I drop one of my business cards down the seat post.

20 years ago a guy stole my bike and I ran him down and the police came. The guy keep saying it was his bike and just going on about wanting me arrested for knocking down. I let him go on then asked if he had ever seen me before and where he got the bike, after he said he had never seen me before I asked the cop to watch him close while his partner looked in the seat post.
You know the rest of the story!

I have always done this. Bike thieves are not the brightest people in the world. I have been known to put a card in the bottom bracket area too.

I have done the same, in addition to stamping my driver's license number on the bottom bracket shell as a sort of second serial number.

How did he get the card out? Assuming you greased the seatpost enough, I would think that might get on the card and make it stick in the tube.

Excellent idea. I keep record of SN's where applicable by photo's.

These are great ideas. Not so sure about the outcome of running the guy down with your car though - it could go wrong in a large number of different ways.

But great that you got your bike back!

What was the rest of the story? Did the other guy claim that you stuck the card in place on a previous occasion when it was parked on the street in order to pull some sort of scam?

If he had, what would you have said to disprove such a counter claim without the normal proof of purchase documentation?

Use a 4 digit number with some meaning to you and engrave the number on the inside of each of the dropouts, providing they aren't carbon fiber. You can also do the same thing by engraving the steerer tube, seat post or the faceplate of you stem. I doubt that they can claim that you engraved the number on the parts while waiting for the cops to come.

I just take a picture of the sticker with the serial number with a few other pictures of the bike and scan the original receipt. I do that for insurance reasons and it proves ownership.

The following requires the help of a friend at the USPS, or going to a Notary Public. I made the following up years ago for touring overseas, and for crossing the US Canadian border with my bike.

Photo the bike small enough to fit within a credit card sized print. Write the serial number on the back, along with your ID info and the date. Then bring to the post office and ask the clerk to post mark it for you (or have a notary sign and date). Laminate the whole thing and keep with you when touring, especially when crossing borders. To make it more conclusive, have a friend photograph you with the bike, and maybe include some recognizable landmark or newspaper headline to establish age and location- this is overkill, but why not?.

In the many times I've reentered the US and been asked to prove prior ownership of the bike, and that has always been accepted without challenge.

In this age of PDAs and cellphones you could probably update this concept with a photo showing you and the bike in front of something that can establish location.

The business card idea is for in case the crook takes the bike to a dealer for service; you might get a phone call. Proving ownership through on-line photos and such should be easy.

The card or a piece of paper with your information in the seat tube is time proven. Every case I have heard of ended in the rightful owner getting their bicycle back and the thief being successfully prosecuted when charges were pressed. Two were here in Escambia County, FL back in the late 70's. Seen several instances recently out of our area that had this used to reclaim a bicycle from some dink that was a thief.

As said by FBinNY, make sure you laminate, or place the paper in a plastic baggie, to keep in dry and legible. Disproving the low life, just have the above methods or recording the serial numbers photographically with your home and/or garage viewable in each picture with time and date stamp. I am a notary for Florida, any cyclist wanting this notarized just needs to ask, and its done, gratis, and recorded by me in my ledger.

Bill

+1 ^

I've got a picture of me with each of my bikes and the serial numbers on my cell phone, most taken in or beside my garage. Since the phone saves the photo data, including date, it would be tough for a thief to claim a scam. The information inside the seat post is also a good idea and I should do that as extra protection. A stolen bike was recovered at a bike co-op in the area a couple of years ago when someone brought it in for work and the legitimate owner spotted it and pulled his name and phone number out of the seat post.

On a related note, be aware that powder coating or even repainting a frame can obscure serial numbers.

take a photo of you with the bike and stick that down the tube

Maybe it's time to look at this post again!!

^
Thanks! I missed this originally. Never thought of that. I registered my bike on the manufacturer's website shortly after purchasing.

In addition, I have many photos of my bike, including a photo of the SN I keep with me. That helped a lot when it was stolen and recovered a couple of years ago.

I have used the handle bars, put your info on a small piece of paper, roll it up and put it inside you handle bars, then put the plug in. If you need it, it's more believable if you tell the police to look in the right handle bar end.
There is also www.bikeindex.org where you can enter your bikes serial number and other identifiers so the police, or a bike shop, can look it up.

good share, thanks!

Police arrested a notorious Toronto bike thief a few years back, and I persuaded my biking buddy to drive me over to the open house where they were showing some of the 2,000 bikes they recovered -- our bikes had been stolen a few weeks before the arrest when we stupidly locked them in a quietish downtown spot with a flimsy lock. We found the bikes, only to discover that my bike store receipt had the serial number off by one. Police looked at us, the bikes and the cellphone picture I showed them of the two of us riding somewhere in Vermont and handed both bikes back. Business card idea would have made it all a lot simpler.

I used that trick on a guitar, using the card as a shim between the neck and body (it needed the shim to adjust the angle anyway). But I forgot to remove the card when I sold the guitar. I always wondered whether I'd get a call about my "stolen" guitar after someone discovered the card while tuning up the guitar. But that was 20 years ago, no call so far.