Attempted garage break in - what to do to secure bikes now..

Thanks so far. Anyone got a garage alarm recommendation? All bikes are now safe and secure elsewhere but I still want to secure the garage and prevent/deter a repeat occurrence.

Been looking at wall/ground anchors, any recommendations on these and chains?
 
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Rampage":18xh98uv said:
The Yale wireless alarms are crap.
Well that's good to know as they come up quite a lot when searching the net. What's bad about them out of interest?
 
I would consider the purpose of bike locks used indoors to be:

1) A deterrent against an opportunist or common burglar.

2) To slow down a proper bike thief. An experienced bike thief can defeat any lock.

If you have space, I would get a proper bike rack big enough for all your bikes (nice to have anyway), anchor that to the ground, use a gold sold secure bicycle d-lock to lock each bike frame to the rack, then loop a thick heavy gold sold secure motorcycle chain through the whole lot and to a separate ground anchor.

These Squire Eiger D-locks are gold sold secure bicycle rated and cheap as chips. Small shackle size so harder to fit tools in order to cut. They also require two cuts to defeat (both sides of the shackle must be cut). Easily defeated with an angle grinder though, but so is every lock.

Don't have a clue how to secure a garage door, but as for regular doors (without replacing the door), you could use a Door Jamb reinforcement kit, and also replace all the door screws (hinges and lock strike plates) with extremely long screws , like 15cm long. Also add some lock reinforcer plates.

You can also install your own alarm system in like an afternoon, especially if it's just for the small space your bikes are stored in. Just look on amazon for a well reviewed alarm system, buy it and install it. Maybe get one which sends you a text or phones you if it goes off.

You could also install a couple of IP cameras - these have really come down in price lately.
 
For up and over doors, prevent the up and over bit by securing the bottom of the door to the floor and steel strips either side to prevent access to the hinges.
 
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Lots of good advice here, just don't forget about the garage roof as this happened to someone at work. Her garage was in a remote block and the scrotes broke into several stealing tools etc. As they couldn't get her bike through the hole that they had made they attacked it just for fun. Sadly she never got it repaired and gave up cycling.

On the subject of tools, I'm shure we Retrobikers are too smart to keep our D.I.Y tools in the same place as our bikes.

Finally, not too far off topic a rider I knew had his only bike stolen from the loft thinking it would be safe enough there not to need locking.
 
I read somewhere that the thieves biggest fear is noise. So whatever you can do to make it noisy to steal your bikes will help. A cheap option for an alarm is to have a rape alarm set up with a trip wire or door pull system. Strung with fishing line while the alarm body is fixed down somewhere so the pin is pulled out when triggered. Trying to find the pin in the dark to switch the thing off is not easy.

A secure bike shed inside the garage would add another level of security if you wanted to go that far. Something like the Asgard bike sheds would do the job. Or you could always get a dog and have it sleep in the garage.
 
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