Is there any such thing as an unstealable bike?

In London, you can tell a lot about a cyclist by how they lock their bike. The double D-lockers, the seat-post removers, the optimists who put their faith in a flimsy cable. And then there was the bike I saw last week, which wasn’t locked at all.

It looked dystopian – sans lock of any description, frame daubed with white paint, marker-pen graffiti scrawled across the tubes, and a bold warning on the top-tube: “TRACKED BY GPS!”

Whether it really was didn’t matter. The whole thing was reverse bling – ugliness as armour. And it got me thinking: with a new generation of locks, trackers and registries, is there any such thing as an unstealable bike – or is cycle insurance the best we can do?

The bike lock arms race

For years, the D-lock was king. Then along came the cordless angle grinder – quiet, compact and quick.

Manufacturers have responded with “angle-grinder-resistant” locks made from composite metals designed to chew up discs. They genuinely slow thieves down, but they are far from invincible. A thief who wants your bike – and has the skill and time – will still get it.

So we’re left with a game of deterrence – making your bike too troublesome to steal.

The promise (and problem) of trackers

GPS and Bluetooth trackers sell hope. Hide one in your handlebars or seatpost and you might have a fighting chance of finding your bike again.

In reality, it’s hit and miss. Some trackers ping live locations to your phone; others rely on crowd-sourced networks that only work if another user happens to pass within range. However, the main challenge is what you do with the informaton once you've located your stolen bike. In our experience here in the UK, police often refuse to act on bicycle GPS tracker intelligence.

Databases and digital detectives

Bike registries like Project 529 allow you register your frame number, mark your bike with a tamper-proof shield, and flag it if it’s stolen – making it “hot property” online.

In the US, 529’s new Detective tool takes things a step further by automatically scanning marketplaces for listings that match stolen bikes. It’s already helped reunite riders with their beloved machines. It’s clever tech, but again, not infallible. The digital detective still needs a few breadcrumbs to follow; a stripped-down frame, a repainted fork, a swapped-out wheelset all make identification harder.

Our own experiments in bike theft deterrence

At the ETA, we’ve spent three decades testing both practical and playful ways to protect bikes. From our Bike Mine – a real, if tongue-in-cheek, explosive deterrent – to a working bicycle ejector seat designed as a protest against rising theft rates, we’ve tried it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtvRLPLO52k

The thing we learned is that there’s no such thing as an unstealable bike. You can make yours harder, uglier, or louder to steal – but never impossible.

Cycle insurance: your final line of defence

ETA Cycle Insurance covers theft, accidental damage and vandalism whether your bike’s at home, at work or locked up in town. We’ve been looking out for cyclists for over 30 years and remain the UK’s only provider of Cycle Rescue, our 24/7 roadside recovery for bikes.

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