Thick as Thieves

[Russell]

https://www.bikeregister.com/

How about we (this site) do our bit by insisting that all frame and bike sales on here list the serial number?

It is free to use the site linked above to check if a bike is stolen.

One of the pictures on every sale advert on this site should be a screen shot of the bike register confirmation that the frame/bike isn’t on the register.

Or are we not part of the solution?

 

[Laldi]

I'm fine with posting a photo of the serial, but verifying that your bike is NOT stolen is pretty useless. The register is fairly limited, it

https://www.bikeregister.com/

How about we (this site) do our bit by insisting that all frame and bike sales on here list the serial number?

It is free to use the site linked above to check if a bike is stolen.

One of the pictures on every sale advert on this site should be a screen shot of the bike register confirmation that the frame/bike isn’t on the register.

Or are we not part of the solution?

probably has less than 10% of bikes actually stolen. The people in my community would rarely report a stolen bike, unless it was rare or valuable.

 

[Russell]

Therein lies the problem. The cycling community is totally apathetic.

We sit around bemoaning the Police and blaming society and everyone else but when faced with a simple, free tool to help combat the sale of (and identify) stolen bikes, no one can be arsed to use it.

 

[Laldi]

Totally agree, we are as a community politically so apathetic. I suppose it's like most things, unless it's happened to you recently, no one gives a toss about it, until it happend to you.

I'm kinda dubious about a register though, who updates it? How how current is it, does it reflect bikes returned to owners, who funds it?

Also like I said above, the vast majority of ordinary cyclists or bike owners tend not to report a theft. Much better to put proactive measures in place at the time off manufacture: RFIDs and QR codes under the lacquer. Both cheap and easy to achieve. Serial numbers imo are a waste of time.

 

[Laldi]

The technology is readily available and cheap. If I was a thief and had the choice of two bikes, one with an impossible to remove tracker and a QR code under the top coat, versus one without I know which one I'd go for. Prevention is better than scrambling about online after the fact