The largest and most effective bicycle registry ever | Hacker News Reader

The largest and most effective bicycle registry ever

bikeindex.org

172 pointsbike_index58 comments

My bike was just stolen yesterday. I never wrote down the serial number, and now I'm part of the problem.

Next time I'll be doing that, and registering with this service. Thanks for fighting the good fight.

If you bought it from a store they should have it on file connected to your personal info. My bike was just stolen on Friday as well and that is what I did to register it on this site.

That's a great tip––thanks, I'll do that.

My week old bike was stolen from secure locked shed. Unfortunately I learned that not every shop keeps serial numbers on the record the hard way. Now hoping for impossible that police might find the culprit. This time around I'm recording serial number, doing multiple customizations to the bike and just received specialized GPS device to be hidden in the bike itself. And the insurance of course.

In Holland, there's a national stolen bike registry too, and an ecosystem with bike dealers and police participating in it.

- It's hosted by the government - the equivalent of the DMV [1]

- It's based on RFID tags placed INSIDE the frame, so serial numbers can't be filed or welded off. You have to physically destroy part of the frame to get to the tag.

- Tags are installed by bike manufacturers on the more expensive theft-prone bikes, and registered by the bike dealer, so you yourself don't have to do any registering.

- Police have scanners that they use to scan public bike parking lots randomly [2]. Try google image search for 'amsterdam centraal fietsenstalling' for a picture of a parking lot.

[1] https://fdr.rdw.nl/ [2] https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=...

That sounds very cool. I think in Germany if your bike is stolen you are simply out of look. Hope they'll take a page out of Holland's book soon.

Not necessarily. I had my bike stolen in Germany and reported the serial # to the police. A few years later they called me to return me my bike. So they obviously have some sort of database. I don't know if it's just for the town or country wide...

Great looking site but what makes this "The largest and most effective bicycle registry ever"? There seem to be dozens of bike registries. It would be nice to see some sort of data sharing between them.

That's what we've been working on since we started - and why we're open source and have an open API https://bikeindex.org/documentation/api_v1

They do not give numbers, but I also doubt that "largest" claim.

The USA is a lot larger, but the Netherlands has a national register of every bicycle reported stolen to the police (https://fdr.rdw.nl; very much spartan interface). They do not give numbers, either, but at 100k+ reported bicycle thefts a year and running since 2008, there must be over half a million stolen bicycles in their database. Google tells me that newly sold bikes also end up in that database. I don't see how they would need that data, but the site reportedly _started_ with over 4 million bicycle numbers.

The Japanese registry claims to have 70,000,000 bikes on record in 2007[1].

[1] 自転車産業振興会によると2007年(平成19年)度で全国で7000万台を超えており http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%98%B2%E7%8A%AF%E7%99%BB%E9%...

(looking for a better source than Wikipedia but it eludes me at the moment!)

> "The largest and most effective bicycle registry ever"

I guess an average Dutch cities municipal "registry" has more bikes than this entire Database at this moment. Though certainly not as "effective" in the sense of being userfriendly. But seeing as that in the Netherlands the police estimates just under one million stolen bikes annually, there is a great opportunity for bikeindex.org in the Netherlands.

In my country, registering your bike gives you a huge discount on the insurance. Is it common other places, and will a bike registered through this site be eligible for a similar type of discount?

I'd wish more listing sites would have mandatory fields for a bikes serial number, and that people would actually bother to check the registry when buying a bike. Unfortunately, a cheap bike makes many people blind to it probably being stolen.

I wouldn't think many people would consult a registry in order to assure themselves that the bike they're buying isn't stolen; rather, they'd use it to find a bike they already owned and that had subsequently been stolen, as a means to try and find it. I suppose a Pawn shop or similar would use it for a purpose as you suggest, though.

Why would a thief register his stolen bike online after the fact? I think you've got this mixed up, these registries only work when people consult them before buying.

I don't think he ever implied that a thief in particular would register the stolen bike. The first scenario is a buyer checking beforehand to see if it was stolen. The second scenario is the owner of a stolen bike checking to see if someone else has re-registered the bike, like someone who purchased the stolen bike thinking it was a legitimate sale (a bit misguided, as the system doesn't quite work that way).

No, dealers consult the registry when required by law, and police consult the registry when they recover a bike.

Most buyers don't care, they have no incentive to care.

It's not very common for bicycle riders in the US to explicitly carry insurance. Your homeowner's or automobile insurance would typically cover the value of the bike and any damage you might cause in an accident.

If you are banking on your homeowner's policy you should check the small print. Many (most?) have a relatively low cap (say, $1500) with a deductible of $500+ you don't have much coverage. My insurer requires a specific extended policy that at $3 per 100 makes it very expensive for higher-end bikes.

Pay attention to this if you have really nice bike(s),. They aren't going to be covered under your homeowners in the U.S.. Just like jewelry, expensive camera equipment, etc, you'll have to get a specific insurance rider to establish value, etc. and they'll charge you a nice premium for this.

The police SHOULD be able to catch bike thieves like shooting fish in a barrel. If the same person on craigslist is selling more than 5 bikes and they are selling them off racks at colleges and train stations, they probably have a pickup truck with out of state plates full of stolen bikes stashed nearby. It's appalling that such a dead simple MO can't be crushed in a week.

the folks at http://project529.com are getting started in the bike registry space as well. I like their push for online bike sales to list serial numbers to lower the chances of stolen bikes from being sold easily. but getting the number of registries to fewer (ideally 1) is a really good thing.

Seems like they're trying to hop on what SBR has been doing for over a decade?

I've had bikes stolen from me. I know lots of people who have had bikes stolen from them. I have never heard of anyone who had a bike stolen and the gotten it back. Do such things happen in the real world?

Sometimes, but mainly when the bike is recognizable and the owner is well known in a cycling community. More than a few times I've seen stolen bikes show up to the park or the race track.

More often than not, they're gone. This is why I ride beaters on my commute or to the store. The good bikes in my fleet never leave my sight when they're off my property.

I agree, they nearly never come back. When my bike is out of the house, it stays within a few feet of me. This means it goes in to the grocery store or restaurant with me. People stare, but that's a much smaller price than a bike.

The creators clearly got sick of their bikes being stolen. Good to see people doing something about it.

Bryan Hance has been doing great work on this front for a long time. When I was making software to monitor CL, he recommended the free version to his users that needed to be alerted when their bikes went on sale. I was glad to be able to help.

Too bad CL doesn't like people using tools like that to find their stolen bikes, tools, etc...

What prevents someone from registering someone else's bike and then claiming it was stolen from them?

I suppose one way would be to require a photo of the bike and only consider photos of a bike without a lock to be valid.

Surely those stealing it will be able to remove the lock afterwards to register it and post a photo w/o a lock. If it is already registered, it wouldn't matter in any case.

These are properly aligned incentives.

Also, investigation can turn up purchase date payment records (receipt, credit card) owners manuals, eyewitness reports, etc

I just signed up, and my post-registration call to actions includes "Visit where to register to find the closest shop to register your bikes."

Looks like you can't just register a bike on your own.

This registry isn't authoritative, just centralized.

You register your bike there, and if it gets stolen tell the registry it was stolen, then police and potential purchasers find it listed when consulting the centralized registry. You still need to prove the bike is yours. Traditional proof of purchase from a bike shop, pictures of you with the bike, etc...

This looks like a really cool project.

You can also contribute code here https://github.com/bikeindex/bike_index

Thanks!

I know I'm late to the comments party. Though, here in Latvia we have a bicycle registry maintained by our local government organisation (which is more or less like DMV in US I think). It has enough resources and will to occasionaly promote this service and after few years of operation people here are aware of it and actually use it.

How do these registries pay the bills?

What I'm most curious about is WTF happens to the bikes that are stolen? Are they just resold locally or is there some sort of international bike theft and transportation ring sending high dollar bikes to Guatemala?

I see why I might register my bike - in case its lost or stolen. But why would anyone look up a bike in there? Either its not in there - time wasted. Or it is - there goes your sale. Net value: zero or negative.

Well, for a potential buyer of a bike the value is much larger than zero. After all, who would like to buy a stolen bike?

Registering your bike and possibly mentioning that fact on your bike using a sticker might even help as a deterrent.

Also, even an immoral buyer would be dissuaded from buying a stolen bike if they knew it would be harder to sell it later...

Here in Santa Cruz where meth and heroin are big issues, bikes are a sort of "currency". Most bikes when stolen are mostly parted out and the scrap metal sold or parts sold -- this is at the low to mid-range. For hire end bikes, they are often collected and shipped out of the city (and often times state/country).

While I do a lot to advocate for registering bikes here in town (a group of volunteers I am part of has registered about 300 bikes), the reality is registering doesn't dissuade anything. Here, it gives the cops a tool in case they do find one of the local tweakers with another persons bike.

Yeah in Santa Cruz a stolen bike lasts about 15 minutes before it's parted out to a stolen frame, stolen wheel set, stolen handlebars, etc. Probably similar in other places.

So while you might get your frame back, you can kiss everything else goodbye. It's better to be smart about where you leave your bike and how you lock it.

>who would like to buy a stolen bike?

Someone looking for a good deal on a used bike? You can likely assume that most of the bikes sold in certain venues are stolen, but that doesn't deter the customers.

Price is irrelevant in the case of theft. I consider purchasing stolen goods to be immoral.

You are a responsible adult capable of thinking about things like actions having consequences. You probably are also able to earn disposable income. You probably don't smoke, drink excessively, take whatever drugs your friends take or even have friends that take drugs. You might even turn up to work on time. Not everyone is like you and how you think is quite inconceivable to them.

People in their younger years with a need for independence from their parents are extremely willing to buy stolen bicycles. They would not have the guts to shoplift (or maybe they do), yet, for some reason they think that a stolen bike is okay to buy. They suspect it is stolen but do not ask the questions to ascertain that. Even if it was stolen then they can moralise it okay, e.g. if they didn't buy it then someone else would so therefore it is going to be bought by someone anyway, therefore it might as well be them.

If walking sticks were needed by twenty-somethings then there would be a hot trade in walking sticks. The unfortunate thing for bicycles is that they appeal most highly to those that need them to get about and that exact same demographic is not yet old 'n' wise enough to think properly about it. (Meanwhile walking sticks do not appeal to that demographic.) It is also easy to say that you bought a bike second hand when you know it is stolen. Nobody asks tough questions, e.g. the parents, the friends, the love interests. So it is get-away-able.

I spent some time working in the bike trade as a kid and my bread was buttered with new bike sales. To me I would not buy a stolen bike in a million years, not least because a new bike is actually better value (none of the parts are worn). Coming from that background I always did ask the questions in part because people would get me to fix their bikes, question #1 always would be 'where did you get it?'.

I was always surprised at how friends I trusted and considered to be good friends had no scruples whatsoever when it came to buying a stolen bike. These were people studying proper things at university, with posh accents and well to do parents. Clearly there were those less educated that I tended not to consort with, I am sure they were even more likely to buy a stolen bike without hesitation.

So on one side the bike is 'currency of the street', however, as much as every market needs sellers and buyers, there was also a lot of acceptance by young 'trustworthy' people that buying stolen was okay.

> You are a responsible adult capable of thinking about things like actions having consequences. You probably are also able to earn disposable income. You probably don't smoke, drink excessively, take whatever drugs your friends take or even have friends that take drugs. You might even turn up to work on time.

I'm suspecting you of having bugged my offices and house. You got most of that right other than that I don't drink at all and don't use drugs at all.

Incredible how you could infer any of that from such a short statement.

If Craigslist/eBay force you to include a serial number when listed, then it might dry up the market for stolen bikes.

Only exceptionally stupid thieves would use the actual serial number from the bike.

You could require that the serial number was in the picture

Think as a buyer: if you see a good used bike and the owner is not willing to tell you the serial number, you can be sure that it is not a safe purchase.

If you buy stolen property in the US, even if unaware, you must forfeit it when the owner or the police catch up with you. If you're aware, it's illegal.

Better not buy that stolen bike then, huh? Even better, to call the proper owner and relay them the details of the person selling it.

In many countries, you can be punished for buying a stolen bike (or any other item). Is this not the case in the US, or do people consider the probability of punishment so low that they don't care?

The chances of getting in trouble for buying a stolen bike are probably lower than the chances of a stolen bike ever being recovered. They're simply not high priority crimes, so there is little to no enforcement.

If someone tries to sell you a poorly maintained, old, high-mileage, multi-owner bike on Craigslist and they are not selling it out of their home, it's stolen.

What is the purpose of a bike registry?

Some people own bikes that have value... and would like to track them in case they get stolen. Be it for insurance purposes, trying to recover it, or as a buyer to not buy a stolen bike.

Going home to register my bike today

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