Advocacy & Safety - bicycle alarm - check it out

How do you know I'm not a bike thief? And why don't you read my post rather than just responding to it?
What did I miss? Your thought that you'd always be able to notice your car alarm? Yeah, right. I've heard news stories saying that people hear car alarms, are annoyed, and do their best to tune them out, even when it's THEIR CAR ALARM going off.

What's the false alarm rate for these noise polution devices? 10-1? 100-1? 1000-1?

What did I miss?

Not much:


If someone manages to get into my garage, and only jostles one of my bikes, the alarm goes off. This will wake the dog, who will wake me. It's an added measure of security. If the same lock was used at Starbucks, or a grocery store, it would provide a measure of security. The novelty of a bike with an alarm may be an attention getter. Bikes are also somewhat more likely to be parked in places where they're harder to ignore. Next to the door at your local food emporium is different than B lot, aisle 8, spot 42.


Do you have a car alarm? Maybe poeple in general ignore them, but if you're the owner of the car in question, you probably know what your alarm sounds like, and are quite attuned to that particular sound. But rather than go there, this is about bike alarms, which are completely different from car alarms. A car alarm is an anonymous noise coming from somewhere in a crowded parking lot. Bikes are generally locked up near plenty of foot traffic. If someone is tampering with the bike, people will see and hear it. I certainly find that to be a deterrent. I think I stated this once already as well.

But if it makes you happy, feel free to keep going on about car alarms.

If I was a bike theif and an alarm went off on a bike I was working on chances are it would get whatever tool I had lodged in it's loud carcass effectively negating it. If anyone asks I'll just say I've been having trouble with it and it was more trouble than it was worth. It's really not a deterrant

It's still my opinion that if the bike in question was locked up in front of a grocery store or coffee shop, one the alarm went off, the thief would walk away. But that's just my opinion.

Where's your towel?

Where's your towel?
Close at hand.

A towel by your keyboard? I shudder at the thought.

But you didn't answer what the ratio of false to "true" alarms would be. If the things only went off when people really were trying to steal your bike, I'd have less of an objection. But my guess is that these things will go off hundreds (if not thousands) of times before they'd do any good. That's noise pollution.

Also, think about what would happen if these things become common. Even if they work as promissed, these things can only work if only a very few cyclists have them. So even if you're right and they become common, people will certainly learn to ignore them, too.

You're either extremely cynical, or just trying to perpetuate an argument. I doubt that very many cyclists will go to the trouble of getting a bike alarm. I also don't really think that they'll be triggered as easily as car alarms. Bike alarms have proper motion sensors. Car alarms have motion/shock sensors. A bike alarm cannot be set off by some w@nker in a Honda CRX with a thumping stereo. Isn't it past your bedtime?

I hope you're right on both counts--that these alarms will remain rare and that the alarm company has found a way to all-but-eliminate false alarms. Also, I'm not trying to perpetuate an argument for the argument's sake. I think that audible alarms are nothing but noise pollution in many areas.

Do you understand how most car alarms work? And how much do you spend on your bike(s)?

DC, the one I've mentioned doesn't have motion sensors and can't be triggered by anything but a cut wire.

DC, the one I've mentioned doesn't have motion sensors and can't be triggered by anything but a cut wire.

That would certainly eliminate any false alarms. The ones I have can be set to be triggered by either a cut wire, or motion. And the motion part has 2 settings for sensitivity. It would not be set off by a loud noise.

The cut-wire one shouldn't give off false alarms, but I am skeptical about the motion-detector one, even though it as two-whole settings. And yes, I know how much bikes can cost.

And I repeat, if the thing really doesn't give off false alarms, then it sounds OK. But if they become common and they give off false alarms, then I doubt they will be effective at anything but creating noise pollution.

The 2 settings aren't the issue. It's the fact that they need actual motion to set the alarm off, not like a shock sensor in a car alarm, that responds to sound pressure levels. I know an ex-junkie whose bike isn't worth more than $100. But it means the world to him, as it's his freedom. I gave him one of these alarms, as he can't afford a lock. (Yes, even his bike would get stolen over here) It provides enough security that he can lock his bike to a post in front of the grocery store, and it will be there when he come out. Conversely, our tandem would cost at least AU$12k to replace, and I use the same alarm as a backup security device in our garage.