Security - Learn from my mistakes!

[JamesM]

I would make the following recommendations to anyone with, or looking to get a bike to help you keep it!

1. Take a note of any serial numbers and consider getting your bike marked with your postcode (I believe you can do it with a UV pen. The serial number is usually on the frame under the pedals)*
2. Lock bikes when they're in sheds etc (Preferably to a ground anchor)
3. Make sure sheds etc are as secure as possible (If a padlock's as good as you can do, make sure it's a good one and the fittings are securely attached with a plate at the other side, not just screwed into soft wood)
4. Try to keep valuables out of sight (e.g. Whitewash or otherwise cover windows if possible)
5. Check your bike is covered on your insurance, particularly noting any requirements on storage. Check the maximum value covered and the excess too.

My sister recently gave us her old bike for my wife. No room in the good outbuilding so it went in the front outbuilding. Lasted a week in there until it was stolen last night. It's covered on the insurance but there's a £200 excess. As mentioned, my bike was elsewhere and they left everything else in the shed, including my little boy's trike, so it could have been worse.

I hadn't made a note of the serial number so there is no real chance of it being identified as ours even if the thief walked up to the police station and handed it in (unless they gave our address too which is even less likely!)

Anybody with further advice, please add it below. I know a lot of this advice is available elsewhere on the forums. Just thought it might be useful to people in here.

*While this won't help you keep your bike, it will help the police to identify stolen bikes and thus bike thieves.

 

[Globalti]

Don't delude yourself. The Police will make no effort to reunite a bike and its owner. recently I found a valuable bike and when I took it to the Police they couldn't have been less interested. They wrote the briefest description, which I gave them, in a big ledger and when I told them the value they replied "Oh well we won't throw it on the heap with all the hundreds of others in our shed then, we'll put it to one side." Recovered bikes being worth absolutley zero in Police clear-up statistics they will have done nothing at all to trawl through any theft reports and match them to the big ledger.

Best security is to chain the bike to a wall bolt in your bedroom if you live in shared, or in a locked and alarmed garage and certainly never leave it unattended anywhere outside. If you do, it will eventually get pinched no matter how good your lock.

 

[nosherduke996]

Also put a entry alarm on your shed, it only will cost about 15 pound but it will still make a lot of noise when the shed is opened.
Last resort is a rotweiller or doberman.

 

[Globalti]

If nothing else, just buy and rig up the "Minder" alarm on here, they are feckin' loud!

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...mages?q=personal+attack+alarm&hl=en&sa=X&um=1

 

[gaz]

My bikes are firmly attached to a brick wall in the basement, an iron gate and a small door to get through just to get to that.

I think my bike is safe. and it's only there because i had a bike nicked from the shed, never again.

 

[Chrisz]

My good bike lives indoors behind a locked door in a room with a very small window(in the study).

The wife has nagged a few times that "That's what we got the shed for!" (even though she insists on me putting more and more junk in it. So I asked her if she would feel happy leaving her rings in there overninght (engagement, wedding and eternity) to which she answered a definite "No!" = no more nagging

Although the shed is pretty robust the doors are little more than boxwood and there's no way I'll be leaving my pride and joy in there until I have made efforts to make it much more secure.