In volume they do. Here in the Philly area cops busted a ring of thieves with the last year or so. They had hundreds of bikes believed to be stolen and had apparently been doing a brisk business in sales.

You have a good point. I live in Atlanta. My car (when I used to drive) was stolen once at a gas station while I was in paying for my gas (I conveniently left the key in the ignition). The thief stole my checkbook from the glove box. Then went to my bank and withdrew a bunch of money. Somehow he didn't have to show I.D. (they always ask me to show I.D. when I cash checks on my account). Then my car was towed to a city lot and left there for a few months before the police called me and told me I owed them a bunch of money for storage of my car!

My faith in the judicial system went down a few notches after all that.

The thief who chucks it in a van could take a look over it at their leisure to see if there's anything on it that could be a GPS tracker, or just leave it trying to find a mobile signal until the battery is dead (looking for a signal seems to be particularly bad for mobile device batteries).

If you're looking at low-end bikes stolen by a casual thief it's probably not worth the expense, and high end bikes are likely to be stolen by sophisticated thieves who would be on the lookout for tracking devices.

I guess it would depend on what kind of bike they're out to steal.

I'm sure once in a while a casual opportunist does manage to make off with a Trek Project One or an S-Works Venge or something. I suspect most of the time the casual opportunist would look at the funny pedals on such a bike and leave it alone, and steal something with regular platforms so they know they can ride off on it, and in the process restrict themselves to the lower end of the market.

The more organised thieves are unlikely to bother with a $200 bike because there's more money to be made targetting the high-end stuff, and I'd imagine they'd look to move in cycling circles for a while so they didn't look too conspicuous admiring high end bikes, or even riding a high-end bike they had stolen. Even if they just ride it round the corner before chucking it in the back of a van it looks less unusual to see someone in full cycling kit riding a decent bike then putting it in the van and driving off, than it does to see a guy in regular clothing pushing something high end.

I'm not sure I accept that. A casual thief might steal any bicycle, not just a high end bike. But they won't reject a high end bike. They just don't limit themselves to high end bikes.

A sophisticated thief won't bother with anything but high end bikes. But sophisticated thieves are not as common as casual thieves.

So the owner of a high end bicycle is subject to theft most commonly by casual thieves, and then sometimes by sophisticated thieves. No?

Possibly, but I'd expect a casual thief to be looking for something left unattended that they can just jump on and ride away with. I'd expect a casual thief to look at the funny pedals you'd expect to find on a higher-end bike and be left uncertain whether they can ride it, and take something more familiar.

If a casual thief is just looking for some free transport home, or a way to get $50 for his next fix or some such he's unlikely to be bothered about what he steals as long as he's unlikely to get caught. If he's not sure about riding the bike with funny pedals he's perhaps thinking he might get caught, in which case riding the bike nearby with the nice flat pedals he knows how to work probably seems like a safer bet. If all he wants is a free ride home or $50 for some drugs or whatever it's not like he needs to steal a decent bike for the extra reward.

I do have this great idea for a product. I have not even touched how it works but more like day dreaming about it.

Think about it..... you buy this unit, stash it where ever you want on your bike and when you go into a store for example, you will click a button, the GPS will turn on but not at 100%, and you can go into the store. Say someone comes out and steals your bike then the vibration turns on the GPS 100% and sends you a text to your phone to let you know.

Damn, it could work!

Perhaps you need to find out what the police use and buy that. But, I suspect that they are not going to tell you since they do not know if you are a thief trying to learn more about the technology.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...ieves/2351903/
http://www.uwpd.wisc.edu/crime-preve...ke-program.htm

Alternatively, get a good lock.

I'd still rather use a decent lock to stop the scumbag stealing it in the first place, than hoping I can get it back once it's gone.

In Europe they have this cool that that connects somewhere under the back breaks. I've only seen on pick of it but it locks the back tire so you cannot move it. I love the idea.

It has a variety of names but it usually known as a ring lock or frame lock. I use the Axa Defender on my city bikes with the optional chain. If the bike is going to be left for long length of time or I am uncomfortable with the area I may add a second heavy chain lock or a U-lock. They are great for a quick stop.

Aaron :)

Aaron: Where does it attach to? Any drawbacks at all?

With the optional chain to lock it to something I can see it working. If all you do is stop the back wheel from turning your enterprising scumbag will simply lift the bike by the back of the saddle and wheel it on the front wheel only. To a casual observer it probably won't look even remotely unusual.

On Euro spec bikes there are quite often braze on mounts for the wheel locks. I have them on 3 bikes. Otherwise it comes with some stainless steel bands that wrap around the seat stays. Kind of like a hose clamp but nicer. If you use just the wheel lock someone could still grab the bike and carry it off. It does not secure the front wheel, if you have QR wheels that might be an issue. My most used city bikes have bolt on wheels, also the long chain is long enough to loop through the wheel. I doubt anyone would want to carry my locked city bike very far it weighs close to 50#. One feature that I have come to love is that the key is captured in the lock while it is in the open position, so no getting to the store and not having the key to lock up.

Aaron :)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8497/8...a0c445e4_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8227/8...8f04f811_z.jpg

Having a good lock is definitely a must. But we all know locks can be defeated. Multiple lines of defense can help. So in spite of all the good suggested alternatives to something like a BikeSpy, there is still a role for such a device. When the thief thinks they are home free because they defeated the lock, there's another surprise waiting - like me showing up and stealing the bicycle back.

Sure, for me it just comes down to a simple question of economics. If it's a low end bike the chances are your thieving scumbag can be put off from stealing it by just adding a modest lock, to encourage him to steal something else. If that doesn't work the chances are the tracking device is going to end up as a disproportionate cost against the value of the bike. If it's a high end bike unless you do something really stupid the chances are anyone stealing it would be a more accomplished thief who was targetting high end stuff, in which case there's a good chance they'd be looking for tracking devices and other less obvious security measures.

Going to steal the bicycle back is great in theory but I don't know I'd want to be hanging around trying to figure out which of a few bikes was mine so I could cut a new lock and steal it, knowing the person who had it was likely to be a criminal.

The thief may have already sold it to an unsuspecting new owner, they will consider you a thief if you find it and steal (or attempt to steal) it back. It is much better to have proof of ownership and contact police first.

The community I live in licenses bicycles. I license mine as proof of ownership. I do not need to show documentation when I buy the license, I do not know if they are checking against a database or not. But, if it is stolen, that is pretty good evidence that it was mine at one time. When the license expires, I do not bother to renew it as I think that once licensed, that is adequate.

A friend of mine, his daughter's bike was stolen. She found it the next day listed on Craigs list with a few accessories like the rack changed. Since she had no proof of ownership, the police would not assist her.

Years ago my dad's bike was stolen, the police found it and returned it to him because the license on the bike told the police whom to return it to.

Good points here. If I'd bought a bike and a couple of days later some random person turned up claiming it was theirs I'd want a lot more than their word before handing it over.

If they could prove ownership of it to my satisfaction then I'd accept I'd been ripped off. That standard would be very high. If they brought a police officer who was willing to give me a detailed receipt for the bike they'd get it back. Anything less than that and I'd regard them as some lowlife trying to steal my new bike.

How about a picture of the serial number with EXIF info? I log ALL of my bikes with pictures.

When I do heavy maintenance/tear downs I add personal information to a variety of hidden locations.

Aaron :)

A photo would indicate you had had the bike in your possession at some point, the EXIF is easily falsified. It wouldn't prove you were ever the lawful owner of it - a thief could flip the bike over, take a picture, change the date in the EXIF to several months previously and claim to be the owner.

Hidden personal information in hidden locations would be more convincing but you'd still have to cover the base of proving it was stolen from you. If you did a major teardown of the bike, left your information in a variety of locations, then sold the bike you'd potentially have a situation where someone else was riding a bike with your personal information hidden throughout it despite them being the lawful owner as they bought it from you. It would be a pretty easy scam to hide personal information about an accomplice throughout the bike, then sell the bike, then have your accomplice turn up with a police officer describing all the places he had hidden his personal information as "proof" it had been stolen from him.

I would be hard pressed to provide full receipts for most of my bikes. I primarily ride vintage that were purchased from a variety of sources; private party, ebay, auctions, and thrift stores. Most of my bikes are very distinctive compared to what is out there today. And most have been customized. I seldom sell bikes. But as I stated earlier I log all of my serial numbers. By EXIF data I meant more than just the date, to include the camera and location. FWIW if someone is willing to go to the level of scamming you describe there isn't much that can be done about it.

Aaron :)

And therein lies the problem. I suspect most people don't keep the receipts for their bikes forever so proving current ownership becomes all but impossible. If it's a very distinctive bike you could end up with little more than one man's word against another's over who owns the bike, but getting the police involved in a he-said-she-said situation could prove tricky.

Fiddling EXIF information really is child's play. It's easy enough to add or edit the EXIF using Photoshop or any number of other software packages. You could add or remove location information, change the camera, do all sorts of stuff, within just a few seconds. If you'd added location data then assuming the background was easily identifiable in the picture it would at least suggest the picture was relatively unaltered - it would at least provide some convincing evidence that the bike had been photographed at the claimed location at some point in time (and depending on things like vegetation, tree sizes etc) you could possibly suggest the year was genuine. But all this goes way past any proceedings likely to be considered for a low value bike, and unless there's a background that could be used to support the date information you could put anything you wanted in there.

If you'd had a $10,000 bike stolen and could provide a pile of pieces of circumstantial evidence that it was yours then hopefully they would all add up and you'd get the bike back. If it was a $500 bike in question it's hard to see courts having enough interest in the proceedings to look over the evidence in such great detail. The quality of the evidence might be the same but getting the police to pursue a lower value theft could be the tricky part.

If you do do that and it does happen PLEEEEEEEASSEEEE don't be a hero and try to do your own spec-ops mission in the middle of the night trying to get it back because the police aren't in a hurry to help you :crash:
You'd probably be better off throwing that money in the bank for the day you will have to buy a new one because it got stolen.....

I have yet to have the police interested in much of any type of theft... :notamused: I gave them pictures of the clowns that stole a bunch of stuff out of our barn, some of which ended up at the local scrap yard. The cops knew who they were and seemed to care less. I think the eventually ended up in jail because they broke into the wrong house and the owner put one of them in the hospital with a bullet wound.

I have managed to recover a few of my stolen bikes over the years, in all the cases I had a police report with the serial numbers listed from the original theft. One was at a pawn shop, one I caught the brat that probably stole it riding it, the other I found along side an empty house several blocks away from mine. The pawn shop had to return the bike because they did not want to get stuck with a receiving stolen property charge. The brat made the mistake of parking the bike at the local stop and rob store and I slapped a lock on it and called the cops. He claimed that some man gave it to him. The other one I called the police department and told them that I had recovered it, I doubt they even made a note on the file.

Aaron :)

A police report detailing the make, model and description of the bike complete with serial number (especially if it's heavily customised) is probably about as convincing a piece of evidence as you'll get. Although anyone could make up a theft report they'd have to be pretty smart to guess all the correct details, or pretty stupid to give the police their name and address while trying to rip off the lawful owner of a nice bike they spotted.

Sadly the police seem disinterested in "low level crime", presumably because it makes their stats look better.