That's probably one of the better Ways of dealing with it. And to help identify it when going with to the police to have some way of identifying it besides the s/n. Such as a piece of paper in the seat tube or handlebars with your name and address on it.

Fortunately here in St. Pete one can register their bike with the police department as part of that process they "run" the s/n to make sure that it isn't already stolen. Plus the shop where I purchased my bike offered free registration with the national bike registry program. So my bike is registered with both the St. Pete police and the national bike registry. And I carry all the numbers with me on my PDA.

Which hopefully and in theory means if it's stolen I should have a decent chance of getting it back.