Security - where to register bike online?

rodgers73

I've already registered my bike with the manufacturer (Specialized) via their website, but wondered about some other specifically British site that might help me recover it if it were ever stolen.

Does anyone know of a good site to use for these purposes? I'm not in London so anything run by the Met may not be ideal.

Thanks

redvee

Immobilise and Bike Shepherd are similiar schemes where your bike is marked or chipped. Immobilise has a chip inside the seattube and sticker on the frame but the details are only accessable by the police whereas Bike Shepherd has a QR barcode sticker on the frame and the details can be checked by anybody with a smartphone app.

tomwardill

Immobilise played an active role in getting a stolen bike back for me. As soon as I mentioned it was registered on there, the responding Officer asked to see the details.
When the bike was turned in a month later, he looked up the details to confim it was mine, and I got a phone call saying they had it.

You don't need to chip the bike to register it on immobilise (I didn't), you can do it with the serial number, description and a photo.

davis

Aye, it's called the National Mobile Property Register, and it's free to register pretty much anything you want. As above, it's run by Immobilise, and they make their money by flogging you stuff to mark or otherwise identify your kit. In the case of a bike it's usually a chip embedded in a plastic wedge which you shove down your seattube (very difficult to remove) and is electronically scannable.
However, you can still register your kit by grabbing photos, and all the identifying numbers you can, and adding it to your "account". The idea is that the police will check the database when they find stuff that's suspected stolen.

luther

Immobilise (NMPR), BikeShepherd and BikeRegister are the three I use.

Apart from BikeShepherd, they're all free and it doesn't hurt to have your frame number and description registered on all the big databases should the worst happen.

rodgers73

Does anyone use Smart Water? Our local Neighbourhood Watch scheme offers it but I'm not if its any good or has an online registration to back it up.

Krys

I work for them, so I'm biased, but I wanted to just point out that Bike Shepherd is free to use. You register your bike, with serial number etc, and get a certificate of ownership. The (optional) tags do cost. However they can be scanned by anyone who recovers your bike, not just the police with fancy scanners. The most important thing is proof of ownership - without that your bike cannot be returned to you.

Tag reviews are at http://www.wiggle.co.uk/kryptonite-bike ... ke-id-kit/ and all the details are on bikeshepherd.org if you're interested.