Bicycle registration

What do you think?

3 guys jumped out on me. One pushed me off the bike and ran off with it, while the other two spent 5 minutes kicking me in the head and back. It was only when they threatened to drown me in the canal that I grabbed one of them and made it clear they would be joining me in the canal if they tried it.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face - and I did repeatedly. I'm still surprised to this day that I didn't lose consciousness. I looked like the elephant man for about 3 weeks afterwards. It was interesting getting the pitying looks that you imagine the disfigured must get in the check-out queues throughout their lives.

You are quite vulnerable riding a bike. If you imagine you can keep riding, and/or recover quickly enough to tackle those trying to steal it, after someone gives you a hefty sideways shove - well, you are a better rider/fighter than I am.
All that for a bike , I would have just let them have the thing .
 
Read my post again. They already had it. The two left behind just fancied punching and kicking the hell out of me.
Sounds like a horrific experience, sorry.

It does drive home that stickers as (not so effective) deterrence, locks as (somewhat) useful at keeping your bike where you parked it, and actively being assaulted and robbed are really different things.

On stickers, i don't think they would serve to flag a bike as being particularly valuable. In fact, i imagine that those with valuable bikes might hesitate to put such a sticker on.

In a way, it is similar to the idea that using a big lock flags your bikes for thieves. I doubt these people are making their decisions based on that criteria.
 
What would be the point of registering a bicycle?

Vehicles are stolen and cloned everyday, tracking equipment can be easily disabled and ANPR only sees the numberplate, not the vehicle its attached to, its contents or the occupants.
 
If it’s an insurance obligation then yes.

For anything else it’s more or less useless.

Theft of this sort of thing is generally driven by addiction (of the drug type not the sort we all suffer from!). The thief only needs to have a need and an opportunity, from that point onwards they’ll take huge risks to satisfy their addiction regardless of the deterrents. Once they’ve decided on a target be it a bike, something on a car seat or stuff in a shop, in their mind it’s not an object, it’s no longer yours, it’s their next hit. I’m not in law enforcement but I’ve had many many direct confrontations related to this.

I guess there are exceptions - our local bike shop was done over by a ram raid gang and tens of thousands of high end bikes stolen, I doubt that was drug fuelled, at least not directly.

A friend who had been done over for his bike in one of the parks where he lives took to carrying a zefal pump filled with lead shot……..
 
I’m sure any muggings aren’t by organised crime or gangs. It’s smack heads looking for their next hit at any cost. The bike shop type raids tend to be more organised.

They also won’t care if it’s a GT Avalanche or a Zaskar as both will be £50 for their next trip.
 
We have insurance specifically for our cargo bike. Granted the thing cost more than a lot of used cars . . .

But telling perhaps is that the insurance doesn't require police registration, but rather a GPS tracker, the use of a lock from a list of approved ones, and that the bike needs to be locked to something.

To me this means they are first and foremost counting on the lock and how the bike is locked up, then they have a backup plan that might help them recover it if the lock fails. If they thought the police the sticker would help limit their losses it would be on the list of requirements for the insurance.
 

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