Well as some of you know I just had my bike stolen. After the theft there has been some discussion about fitting GPS trackers and alarms, all very sensible and something I should have considered beforehand.

Now having got the bike back I've become just how aware thieves are also of these technologies because when I inspect the bike I see most of the damage done is from someone attempting to disable anything that might be a tracker or alarm:
- all after-market wires (which in my case only powered heated grips and power sockets) cut.
- relays (part of the heated grips) smashed.
- fuse box ripped out so no accessories are powered.
- side covers, parts of fairing and seat physically wrenched off presumably to check for extra wiring.

So my advice is if you do fit a tracker make sure everything, including power connection) is well and truly hidden under the tank and out of sight if you want a chance of it remaining working. Just because it has black cased wiring like the rest of the bike harness will not be enough.

Hope someone can learn from my experience.

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Martin

finally back on the road again


http://awayonmybike.blogspot.com/

A lot of trackers have a built-in battery that runs for 2 or 3 days after the main lead has been cut

Agree 100% about careful concealment

Thanks for the tip. I'm working on a moto alarm and CANbus monitoring system right now.

It's good point you make, my experience is from cars, but i bought my Landcruiser with an aftermarket immobilizer fitted. I have had bad experiences with other vehicles on other trips that became immobilized at just the wrong moment so i wanted shot of it.
I removed it and had the vehicle running in under 10 minutes. I was being neat and wanted to make a proper job of it, if i was just trying to start it to steal it it wouldn't have taken more than 2 minutes tops. This is with no manuals or previous experience of Landcruiser electrics.
Installed as it was, it basically offered zero protection against theft.

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http://capetocapeblog.wordpress.com/

If You have an alarm connected to Your CANbus (if this is on Your vehicle at all). Then when You disconnect the Alarm from the CANBus, it won't start at all.

I feel the urge to apologise to NavalArchitect. My country has produced world class thieving scum for many hundreds of years. Our leaders have tried hanging them, deporting them, sending them to Disneyland, giving them free money and many other things and still very little changes. No single device, electronic or mechanical will defeat them. They have daily experience of technology most of us can barely imagine being defeated.

The solution is the layered defence.

Simply do not leave a vehicle in locations the scum inhabit if you can avoid it. The estates are obvious as people who are so low as to steal aren't going to bother clearing up their burnt out cars and chip wrappers, but any decent area between the chav holes and benefit offices can be more dangerous. If the locals use huge chains and own Rottweilers you want your stuff behind the wire too.

If these low lifes were anything except lazy they would not steal they would get a job. An unknown and invisible bike under a tatty cover parked next to a nice new Ducati/BMW/Harley registers less. A bike with a 16mm link chain through the swing arm and into the street furniture many of our local councils have been forced to provide leads them to conclude that the walk to get their stash of plumbers nitrogen and angle grinder is time better spent mugging old ladies. When the owner has taken the trouble to park where there is functional CCTV and has used a marking system like Smartwater or Datatag this enforces the idea that if they get caught and have done enough crime to register above the police "it's only property" limit, their eventual sentence will be long enough for their girlfriend to start having chavlets with someone else. Alarms and immobilisers do very little as only the owner or people who know him will respond. Trackers are more of a worry in the first few minutes of the theft the owner may pop up and prove to be big baseball fan. There is then a gap in which they will just remove them. The final defence is unfortunately to simply have sufficient back up, be it insurance or cash to carry on afterwards.

This is all much tougher for the traveller. My bikes live in a concrete and steel garage, chained to the floor with 3-5 Kg chains, are covered by a house alarm my neighbours will respond to and have both security markings and insurance. I know which parts of many UK cities I simply would not leave a bike in.

The only advice I can give is to carry the heaviest, highest rated security chain you can and use it, through street furniture if possible. Look for hotels with underground car parks and security barriers in city centres or at least get the bike onto out of sight private property. If you have electronics that can disable the bike you need to know how to fix it, so CAN systems need an OBD reader, hard wired need diagrams etc.

I'm sorry if this puts anyone off. The UK is mostly safe and absolutely fine, in 20 years I have had two attempted thefts. One at Maggot services in South Wales the other in Central London. I think people should however take note that there is no easy, light, flick a switch solution.

Andy

They used to put them on ships to Australia... I notice the OP is from there

Good that the bike has been found and is fixable.

When my garage was cracked and 2 bikes stolen a few years back Shane Cooper of the Buttershaw Estate in Bradford, West Yorkshire was identified as one of the thieves. He left a fag end outside our front door and was identified from his DNA. However he was let off as he was "only" 17 and hence didn't know the difference between right and wrong.

Many bike and car thieves in the UK think the rewards of their pastime are worth the risks of getting caught, because if they are, the criminal justice system is a standing joke and all they'll receive is a "severe letting off".

Shame that more people in the UK don't have baseball as a national pastime.

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

My experience has been that the police are not that interested in casual vehicle crime. You kind of think that they're there for you when these things happen but in reality they're agents of the state and have other priorities. All I got when my car was broken into six months ago was a brief visit from a pcso a couple of days later who told me I was one of eleven similar break-ins in the area.

A friend had his car stolen from his drive a year or two back when he called in home for a short break between jobs. He rang the police to report it and was asked to come down to the station whenever it was convenient to do the paperwork (without a car!). In passing they asked what was in the car and he said about 20 guns (he runs a clay pigeon shooting business). They arrived in force within minutes and the "perps" were caught within a few days.

..........chavlets.......brilliant,funniest thing I've heard all week..I like that a lot..

Having had my classic Lotus stolen (and fortunately recovered mostly undamaged - it ran out of fuel!) and a bike I spent a year building also taken (and never seen again) on its second outing I've welcomed the invention of tracker technology but it's been very expensive.

Recently though cheap (made in China) ones have been appearing on ebay for under £10. You just add a sim card and some payg credit and that's it. Switch it on and it'll text a gps location when phoned. They're small enough - matchbox size (if you remember them), to be easy to hide and for that sort of money it has to be worth a trial. I'll be putting one in the Lotus when it comes out of hibernation in the spring and if it seems to work well I'll get a couple for the bikes. If anyone else has tried them post up your experience.

one of the tricks I use is the chip you can put in your pet, They are RF id tags, and the police have readers for them (for dogs) .

This can be put into the frame with a bit of epoxy, injected inside a seat, or the or the forks or your handle bars it can be put anywhere!

Then you can have an "extra" starting switch too! Finally a tracking device is always a good idea.

I one worked with someone, whose job was security and lives would depend on him. He said "security should be like a strong onion, every layer they have to peel back should make their f**k1ng eyes water" and he is right!

Also take part of the bike with you, I have been known to walk off with my ecu, or a rotor arm, or even a fuse.

Go on make their eyes water!