Police Tag?

operative words....won't stop your bike getting nicked.....

There are much better ways of targeting bike crime, like closing down the fences.

Have you been to the back of a police station?? there's literally hundreds of bicycles in the back of Wimbledon Police Station with no way to track it to it's original owner.

+1 for prevention by using plenty of serious locks.

-1 for broom-handle crushing of chips. Don't think most bike-thieves will worry about that step. The one's I've heard of have been teenagers who borrowed their old man's bolt cutters or hacksaw and are seeing if they can nick something that looks shiny. And if it's professionals, don't expect to get your bike back anyway - it'll probably end up halfway across the country.

Insurance is a business, not a charity. So you'll always, on average, pay more in insurance than you claim back. And if you start claiming more, they'll just up yours (and everone's) premiums.

If it's a free service and I just have to drop a chip down the seat tube, I'll sign up to it.

Anyone know how they sense the chip? Is is a reader that has to be pressed up against the bike, or something that can measure them from further away?

Where do they stick the tag?.i'd like it put somewhere so it's not visible.It's not to large is it?

A few years ago I had cycleguard insurance.

They give you a chip in a bit of plastic that looks a little like a star fangled nut, it's meant to go in the seat tube and stay there due to the design.

I did not get around to re-registering it to the new keeper as I was living in Malta at the time (£1.66 per minute to phone the UK!) so at some point in the future I may have to track him down when the police hand me "my" Klein Attitude back.

I pay £12.50 extra as part of my parents house insurance, They sent me a check for the original value of the bike when my Marin Bearvalley was stolen.

Best defence for theft is not having anything worth stealing. All of my bikes (barring my spesh) are either old/battered or both.

The chip in my bike looks like a grain of rice (Datatag). It's in the top tube, so it's not going anywhere.

They are RFID (if you want to look them up)

I was guessing at a passive RFID. Don't know what the useable life of a cheap active is, but it's gotta run out sometime and for most of us, the envisaged life of a decent frame is quite a while. Longer I expect than a chip will pulse. So, it isn't like we'll risk being actively tracked by it...

To be honest, the frame my chip is is fairly unique, I've only got it in there to satisfy my insurance.

Bike insurance is a waste of money, as most companies charge a lot, as bicycles are deemed as high risk, and won't cough up should your bike get nicked.

You're better off saving say £20 each month, which would be akin to your insurance premium, and using that to buy a new bike should you have the misfortune to have yours stolen.

What if it gets stolen after 3 months? Buy a £60 bike to replace a Colnago?

Your plan is flawed.

What if it doesn't get stolen for 10 years? I'd have £2400 (not including interest) to buy a Colnago. :-)

With bike insurance I'd have shelled out the same and got nothing in return.

I know my plan is flawed, but my version means I have the money not an insurance company.

6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

Down to personal choice I reckon, I have insurance because it covers all my bikes and scaling up your £20 a month saving scheme to 7 bikes becomes ridiculous.

As the owner of 6 bikes currently I agree. But finding a house insurer who'll a) cover us due to perceived flood risk (even though the last recorded flood here was in the 1950s) and b) will also cover bikes proved to be tricky.

Most of my bikes are covered for theft from the house. The only bike I have that ever gets left locked up away from the house for any period of time is my commuting/town bike so I put money aside to cover the theft of that.

think about where the State holding this data leads to....

not a perfect example but it serves the purpose:

http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.1/ID

@ AndyP

I use MoreThan, the premium on top of my contents insurance is £17.40 a month and that covers the theft of any of my bikes from anywhere up to a value of £2500.