Cycle Theft Prevention


Here’s something useful sent in by Nick D.

Winston Churchill once described the Second World War as history’s most avoidable war; could bike theft be our most avoidable crime?

The growing problem of bicycle theft (over ½ million last year) is relatively easily tackled. A very cost effective piece of the jigsaw of deterrants, designed to prevent crime, can be utilized by any club member.

Possession is still nine tenths of the law. Look at the Home Office web-site and you will see that they strongly advise people to mark their possessions. The reason is quite simple: if the Police or Trading Standards come across suspected stolen goods, they need to have some identification on the items so that they can be linked to the crime. Otherwise they’re wasting their time, as the courts will not support any action for stealing or dealing in stolen property unless there is proof (Section 22 of the Theft Act 1968) about who the property belongs to. It is this fact which helps the thief, who will avoid items which are obviously marked.

Thieves do NOT want to be caught with any item that is marked and can be linked to the crime. There are plenty of other pickings, without ID marks, which are much less risky.

It’s not expensive to ID mark your bikes and register them FREE for life on The National Mobile Property Register, approved by the Home Office under The Data Protection Act for use by the Police and Trading Standards.

To make marking effective three things are needed:


1. Clear obvious ID marks which are difficult to remove and should leave behind some permanent marking. These are an immediate deterrent to the thief.

2. Covert or hidden ID marks which are even more difficult to find and remove.

All formats of covert ID markings require specialist equipment to detect and read them. However the technology in most cases, apart from two, are protected by patents for the companies who make them and therefore not subject to backing by the law. The two exceptions are UV marking and Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) microchips that conform to the International Standards Organisation ISO 11784/5 FDXB standard. These ISO chips are backed by EU legislation which under UK Statutes passed in 2009 are enforced by Trading Standards who are required to have the equipment, scanners, to detect and read these ID.

3. Registration of those ID marks on a database approved by the Home Office under the Data Protection Act for use by the police and trading standards. With additional facilities for the general public to check an ID mark and see if it has been logged as stolen yet maintain the secrecy of the owner’s identity.

Our ID marking kit is an ID marking system backed by EU legislation. To see the kit go to our web site and watch the Youtube video

http://www.rbs-propertymarking.co.uk/cycles_67.html

A ‘Standard’ kit provides enough materials for two bicycles:

2 x RFID Covert microchips
4 x Holographic Anti-Tamper ID Tags
2 x Cycle Passports to log the details

Price £24.99 inc vat and p&p
Order from our secure web-shop:
www.rbs-propertymarking.co.uk

or by phone from 01474 350883

Special Events in the West Surrey Area


Cycle jumbles, sportives, trips away and, this year, Olympic events. Check out the list above.

Feel free to contact Mark to advise him of any other special events which you think could be of interest to other members.

A Few New Cycle Jersey Designs







Comments welcome on several designs using colours different to our usual yellow and green. Obviously it’s impossible to be certain that the colours you see will be the exact colours you get, but such details will of course be checked before the design is finalised.

Contact Mark if you’d like to try your hand at designing – he can send you links to several on-line design sites used in the design of the above. Or google for Impsport and Owayo. If you can get the lettering function to work on the Impsport site do let me know how you managed it!

The Bicycle Icycle 70km Bike Ride ~ 1 April 2012


The ride attracted 18 people, twelve of whom were West Surrey riders. These were Peter Hackman, Matt Carolan, Clive Richardson, Helen Juden, Chris Juden, Huw Hitchin, Chris Jeggo, Anne Etherington, Bob McLeod, Chris Boggon, Roger Philo and Mark Waters, the organiser. We also welcomed riders from further afield: Peter Weston & David Funnell (West Sussex); John Beer & Alex Nowicky (SW London); Mike Batchelor (West London) and Denis Crampton (Bracknell).

All completed the course, except one, with the first riders home completing the course in 3 hours 55 minutes, which, interestingly, was identical to the two previous years. It’s a fabulously scenic route, if a bit hilly. Fortunately the weather didn’t make our bicycles icy; in fact the sun shone out of a clear, sunny sky, although a couple more degrees up the celsius scale would have gone down well.

The picture above shows a few of us relaxing after the ride. That’s Mike Batchelor in the foreground, who won the CTC Tourist Competition last year – a great achievement requiring considerable dedication over the whole season.