How safe is my bike outside?

[michael]

Sorry if something similar to this has been posted (I couldn't find anything).

Anyone park their bikes outside in town (Auckland), how safe is it and is it worth it?

3 friends and I are looking to move in together. We found an awesome place but it has no garage. My bike will be covered (by the balcony, so it will be in shade but will still get wet) and there's a wooden structural beam I can chain it to. Is it worth me parking it outside though. My excess is something stupid like 1500 and I can't be arsed forking that out because it got knicked.

Its on Remuera road in one of those town house situations so it'll be in clear view of at least 4 neighbours, and I'd keep it chained up and covered at all times. It cant be seen from the road but anyone can walk around the back and see it without looking dodgy.

I've been a prick and said no when everyone is real keen, but I'm now wondering if I should just park it outside?

Maintenance isn't an issue as I do all my maintenance at the old man's place (better selection of tools)

[firefighter]

How long is a piece of string?

Chain it up if you have a chain.

"I've been a prick and said no when everyone is real keen, but I'm now wondering if I should just park it outside?"

What?

[magicmonkey]

Parking out of sight is over rated in my opinion, all your doing is allowing someone to steal it without being seen. I'm not sure about over here but in the UK theives will use google maps to find things out of public view which they can nick...

[The Pastor]

keep a cover on it, and keep it locked up hard mate. would be worth getting a gps tracker that will txt you when your bike is moved.

and insure it!

[Rodney007]

if its under a cover and chained, i dont think it would be a problem?

[michael]

I've got a chain and cover, gps tracker sounds like a goer though. Where can I get hold of one of those?

[EJK]

If the thieves really want your bike, they will take it one way or another. But that doesn't mean make it easy for them to steal it. Cover and lock it. But for a GSXR like yours, it's like a Silvia S15 on the "hit list", very popular for thieves. Be very careful.
I see that you are already insured. Good.

[Headbanger]

Your nuts to park your bike there, Might as well put a free to good home sign on it. It will be stolen.

[Jeaves]

I've got a chain and cover, gps tracker sounds like a goer though. Where can I get hold of one of those?

Try here http://www.mongoose.co.nz/gps-tracking/mtp-3-text-pager.aspx

[Maki]

Move into a place that has a garage. Safer, and better for you bike. Having your bike outside and under a cover is a recipe for rust.

[StoneY]

keep a cover on it, and keep it locked up hard mate. would be worth getting a gps tracker that will txt you when your bike is moved.

and insure it!

My god, RM, where did this mature wisdom spring from?

Blardy good advice tho, and I am totally in agreement- good cover, good locks, good insurance company, your set :niceone:

And yep locked up in plain view beats where some cunt has the time to cut ya locks:pinch:

[Squiggles]

If insurance is all g with you keeping it outside then at least it'll only hurt the soul. Bikes go missing from the roadside, driveways, secure garages... I'd be finding a good way to secure it (ground anchor etc) and keeping it under a cover if i had to leave it out.

[mdnzz]

and locked in garage yet the little feckers took my car and then looked like they were disturbed gettin to the bikes, which I believe is what they were after, if they want it they will take it, unless you sleep with ya bike chances are it will be stolen if left outside

[Aaron_newrider]

Go with kiwibike, swann, $250 excess for being stolen.

Just had my bike nicked from parnell, out of sight,

[gsx katana]

Well mine is safe outside, da wife will kill me if i put inside agian:girlfight::2thumbsup

[scracha]

Can't you put the bike inside the building somewhere? Almost certainly a gixxer will get nicked if left "out the back". Crooks follow nice looking bikes to see where they're parked up at night. Park it in the street, near a light, under a SCABBY looking bike cover to something solid with a TIGHT chain and an expensive U-lock...and an alarm....and a GPS....and wire it up to the mains, and maybe tie it to a couple of rottweilers......it'll still get nicked though.

Keep the bike at a mate's garage, work or other secure location & buy a skanky moped to get you to/from it.


You can always spot new bikers & born again's as they park their pride and joy out the front to impress the neighbours. Very very stupid thing to do.

[ukusa]

Sorry if something similar to this has been posted (I couldn't find anything).

Anyone park their bikes outside in town (Auckland), how safe is it and is it worth it?

3 friends and I are looking to move in together. We found an awesome place but it has no garage. My bike will be covered (by the balcony, so it will be in shade but will still get wet) and there's a wooden structural beam I can chain it to. Is it worth me parking it outside though. My excess is something stupid like 1500 and I can't be arsed forking that out because it got knicked.

Its on Remuera road in one of those town house situations so it'll be in clear view of at least 4 neighbours, and I'd keep it chained up and covered at all times. It cant be seen from the road but anyone can walk around the back and see it without looking dodgy.

I've been a prick and said no when everyone is real keen, but I'm now wondering if I should just park it outside?

Maintenance isn't an issue as I do all my maintenance at the old man's place (better selection of tools)

Sounds like the bike's your most prized asset, I'd park the bastard in your bedroom, move the bed out to the balcony, it's worth less!

[howdamnhard]

[QUOTE=scracha;1129444772]
Keep the bike at a mate's garage, work or other secure location & buy a skanky moped to get you to/from it.


/QUOTE]

Good advice , I wouldn't trust my bike outside.

[nothingflash]

It'll be safe as until it gets nicked!

A mate of mine has a Dakar that is parked on the street. He woke up one morning to go for a ride and found it had been dragged into the middle of the road.

[SMOKEU]

You should sit outside with a shotgun all night.

[bogan]

I've got a chain and cover, gps tracker sounds like a goer though. Where can I get hold of one of those?

gps would be a very good idea, cheapest one ive heard of http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=101268&highlight=cheap+gps+gsm

[MadDuck]

You should sit outside with a shotgun all night.

...and a cattle prod.

[Dean]

Well heres my recipe that I havent shared with anyone until now, trust me it works.

Get a person you can trust to attempt to steal your bike now this is how it is so genius. In the process you cant be warned so one day they might try it but rest assured they wont do anything to harm your bike or house/flat as long as this person is a trustworthy bloke. Then they report what they found was an obstacle that proved hard to steal the bike and what was easy. This way you can get the downlow from the criminal perspective then adjust security.

[Sidewinder]

if its under a cover and chained, i dont think it would be a problem?

get a shotgun and i sign saying niggers will be shot on site

[steve_t]

If u park it outside, notify your insurance company and be prepared to have your premiums increase :(

[MadDuck]

Well heres my recipe that I havent shared with anyone until now

Thanks for sharing.

[Little Miss Trouble]

Mines parked in a carport, in clear view of the road & we've never had a problem here

[jellywrestler]

How long is a piece of string?


[?

depends on the brand of tampon really!

[scracha]

Mines parked in a carport, in clear view of the road & we've never had a problem here

Ok, there are perverts out there who steal Suzuki's but c'mon, an SV? Crims have standards y'know.

[jono035]

I wouldn't worry too much about the gps tracker, they're cool but not perfect. That one linked is friggin cheap though, probably worth getting one just to have a play! Unless you can get a history of where the bike has been, then it won't be that great. If it is in someones shed then you'll get readings up to 40-50m out, and if you say to the cop 'oh, my bike is in one of these two blocks in mangere, they're going to facepalm and walk away.

Even with a tracker, that's not going to do squat if it is nicked and then thrashed and dumped or damaged in the process of stealing it. Could end up installing the tracker only to find you're paying the excess on it anyway...

Try find a better insurance company. Stick an alarm on it that makes noise if disturbed, chances are someone will be home at your flat. Don't rely on anything wooden, the old guy I used to work for had a quad stolen even though it was chained to a post in a cattle yard... They put a wood-saw through the post :doh:

Edit: If you get one of those GPS trackers listed, wire it up so that the external trigger sets off a siren perhaps, that way you've got an easy enough way of pinpointing where the bike is if you've got half a dozen houses it could be...

[michael]

Cheers for the advice. I'm gona do it. Thought it over last night and the bike will never be home without me being home to (except some weekends for a couple of hours when I'm on the piss). Its in clear view of 4 neighbours and I'll have a chat to them to get them to text me or call the cops if they see ANYONE other than me touching it. If it gets stolen I'll just have to save up and get a new one :-) And I'll just put an alarm on it so if it does get touched it'll wake up the whole neighbourhood. Rust isn't a problem and excess, well I'm with kiwibike (swan), getting a 600 insured with speeding tickets isn't as easy as a 250.

[Little Miss Trouble]

Ok, there are perverts out there who steal Suzuki's but c'mon, an SV? Crims have standards y'know.

Well yes, this is why I have no problems with leaving it parked where it is while I piss off to Aussie on business :2thumbsup

[90s]

Today I posted a thread about bike theives operating in the central area. They are very active at the moment.
http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=109445

[HungusMaximist]

I'd say don't chance it. If they want it, they'll take it. At least do everything you can to deter them (alarms, chains, locks...)

People will steal anything these days.

[scracha]

Cheers for the advice. I'm gona do it. Thought it over last night and the bike will never be home without me being home to (except some weekends for a couple of hours when I'm on the piss). Its in clear


Or when you're on holiday, or when you get lucky, etc etc. If a car alarm goes off does anybody even bother to look out the window these days?

How thieves operate:-

2 or 3 burly blokes arrive at your place in a soundproofed transit van.
Bolt cutters, power saw, etc cuts through your security like a knife through butter
Bike is lifted into van.
Burly blokes jump into tranny van and fuck off into the setting sun.
Whole process takes two minutes TOPS. No way cops or anyone else will respond in time.

You pay a shitload excess. Insurance company gives you a derisory offer. You find your premiums quadruple.

[YellowDog]

Or when you're on holiday, or when you get lucky, etc etc. If a car alarm goes off does anybody even bother to look out the window these days?

How thieves operate:-

2 or 3 burly blokes arrive at your place in a soundproofed transit van.
Bolt cutters, power saw, etc cuts through your security like a knife through butter
Bike is lifted into van.
Burly blokes jump into tranny van and fuck off into the setting sun.
Whole process takes two minutes TOPS. No way cops or anyone else will respond in time.

You pay a shitload excess. Insurance company gives you a derisory offer. You find your premiums quadruple.
I suspect that many have a false sense of security because they live in good areas.

Crims have wheels and will travel to wherever the rich pickings are available.

[steve_t]

I wouldn't worry too much about the gps tracker, they're cool but not perfect. That one linked is friggin cheap though, probably worth getting one just to have a play! Unless you can get a history of where the bike has been, then it won't be that great. If it is in someones shed then you'll get readings up to 40-50m out, and if you say to the cop 'oh, my bike is in one of these two blocks in mangere, they're going to facepalm and walk away.

Isn't GPS resolution less than 2 metres these days?

[bogan]

Isn't GPS resolution less than 2 metres these days?

outside it's bout that, inside sheds, or vans ive seen it 10-20m out, or no signal at all

[jono035]

Isn't GPS resolution less than 2 metres these days?

With good signal strength that's mostly true, although it doesn't take much to upset things so your accuracy starts to drop.

If you're under any form of cover then it gets dramatically worse. We had mobile plant with GPS trackers (SirfSTAR III 20 channel high sensitivity receivers) that would wander all over the show when they were parked in the sheds (corrugated iron roof with polycarb sections every 2 metres). Now that I think about it it was probably even worse, more like +/- 100m. It wasn't evenly spread too, was quite often a massive group of points all over the place, offset from where we knew they were by 40-50m...

That was when we had once-per-second data for an entire day or week and knew for certain where the things were, I'd hate to try extrapolate where they may be from a handful of points if the signal strength was crap...

Edit: We had a play with some +/- 20mm accurate RTK corrected units (they use a fixed point base-station to provide corrections from) that would be perfectly fine but as soon as they were even near a building everything would fall to pieces and they would be 20m out without so much as a warning.

[jono035]

outside it's bout that, inside sheds, or vans ive seen it 10-20m out, or no signal at all

I wish I had saved screenshots of the program we designed to track, search and display the tracker locations, it was pretty amazing seeing a machine that you know has been parked up for a week (the engine caught fire) wandering all over the site (I think at one point it took off over a main road and set of shops apparently).

Edit: The equipment it was installed on was probably about 8m end to end, if we had of got 10-20m inside the sheds we would have been stoked beyond belief! Just looked at google maps to see what the scale of our maps were. I remember laughing about the fact that a vehicle with a destroyed engine had driven off the edge of the wharf. It turns out this is over 200m away. Go figure.

The biggest problem is that it is quite often all but impossible to detect how good the signal is, the data spat out of the GPS itself (even the extended satellites in view data) just doesn't give you enough to work off. The data is also pretty stable on a minute by minute basis. The position probably changes at a rate of a few metres an hour?

[steve_t]

How about A-GPS triangulated via Cell sites? Anyone know how accurate this is?

[crazyhorse]

Don't think it really matters how safe a bike is inside a garage, or outside. IF they want it, they'll take it anyway.

My bike's been outside for the last 12 months - moving into a big double garage tomorrow though :hug:

Otherwise, make sure it is fully insured.

[jono035]

How about A-GPS triangulated via Cell sites? Anyone know how accurate this is?

cell site triangulation is pretty hit and miss for the same reasons.

GPS positioning is done by timing, cell site triangulation is done by signal strength. Timing is inherently a better way of doing it because it doesn't matter if you've got a tree in the way, but then it is more susceptible to multi-pathing affects (getting the same signal directly and then bouncing off a building as well).

I don't know how readily you can get access to the cell site info to triangulate from...

I figure GPS to get you close then a loud fuckoff siren that you can hear from a block away that you can remotely trigger. Tracking beacon would work as well but that's a little more random.

Actually, maybe fit an air-horn and have it so the tracker can sound the horn continuously?

That's what I'm doing when I've got a bike worth more than the cost of the tracker and air horn combined :P

[The Pastor]

jono, if you know the neighbour hood it is easy to find a stolen bike in it. I found a workmates stolen bike because he saw it been ridden a week later in albany.

all you have to do is spend half a day driving around the street its on and you'll spot it pretty quick. - all the time getting updates from your gps

[jono035]

jono, if you know the neighbour hood it is easy to find a stolen bike in it. I found a workmates stolen bike because he saw it been ridden a week later in albany.

all you have to do is spend half a day driving around the street its on and you'll spot it pretty quick. - all the time getting updates from your gps

Oh yeah, for sure, just saying don't expect it to be 'oh, bikes gone *send text* check google maps, find out it is at 123 rangi st, call cops, get bike back'

Knowing vaguely where the bike is is a HELL of a lot better than nothing, but needs to be coupled with more accurate info or some detective work.

Personally I think remotely activated air horn is the way to go!

[scracha]

Don't think it really matters how safe a bike is inside a garage, or outside. IF they want it, they'll take it anyway.


True, but just like burglars, the bike theives choose the easy targets first. Make your bike harder to nick than other bikes in the area.

[avgas]

It will be fine. Thieves don't steal GSX250's
They prefer ZXR's CBR's and other such buzzboxes

[avgas]

How about A-GPS triangulated via Cell sites? Anyone know how accurate this is?
depends on the cell towers as they have different power ratings.
you used to be able to tell your old position on the old nokias using #*00*# or something.
On the new XT it would be a waste of time, because when I have full signal on that I can forget about have good reception and the phone is lying to me.

[jono035]

It will be fine. Thieves don't steal GSX250's
They prefer ZXR's CBR's and other such buzzboxes

If you're referring to my bike then I'm not the one who started the thread, someone with an '05 GSXR is!

I'm definitely not worried about anyone stealing my current bike. Like I said before, the combined cost of air-horn and gps tracker is probably worth more than it anyway! :D