Bike Crime

PooKer

PooKer

PooKer

Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2008
Posts
636
Location
East Sussex
So in my area bike theft has been on the up and up. To the point I've considered selling the bike or getting a tracker. But I don't need to worry anymore. Police are going to clamp down on this with..... yep.... Smartwater...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...eil-new-water-pistols-use-tag-moped-yobs.html

Anyway one of the trackers I've looked at is the Monimoto as a flyer came with my new biking bits and its got a £10 off voucher. Simple to install and running cost seem to be one of the lowest long term.

Anyone else using a tracking system?
 
£11.38 a month for the service and infrastructure doesn't seem too bad, it can't be cheap for the companies. £15 a month if you include the device cost, still much less than most people's mobile contract and with a much lower user base to make their money back.
 
GAP, insurance for insurance.... and the longest they can be is what 4 years?

I'd rather recover the bike myself vs the police recovering the bike and adding on fees (police fee's are between £150-300). A lot less painful that dealing with insurance claims, premiums going up etc.
3 year's cost + purchase price for the one I originally looked at plus the other two mentioned are:

Monimoto £242.10 (using 10% off eBay with ghostbikes)
CARLOCK BASIC £264.15
AUTOMATRICS £547.20 (they do pay up to £200 towards police recovery should the worst happen)

Opted for the Monimoto as it'll be easier to hide on the bike.
 
PooKer said:
GAP, insurance for insurance.... and the longest they can be is what 4 years?

I'd rather recover the bike myself vs the police recovering the bike and adding on fees (police fee's are between £150-300). A lot less painful that dealing with insurance claims, premiums going up etc.
3 year's cost + purchase price for the one I originally looked at plus the other two mentioned are:

Monimoto £242.10 (using 10% off eBay with ghostbikes)
CARLOCK BASIC £264.15
AUTOMATRICS £547.20 (they do pay up to £200 towards police recovery should the worst happen)

Opted for the Monimoto as it'll be easier to hide on the bike.
Click to expand...
Wow, I never heard of police fees.
My solution was to buy used bikes. I never had one stolen, but at least if it was it wouldn't hurt as much.
A tracker is not a bad idea, its much more likely to be stolen when you park it somewhere.

When I moved to London I no longer had a secure storage so I sold it.
 
PooKer said:
GAP, insurance for insurance.... and the longest they can be is what 4 years?

I'd rather recover the bike myself vs the police recovering the bike and adding on fees (police fee's are between £150-300). A lot less painful that dealing with insurance claims, premiums going up etc.
3 year's cost + purchase price for the one I originally looked at plus the other two mentioned are:

Monimoto £242.10 (using 10% off eBay with ghostbikes)
CARLOCK BASIC £264.15
AUTOMATRICS £547.20 (they do pay up to £200 towards police recovery should the worst happen)

Opted for the Monimoto as it'll be easier to hide on the bike.
Click to expand...

I've never owned a bike older than four years as my main bike.
 
I use the Monimoto, my first bike, a 2016 Yamaha WR125R was nicked and i was kicking myself because i considered getting a tracker but then decided against it because i lived in a half decent area and THOUGHT it would be ok.

Now i've got an Almax chain around the swingarm and around a lamppost, monimoto tracker, good disc lock and a cover over my 250 Rally, if they manage to nick that then i doubt i would get another bike unless i had a garage to store it.
 
Although the smart water pistol sounds laughable, my mate had two bikes nicked in two weeks, one of the little scroats got locked up because an officer was able to squirt him with this while he made his getaway on another stolen bike... surprisingly he was out on bail for bike theft at the time.

Tracker wise a genuine TK102B was always my weapon of choice. Literally a few quid a year to run.
 
So realistically, is there any point in buying more than 1 disc lock? If they can get through one they can get through them all, at that point there's not much you can do if they're prepared.
 
It’s very simple: Security is a layering process and thieves are looking for soft targets. If you were given the choice of stealing two identical bikes, one has a disc lock, sprocket lock, alarm/immobiliser and a bike cover and looks to be security marked and the other just has the a disc lock, which one is likely easiest?

Since the advent of the lithium-ion battery and portable angle grinders with enough torque to do damage, nothing is really safe, but generally your job is to make it not the quickest/easiest one to steal.
 
Avalon said:
It’s very simple: Security is a layering process and thieves are looking for soft targets. If you were given the choice of stealing two identical bikes, one has a disc lock, sprocket lock, alarm/immobiliser and a bike cover and looks to be security marked and the other just has the a disc lock, which one is likely easiest?
Click to expand...

Ultimately this is all you can really do, given there are now people willing to angle grind the locks of a bike in broad daylight with the alarm blaring away then potentially lift it into the back of a van, your job is just to make it take as long as possible compared to the closest comparable bike.

It also depends what kind of tea-leaf you bike is going to attract. If its a uncommon, vaguely high end bit of kit thats likely to be "stolen to order" - its going to be in the back of a van, off to a shipping container where no amount of tracker is going to be able to get a signal off before a skilled thief can disable it. Making you only defense good insurance.

My solution was a £450, 20 year old Honda Deauville NT650 when I was commuting. I didn't even want to be seen on it...
 
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