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news
Bike thiefLock up your apps, say police — thieves use ride-tracking sites to target bikes
With the mild weather and days finally getting longer, a timely reminder from Humberside Police not to give away the location of your precious bike - or bikes - on ride-tracking apps such as Strava and Map My Ride or via social media.
The Hull Daily Mail's Kevin Shoesmith reports http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Burglars-using-cycling-8216-fitness-route... that police and bike shop owners believe thieves are using information from the apps to guide them to valuable bikes.
It's vital that privacy settings on the apps are switched on, warned Sergeant Rob Danby, of the Riverside neighbourhood policing team, which covers Hull city centre.
He said: "Members of the public should take care when using apps such as Strava to ensure they do not inadvertently give away private information and locations.
"Such apps can give criminals a clue to where valuable items may be stored."
Bike shop owners report that customers increasingly suspect ride-tracking apps have guided thieves to their bikes.
Wayne Preston, of Cliff Pratt Cycles said: "People who have had bikes stolen come into the shop and we get into the conversation of what happened.
"In some cases, people have not activated the privacy settings on Strava."
Information posted on social media can provide a clue for thieves, and ride-tracking apps can leave them to bikes, Mr Preston believes.
"I don't have any pictures of my bikes on Facebook, but I know people do," he said.
"People happily put photos of their shining £3,000 bike up for everyone to see."
A Strava search for the owner's name can then reveal where rides start and finish, leading the thief to a valuable bike.
Mr Preston said: "The best advice I can give is if you are going to use apps make sure you switch it off a good distance from your house.
"Personally, I would much rather lose a mile off my Strava record than have my house or garage burgled and my bikes stolen."
You can also protect your home location by setting a privacy zone, which masks a location on your rides, or restricting who can follow you.
Luke Anderson of Freetown Sports also believes thieves are using Strava to find bikes and urged people to use the service's privacy features.
"It is definitely happening," he said. "There is the option to block your start point and people need to use it."
Proper bike security is paramount, Sgt Danby said.
"A lot of people keep bikes in sheds with minimal security," he said. "People need to be wary about where and how they store their bikes.
"We've known people to use a £2 lock to secure a bike worth £4,000. They won't spend £50 on a decent lock."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
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37 comments
I have created a new privacy zone with a postcode *near* my own using this: https://www.streetcheck.co.uk/postcode/allroots
Lets you find postcodes close to yours.
Just meet at your mates house and start it from there...that'll throw 'em off the scent
I think the same technology (as Strava) could be used as a deterrent. Bike manufacturers should be embedding an inaccessible GPS/SIM based device deep inside the bike tubes that links to a Strava-like app to detect the bike movement. This would link to an app on the user's device (phone/tablet) which would allow them to define 'curfews'. If the bike is moved outside of the curfew, the user's mobile would sound an alert detecting movement and Strava or similar, begins tracking the bike. Top end bikes using electronic shifting already have a power source which the device could presumably tap into. It might cost a user the price a tenner or so a month, but that's a fraction of the price of a bike, and presumably would reduce insurance fees.
This isn't a new thing. A friend had his bike nicked from a very secure garage 3 years ago, very deliberately targeted. The police told him at the time that they suspected thieves were using garmin connect to scope out targets.
It's easy to use the flyby feature on Strava to track people you pass or who are even in the vicinity. For instance I've got a pretty good idea where the bloke who passed me on the fancy Wilier this lunchtime lives.
Inside my house, upstairs, locked to the fireplace in my study, with two level 15 locks.
That should do it
I use Runtastic Road Bike Pro. It doesn't have a privacy radius like Strava, so I requested one.
So I make all my activities private. I make routes public, but make them all start/finish on the main road, not near my house.
I've not been quite clear how the Strava privacy feature works- from my reading it randomises the distance each time to be from 500m to 1km?
I'm less concerned about someone somewhere trawling social media & Strava or someone spotting me riding and then trying to dig though Strava to find me than I am local scrotes.
It would be fairly easy for them to see me regularly and then nick the bike to flog for a few quid to raise drug money etc. Even to the point of mugging me whilst out.
As for Strava, I have setup a ring of additional privacy zones around the central one. This masks more of the last sections. Yea, if you have any segments in those it won't register, but that's not a concern for me.
Strava could make privacy zones a bit more flexible. A definable radius for example.
Naive Strava queries coming up...
Although the privacy settings sound very useful I live in a block of flats off the street and my bike stays indoors. I've looked at the tracks and you would have trouble telling which building it was. Am I right that it would block me off the list on some segments that go past on the main road around the corner and within a zone if I set one; as these are some of the segment that I would most like to make progress on.
I don't post what bike I ride on Strava, but I have here!
I understand some people might live out in the sticks and keep their bikes in shed, should I be that paranoid?
I quite like having real names on Strava, after all its not a game is it?
That is exactly what it is.
+1 for starting/stopping your GPS away from your house... sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. Just have a junction or somewhere where you always stop.
What is wrong,with people. Do you actually think complete strangers need or want to look at rides of other complete strangers.
What is wrong,with people. Do you actually think complete strangers need or want to look at rides of other complete strangers.
Um, yes! Clearly Strava do and they seem to have made a successful worldwide business out of it...
Just be careful how you use it, that's all.
I stop my rides away from my road and generally the same location. Garmin is rubbish with privacy If i'm on my trainer and forget to turn off the GPS it will show my location unless i change the privacy settings. Strava is a little better by telling it you are using a stationary trainer it strips the gps so at least they are trying.
Pablo, did you read your post before you posted it?
Correct me if I'm wrong but you seem to be saying that if you forget to turn your GPS off then its Garmin's fault, but if your using Strava then it turns the GPS off if you remember to tell it that you don't need GPS!?!?!?
Have I missed something?
'mild weather' ???
1 degree here today...
The way to see if thieves use Strava or not is to make sure you start/stop your rides outside someone else's house, and then see if they get burgled...
Vote and comment here to try to get Strava's attention:
https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/26000160-Choose-custom-radius-for-the...
I can understand why a polygon would be harder for Strava, both from an application logic and server resources point of view - much easier to determine if a given point is within a radius of another than if it falls inside a polygon. I would just be happy with a customisable zone radius (that actually works).
I really haven't seen any convincing proof that thieves are using Strava etc - all of the mentioned opinions/examples are based on circumstantial evidence. For example, the fact that all three thefts mentioned in one area, mentioned above, have Strava use as a common factor doesn't really prove anything because so many keen cyclists use Strava. If all three bikes had Shimano groupsets you wouldn't say that having a Shimano groupset made your bike at risk of being stolen, would you?
However, that said, it is sensible to take precautions, and would encourage people to do so. I guess I'm just saying don't get in a massive panic yet, just be sensible.
It's pretty poor that Strava have known issues that they aren't fixing. Strava ought also really to exclude bits of rides from people who "rode with" you that are within your exclusion zones, or at least ask them if they are happy to do so.
Also, Strava need to improve the definition of privacy zones so that you can define a polygon not just a circle. This eliminates the "centre" being obvious and allows you to include segments that you want to.
I think dotdash has a point, and not just when they're riding. I was recently driving behind a car that had bike mount roof rails and a British Cycling sticker in the back window. Well duh, what do you think is in his shed?!
On the night one of my bikes was stolen there were two similar thefts within 1/4 mile of my house. In each case there were other valuable bikes but they stole only the most expensive from each. The common factor was the use of Strava. So, yes, it does happen, even with privacy functions on it's not especially difficult to work out where the bikes are kept. Like many of I have a routine to my riding - same days/times - and there is little effort involved in making sure you're around at the right time in order to earn what must have been about £9000 on that particular night.
Personally, Strava was fun but certainly not essential to my riding. I now don't use any apps at all and I still love getting out on my (new) bike.
The common factor was a number of serious cyslists using strava?
or that the thieves had seen people riding them around, coming in and out and clocked on to where they were? Bike thieves of expensive kit aren't stupid, they know whats worth the most so only target that if they're in a rush.
Whichever. It could be either. Using Strava to take the leg work out of theft seems likely, though. Like you say, they're not stupid. Unfortunately, I'll take all reasonable precautions now but I won't stop riding so being seen is a chance I'm prepared to take. But Strava isn't that important to me so I opt not to use it.
You could argue whether cycle thieves are stupid or not, but that would miss the point. The fact is, you're making it easier for them if you don't use the privacy functions on Strava and if you use your real name. It's also possible you'll be at far greater risk of identity theft. Perhaps you live in a low crime area, but many of us don't. A few simple steps can reduce the risk of being a victim significantly. Feel free to carry on as you wish but don't criticise anyone else for taking that bit more care. Having been broken into and having bikes stolen taught me to take a bit of care.
I think a lot of these are people being followed, or they are driving past as people are washing their bikes.
Most criminals are opportunistic.
deja vu
I wonder if there is an element of urban myth to this one, in that most bike thieves are simply nasty little scrotes who will hop over a fence to see what they can find (I myself lost my commuting bike from a shed in the back garden in this way... I now use a Shed Shackle). However there are a whole load of other reasons to be careful about your privacy, so even if I was not so worried about being targetted by smart bike theives in particular, I very much want to avoid exposing where I live.
Unfortunately - and I really can't believe that nobody really discusses this - Strava privacy zones are badly broken in some circumstances. Specifically, if you have multiple overlapping zones, you may well find that after a while Strava starts to ignore all but one of them. It will show the zones on your profile and your rides when you select 'show privacy zones', but if you take a look at your account as a third party, you will see that only one zone actually works (usually the most recently defined one). I noticed this when I started showing up on a segment that I was not expecting to. I submitted a test case to strava, and they came back and said that there was a known issue with overlapping zones, and (astonishingly) they were not going to fix it any time soon.
Using multiple zones is common advice, and I know many people do it. If you do, you should check that they actually do work. If they don't, complain to Strava! I used to use multiple zones because I wanted protection (with my house off-centre) while keeping the end of some key segments out of it. I've spent a loooong time trying different neighbouring postcodes and marvelling at the random radius of circle produced. In the end, I've given up now and have a single not entirely satisfactory but just about OK zone near my home. I also avoid stop/starting my GPS right by my door.
I'd love to see Strava enhance privacy zones in 3 ways:
I'd settle for #3 first
At least Strava lets you hide your location. As far as I can see this isn't possible in Garmin Connect except by keeping the ride private. I like to share my routes, just not where my house is - poor show Garmin
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