We have Garage 529 here. The big issues with the program I see are that the system requires the owner and recoverer to accurately record the serial number (is that a O or a 0? An I an l or a 1?) and it’s also a passive program waiting for something to be recovered.
Thieves and buyers are wise to the only serial number being tracked being that on the frame. I’ve heard anecdotes, that I have no reason to doubt, of police recovering piles of stripped frames (or frames being dumpstered) and have actually seen a recovered carbon bike where a chunk was sawed out of the frame (rather than cutting the lock).
It’s bleak if you don’t grab that bike before they pull your nice wheels off!
...
One LoFi recovery idea a friend sent me was to put laminated ransom appeals in various places in hopes that the person stripping it would rather sell it back to you.
It got me thinking that maybe I should etch my phone number and name into my fork/frame axles?
March 25, 2021, 8:25 a.m. - Andrew Major
We have Garage 529 here. The big issues with the program I see are that the system requires the owner and recoverer to accurately record the serial number (is that a O or a 0? An I an l or a 1?) and it’s also a passive program waiting for something to be recovered. Thieves and buyers are wise to the only serial number being tracked being that on the frame. I’ve heard anecdotes, that I have no reason to doubt, of police recovering piles of stripped frames (or frames being dumpstered) and have actually seen a recovered carbon bike where a chunk was sawed out of the frame (rather than cutting the lock). It’s bleak if you don’t grab that bike before they pull your nice wheels off! ... One LoFi recovery idea a friend sent me was to put laminated ransom appeals in various places in hopes that the person stripping it would rather sell it back to you. It got me thinking that maybe I should etch my phone number and name into my fork/frame axles?