Spate of bike thefts from homes in/around Guildford, Surrey

andyeb

From speaking to local community police officers last night, who visited us following a bike theft from our shed (yes it was properly locked up!), it seems there is a spate of bike thefts going on in/around Guildford at the moment.

Thieves have been caught on CCTV going house-to-house around 11pm trying sheds and garages, forcing entry and stealing. The thieves seem relatively determined, judging by the amount of force used to smash the good quality padlock/hasp/staple off our shed door.

If you live in the Guildford area, please be vigilant and report any suspicious activity or theft/attempted theft to police via 101, in the hopes coordinated action can be taken against these thieves. If you actually see thieves in your garden, please call 999. These people must be caught.

You may also wish to consider improving the security of your shed or garage as a preventative measure. There are some good ideas here: <http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/bike-shed-security-part-1-21131/&gt; all of which I am in the process of implementing myself.

What are your top theft prevention when your pride and joy is at home?

(Please excuse the road/MTB cross post on this occasion.)

bernithebiker

Bring it inside. I would never contemplate leaving my bike outside in a garage or shed. (even here in rural France).

andyeb

bernithebiker wrote:

Bring it inside. I would never contemplate leaving my bike outside in a garage or shed. (even here in rural France).

I wish I could, but our house is too small for our family as it is. There simply isn't space .

bernithebiker

andyeb wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Bring it inside. I would never contemplate leaving my bike outside in a garage or shed. (even here in rural France).

I wish I could, but our house is too small for our family as it is. There simply isn't space .

OK, kids in the shed, bike inside, simples!

Mikey23

Expensive bike lives in spare bedroom when off duty. Sorry to hear of your loss. Pleased I live in cornwall. I don't think the local population has moved on to organised criminal activity against bicycles yet. Most are still engaged in wrecking. If they could be bothered then they would do it dreckly...

southdownswolf

I have my road bikes in the house, for safe keeping and my mtb locked in the main garden shed. The kids bikes, scooters etc are in the bike shed.

Sorry to hear of your loss..

dsoutar

andyeb wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Bring it inside. I would never contemplate leaving my bike outside in a garage or shed. (even here in rural France).

I wish I could, but our house is too small for our family as it is. There simply isn't space .

I'm just up the road from Guildford and there was something similar here a few months ago. I too have an issue with storing bikes in the house (my long suffering wife) so my bikes are in the garage but the good one is chained to all three 10 foot bits of a three section ladder with a New York Chain so I might be being a bit naive but I reckon it's relatively safe.

andyeb

dsoutar wrote:

andyeb wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Bring it inside. I would never contemplate leaving my bike outside in a garage or shed. (even here in rural France).

I wish I could, but our house is too small for our family as it is. There simply isn't space .

I'm just up the road from Guildford and there was something similar here a few months ago. I too have an issue with storing bikes in the house (my long suffering wife) so my bikes are in the garage but the good one is chained to all three 10 foot bits of a three section ladder with a New York Chain so I might be being a bit naive but I reckon it's relatively safe.

If it's an aluminium ladder, they will be through that with a hacksaw in 5 minutes. Aluminium is a pretty soft metal.

rpherts

Also consider turning on the privacy feature in Strava, which masks out the area 500m-1km around your house so people can't see where your rides start and end. Especially if you have set up the 'bikes' section, so telling the world you have a loverly £5k road bike on the premises...

andyeb

rpherts wrote:

Also consider turning on the privacy feature in Strava, which masks out the area 500m-1km around your house so people can't see where your rides start and end. Especially if you have set up the 'bikes' section, so telling the world you have a loverly £5k road bike on the premises...

Good advice - thanks.

I had the privacy zone thing already turned on (although I think it's too small and there doesn't seem to be a way to enlarge it), plus I've turned on the "enhanced privacy" thing and given my bike nicknames. Although I didn't have the full make/model on there before.

dnwhite88

Do you think somebody had seen you putting bikes in there and come back at night or just pot luck? Mine are ground anchored into concrete

andyeb

From a neighbours CCTV it looks like they were working their way garden-to-garden and came across ours. I don't think it was a targeted attack. They had a go at several more sheds/garages in the same road on the way out

rolf_f

andyeb wrote:

rpherts wrote:

Also consider turning on the privacy feature in Strava, which masks out the area 500m-1km around your house so people can't see where your rides start and end. Especially if you have set up the 'bikes' section, so telling the world you have a loverly £5k road bike on the premises...

Good advice - thanks.

I had the privacy zone thing already turned on (although I think it's too small and there doesn't seem to be a way to enlarge it), plus I've turned on the "enhanced privacy" thing and given my bike nicknames. Although I didn't have the full make/model on there before.

Furthermore, if you have three or more different routes away from your house, it is pretty straightforward to pinpoint where you live from simple geometry anyway. Not that your average bike thief would be bright enough to do that (nor probably source info from Strava anyway) but if you really want to hide your home from Strava data, you'll put an address in that is a way away from your own.

dabber

I asked Strava if I could create multiple, overlapping privacy areas around my house to effectively extend the reach of the privacy area. They told me that wouldn't work.
I then asked them if they could give an option to select a bigger privacy area from the existing one. I was told they'd pass the request on but no promises.

kingstonian

About 4 yrs ago, in the middle of the night, we were woken by a couple of coppers plus a police dog knocking on our front door. They had shut off local roads and suspected a burglar may have been hiding in our garden (they had a copter up in the sky tracking him). Turned out he was hiding in our neighbour's shed - was most amusing to see the dog let off the lead to drag him screaming out of the shed. The dog gave him a good chewing - good use of police resource, if you ask me.

t4tomo

I am sure a determined organised bike thief knows all about Strava and how to target likely houses. And where better to start than Surrey - loads of MAMILs with expensive bikes.