Prevent Motorcycle Theft With These Security Tips and Tricks

Motorcycles act as a way of life for many, it is a hobby for a lot of riders and their motorcycle is something they have invested countless hours into whether it be maintaining and cleaning it to just riding, nothing beats the feeling of wind on your face and the power in your right hand of the machine between your legs.

For other people motorcycles/scooters act as a form of transport for commuting to and from their place of work, it may be the only way that someone can earn a living and feed their families, this could mean that if their motorcycle/scooter was to be stolen, it could cripple them and their family.

Motorcycle theft is a very real problem, more and more motorcycles are stolen each year with a reported 27,000 thefts in 2018. The prices of motorcycles are also continuing to rise year on year with the top sports bikes coming in at around £30,000+ which could mean a hefty pay for a thief.

Thanks to the advancement of technology, the tools these thieves are using are becoming more and more sophisticated and portable meaning they can very easily cut through a chain or lock and run away with your pride and joy.

Not only that but they are getting smarter (or stupider) with many instances of thieves cutting straight through the brake disks/rotors and freeing the bike this way, changing the disks/rotors themselves at a later date.

A survey by the National Crime Intelligence Service (NCIS) showed that there are more motorcycles stolen every year than there are bought new, not only that but the average time to steal a motorcycle worth upwards of £10,000 is 20 seconds, this makes it an incredibly lucrative market for thieves who are looking for a rapid payday.

Not only that but every month there are £3 million+ of motorcycles stolen every month in the UK, from there these bikes will often be stripped down and the parts sold online.

95% of Reviewers recommend The Bike Insurer (based on 8940 reviews on www.reviews.co.uk as at 03/05/23)

What are the motives of bike thieves?

As we know, there’s a large market of people stealing motorcycles, but why? Well of course a big factor is money, if it takes 20 seconds to steal a £10,000 motorcycle, a gang of 20 people could steal upwards of 50 motorcycles in an hour making it highly lucrative.

These bikes are often stripped and the parts can be sold separately online or to retailers, there is a huge market for spare parts with websites such as eBay and Gumtree littered with people selling items to unsuspecting people who may not even realise they are buying stolen items.

The black market and ‘deep web’ are also full of websites advertising stolen motorcycles and the parts from these motorcycles, chassis numbers can be removed by criminal gangs and either replaced with another number or wiped completely from records making the bike untraceable by police, these parts are often sold relatively cheaply meaning people can pick up a bargain.

Tearing down motorcycles and selling the parts individually can earn someone a lot more money than simply selling the motorcycle whole, thieves can easily find themselves making 150% of what the original motorcycle was worth.

Aside from selling the parts many thieves will just use these stolen motorcycles for joyriding before setting them on fire or dumping them somewhere, often they will use a cloned number plate ensuring that they can remain undetected by law enforcement before ragging the living daylights out of the engines of the stolen bikes.

Making bike insurance easy since 2006

Get quotes

Where are motorcycles stolen?

80% of motorcycles are stolen from the garages and streets of people at home, thieves who spot a motorcycle that they would like to take may scout an area over a few days or even weeks to note the times that said vehicle is in the area and not being used and will plan their attack from there, they may even follow the owner to and from their destinations.

Others may simply just pinch a motorcycle by chance without too much investigation.

How do I prevent my motorcycle from being stolen?

There’s no easy way to say this, but if a thief wants to steal your motorcycle, they will stop at nothing to take it from you. There have been many instances over the years of some crazy stories of motorcycle thefts including thieves cutting holes in garage doors, cutting roofs off garages and many more.

Some of the craziest examples include that of British Superbike Team Moto Rapido who had their bike shop broken into and a £20,995 Ducati Panigale V4 stolen after the thieves cut a hole through the wall of the building under the stairs out of sight from the CCTV cameras, dragging the bike out through the wall and disappearing into the night.

Another instance is British Superbike Team WD40 having their workshop broken into and all three race bikes stolen overnight, some fairings were eventually recovered in a field but £10’s of thousands of pounds of specially made race parts gone.

If you want to protect your motorcycle you must invest in good security measures, what’s the point in spending £10,000 on a motorcycle just to spend less than £100 protecting it.

The money you spend on security is proportional to how much you want to keep your bike, if you buy a £5 lock from a dodgy brand you can expect it to function like a £5 lock from a dodgy brand, it will likely not save your motorcycle, however, if you invest in a £100 lock with a much more reputable brand you can expect it to hold up a lot better and deter a thief who cannot be bothered to waste any more time than they need to.

Protect your motorcycle

CCTV

If you are lucky enough to have a garage, make sure you invest in CCTV cameras to ensure that if the worst does happen and you are targeted, you have a way of potentially identifying the thieves. Cameras also act as a great deterrent with many thieves opting not to steal a motorcycle if they can be easily identified.

Tips if you are unable to afford CCTV:

Buy a fake camera from eBay, if you cannot afford to buy expensive surveillance cameras at the time but are looking to invest in them in the future. Buy a fake camera from eBay, you will know it is fake but a thief will struggle to tell the difference from a quick glance and could help to deter them. We do not recommend this as a full-time solution and more of a temporary one before CCTV is installed.
If you cannot install CCTV for any reason, park your car in view of your dashcam and use your car’s dashcam to record footage.

Park with other motorcycles

If you have the ability to park close to or with other motorcycles, use this to your advantage. A thief may still steal your motorcycle, but if you have given them more options to choose from then this could work in your favour, especially if the thief is trying to determine which will be the easiest for them to steal and get rid of afterwards.

Tip: Make sure your motorcycle is locked up more than the other motorcycles around you, thieves are opportunistic and if they are presented with more work to take yours over another, they will often pick the easier choice.

Chains and locks

As we have alluded to, buy top-notch safety gear from reputable brands, these include chain locks, covers, immobilisers, alarms and ground anchors.

Oxford is an example of a motorcycle brand that makes high-end top-quality products and this includes their lines of reinforced chains and motorcycle locks designed to ensure that thieves do not walk away with your motorcycle. They offer many products varying from a simple disk lock that locks onto your disk and stops the wheel from spinning to a fully covered heavy-duty 22mm chain designed to resist angle grinders. (We are not endorsed by Oxford).

Tips:

Combining the chain and lock with a solid ground anchor will make your motorcycle impossible to move and leave the premises.
Investing in a calliper mounted disk lock will prevent the wheel from being removed.

Covers

Making your motorcycle blend in is key, you may have the reddest most eye-catching Ducati in your town which is great for when you are riding around gaining the attention of everyone, however, this isn’t great when it is parked up at night outside your house, it will stick out like a sore thumb to thieves.

Therefore it is a good idea to cover your motorcycle at night with the dullest, most boring cover you can find that still protects your motorcycle, hey, you could even stick a Harley Davidson cover over it to ensure no one within a radius of 100 miles will go near your motorcycle.

Tip: Lots of covers these days also have well-placed holes in them for chains and locks to go through making it additionally difficult for a potential thief to have a peek at the goods.

Immobiliser and alarm

Alarms and immobilisers are great pieces of kit and will do a great job of stopping a thief from running away with your motorcycle. An immobiliser is built into the engine’s ECU and will prevent the engine from starting without the authorised key for the engine.

It will completely kill all the power and will not activate the fuel system and the ignition, even if the key that is used turns and fits in the ignition barrel.

Install a tracker on your motorcycle

If you regrettably find your motorcycle has been stolen, the power of a tracker being installed on your motorcycle will drastically improve your chances of recovering it before it is too late.

You are able to give the police and other relevant parties access to the motorcycle’s location at all times and often can recover the motorcycle very quickly.

Tip: A well-hidden tracker will likely go unnoticed for longer periods of time.

You do not have to follow every piece of advice here, however, we recommend that the more you do follow, the more unlikely you are to lose your pride and joy.