GPS tracking for your bike.

General Pub
1

Does anyone know anything about GPS tracking for a bike?
A mate is wants to get a chipped installed on his ride, so if some fucker steels it, the cops/insurance can track it down.
Personally I have never heard of it, but he is adamant it exists. I think he has had a couple of bikes stolen, hence the extra security.

2

i guess you can always put a transmitter in one of the tubes or something? run on batteries?

3

i know there are systems for cars, and assuming you can get one small enough to fit in one of the tubes or somewhere else, all it would require is a 12v battery.
most of the cheap ones just use a sim card so you can send commands and receive GPS data from it.

4

Such a thing exists, one of the specialist bicycle insurers, like cyclecover but pretty sure not cyclecover, was offering it in OZ a couple of years ago. Can’t remember who it was (possibly due to some ill-judged lifestyle choices in the 80’s) but I do recall their brochures were black with orange and red and yellow on them

5

there are a couple of problems i can see with this idea.

  1. charging the battery? this works in cars because the alternator is constantly recharging the battery, how does this one hold its charge or recharge? it can’t be constantly running and transmitting because that would chew through batteries so quickly that it would be completely impractical. if the battery is on standby, how is it activated when the bike is stolen? do you have to plug the bike in to a charger at night in order to keep the battery topped up…?
  2. installation. Where? is it built into the frame? is it inserted into the seat tube like Cancellara’s alleged “motor”, which would easily be able to be removed (assuming the bike thief scumbag knows it is in there?). if it is built into the bike, what happens when it breaks down and needs to be fixed? do you have to cut the frame apart to pull it out and check it?

i’m sure in theory this sounds like a good idea, but it seems like it would be very very hard to actually execute…

my2c

6

dynamo gps?

7

Absolute gold.

8

Buy a new lock.

9

to be honest… if it’s a high end road bike your not going to leave it any where you’d want to lock it… and if it’s at home you should have insurance… in-fact if it’s worth good money then you should have it insured any way…

10

i like that too