 for those side bolts pictured above.
You’d need to destroy the door or cut out the bolts/sections of door to get in.
Lots of time and noise, so will put off most thieves.

They will go for the corners so I installed internal bolts which effectively locked it to the frame. I also beefed up the side door and the seperate window (basically screwed it shut). A local sign company sold me a cheap offcut of opaque film to stick on the glass.
Little trick I saw at the local sports club – broomsticks behind opaque glass look just like iron bars, stopped their run of break ins overnight.

Before all of the above our neighbours had an attempted breakin the night before we were going on holiday. Not a lot a could so I had to improvise with whatever was available, as the side door opened outwards I stacked heavy timbers against it with a lot of empty beer bottles balanced on top. When I returned a week later I can vouch for how effective it was…….

Definitely fit enfield bolts, cheap, discreet and effective.

Thanks!

Garage bolts

Opaque glass

Ground anchors

When time and funds permit- block up the garage and security cage 😂

Was it @stoner on here ages ago who had a secret door into the real bikes, there was a bait bike in front to be nicked, but a whole wall opened to reveal the good bikes.

I put barrel bolts in each corner and in the middle top and bottom on a standard double garage door (inside). Wont stop a determined effort, but stops them just peeling a corner or the middle open, or just bending it for a look.

Took another minute to open the main door from the inside, but I didnt take stuff in and out the main door that often, just popped in and out the side door.

Just pile all your crap up against the garage door that your can’t open it from either side and you have to take your bike out the side door and through the house.

I attached bolts to mine at the tops, sides and bottom and drilled holes for them to push into.

Then ground anchor and chains inside.

I’m a fan of securing the garage from the inside (assuming you have a side door). But the best security is stealth.
If there’s no reason to look inside then scrotes most likely won’t.

The only bikes we’ve had nicked have obviously been when someone has spotted the car parked outside, or seen them being unloaded.

Nowadays I live In a quiet street and make sure that no one can see me unloading them from the van. Also there are big bolts on the inside of the garage main door, shelves in the way and generally no way to get into the garage from the front. The side door is very secure and we have good CCTV on the inside (nearly everyone else in our street and the surrounding area has external CCTV) and some good ground anchors to lock the bikes to.

But I guess if the only way you can secure it is from outside then something discrete would be a good idea

I don’t think a garage defender advertises items of value, just that you’re security conscious. It may well put off the casual thief looking for easy pickings and save you from replacing a damaged door, a relatively cheap deterrent. Then get as many things chained/wired/d-locked as possible inside, an investment.

Front door bolted from inside.

If you then decide to replace the side door then Lathams do a whole range of secure steel ones with steel frame so a fairly easy swap of the whole assembly. Built in multi point locking, hinge bolts etc.

I’ll second the Latham’s doors. Very sturdy and secure. Also reasonably priced and easy to fit.

My garage door has a workbench and a load of shelves across it, stops the door opening normally and anyone who pries the door open is probably going to be killed by an avalanche of 9 speed cassettes.

I got the locks boriselbrus posted as well, and then a ground anchor resined in, with motorbike chains round the bikes.

Oh yeah, if you want a bit of cheap and easy bonus security, I’m a big fan of these:

Totally wireless so you can just throw it up in a minute, decent enough range, and you can slave 2 together for better sensor coverage. Most cheap alarms put the sounder in the garage which is absolutely useless. Not really something I’d recommend instead of a proper alarm, but so easy.

Quite like my Blink camera too, no doubt there’s better options now but it’s another nice-and-easy and I like how it pushes notifications to the phone app.

I’ve got a motorised roller door but it might as well have been a velvet curtain when it came down to it.

I want to beef it up before I replace the bikes.

A beef curtain won’t be much use either

Crikey, some of the efforts people have to make are crazy!
All my stuff is indoors, we have a 3 storey house with the bottom level a sort of semi cellar with a door out to the back of the house. Seems pretty secure as you basically have to break into the house.

Another +1 on the Lathams side doors.

If you can’t replace the up and over just yet, go for as many Enfield bolts as practicable…

I looked at a garage defender or the side bolts but did think they’d advertise something was in my garage to the opportunist thief. I transport my bike on a bike rack and reckon I’d likely be targeted as opposed to randomly in the area and broke into my garage.

Speaking to a buddy, he reckons if you get targeted, all the thief needs to do is figure out when you’re out, come back then, chuck on a high vis and they can do anything to your garage and most people wont question it, then you’ve spent money on protection but would still have to fork out for replacing what would be taken and the damaged door.

I got a quote for adding on cover for my expensive MTB from my household insurer and it was really reasonable and worked out cheaper then extra security till year 3. Then, if the worse does happen, I get the money for a bike minus the excess and a new garage door.

I have a garage defender and it stopped an attempted break in last year.

IMO most bike thefts are targeted, so a garage defender isn’t advertising things as most thieves will already know where the bikes are stored. (The garage door bolts are also quite visible if you are looking for them).

Presume everyone here has Strava tightened up? (Privacy zones, request to follow, fake / nickname)

Presume everyone here has Strava tightened up? (Privacy zones, request to follow, fake / nickname)

is there any evidence that this has ever happened?

Last time this came up I did a bit of googling, AFAICS all leads back to one bloke who got burgled and seemed to decide that a high tech band of thieves were watching his every move online before an elaborate raid on a single mid range road bike.

I added the Klein bolts.

So thieves tried to go in through the roof instead. Bikes are individually chained and anchored anyway but they didn’t get in to test those luckily. Still cost me to repair the roof though.

Last time this came up I did a bit of googling, AFAICS all leads back to one bloke who got burgled and seemed to decide that a high tech band of thieves were watching his every move online before an elaborate raid on a single mid range road bike.

Maybe I’ve had this on here with you previously, or maybe it was someone else.

It’s a piece of piss. I’ve stalked quite a few people in my local area using Strava and other open sources of info (usually FB) to tell them where their nice bikes are kept and to button up their security. I’m not sure how tech savvy you are but assuming you aren’t don’t let your ignorance about ‘high tech bands of thieves’ cloud your judgement – I only used a web browser, not a police scanner or a drone, or lazerbeams. I expect victims will never really know if / how they were targeted so it’s pointless speculating either way whether this is a ‘known attack’ – I will just reiterate it is trivial.

However buttoning up Strava takes less time then it takes to measure the cuts / drill holes on the physical security mentioned above**, so why wouldn’t you? Nothing to lose and everything to gain unless you insist on having world+dog sending you kudos for riding yet another Zwift ride.

** which you should also have – belt and braces