
A Dragnet for Pee-Wee - rohin
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/33713850223/a-dragnet-for-pee-wee
======
thaumaturgy
Looks like HN is cranky this morning.

I like it! A bike used to be my primary means of transportation back in the
Bay Area, and I used to pay for good ones. Every single one of them got
stolen. Every one. The last one I owned had a state-of-the-art lock on it, so
the thieves _cut the bike rack_. People that don't rely on a bike seriously
underestimate what it means to a bike owner when their bike is stolen; to a
lot of people, it's just, "oh, you lost your toy, just go buy another one". To
many bike owners, it's more like, "I just lost the ability to get around
quickly."

The number one reason I don't own a bike right now is because I don't feel
like putting up with it being stolen.

So this is one of those really big under-served pain points that everybody
keeps saying you should look for when building a business.

priceonomics' approach makes perfect sense: make it easier to locate stolen
bikes online, and build a new, centralized marketplace specifically for bikes
that people will want to use (which also makes it harder for thieves to sell
bikes online without the owner finding it).

Good job, guys.

~~~
nym
Have you ever tried putting a GPS in your bike?

<http://www.gizmag.com/spybike-gps-tracker/22999/>

~~~
msrpotus
Or just buying a cheaper bike on the assumption that you'll need to get a new
one sooner or later?

~~~
pmahoney
I don't know how it is in "nicer" climates, but where I am, my commuter bike
has gradually accumulated various things:

\- taillight which I don't bother to remove

\- expensive headlight which I do remove when parked (but I leave the mounting
bracket)

\- pedal straps (a must, in my opinion, for safe riding in traffic; feet
slipping off pedals can mean a crash)

\- thorn resistant tires

\- stronger wheel (I'm above-average height and not fat, but the cheapo wheels
kept getting bent)

\- fenders to reduce splashing in the rain

\- rack to hold saddle bag

The bike itself is rather old and worth less than $100. All the accessories
add up to maybe another $400. So, I do have a cheap bike, but it's still not
so cheap to replace, and doing so is a rather big time commitment.

~~~
mahyarm
I mount head and tail lights on a helmet so I don't have to care about that
part. You can also put lights on your bags too. The lights are often the most
expensive part.

For stronger wheels & tires, I'd just get a thicker tire bike. For a strong
frame I just go with cromoly. You don't need anything special then as far as
strength goes. The rack, fenders and strap can be had for $50 total after all
of that.

------
buro9
I'm not sure it's fair to say that every bike sold on Craigslist is stolen,
which is pretty much what their "stolen bike finder" tool suggests.

To then offer a classifieds tool seems a bit off... especially since there's
nothing to say that stolen bikes are not being sold their either other than
their word. But then, Craigslist would surely say that they don't support
selling stolen goods either.

Mostly, as someone who runs one of the largest bike forums in the world, I'm
unimpressed.

But as I don't like commenting negatively without at least thinking how I'd
possibly do it better.

Provenance.

I would love to see something like <http://velospace.org/node> that provides
profiles of bikes, but with the capability of registering the components too.

Such that it becomes a database of bikes over time, you'd see what bits you
changed when, etc.

If your bike gets stolen then you have a record that it was yours, and you
mark it as stolen and it auto-alerts the police as well as auto-searching
classifieds sites. And you'd have a record of anything you changed that helps
identify it.

If you sell your bike, you assign the bike to the new owner, and the bike now
shows who currently owns it as well as who used to own it... the bike gets
provenance. A nice history of what it looked like when, and how owns it now.

With a bicycle provenance database you combine the best of buying a bike,
owning a bike and selling a bike... whilst at the same time making it very
easy for people to find the bike online if it gets stolen, and very easy to
find it if it gets sold online. You have the ability to prove it was yours.

So what I'd like to see are sites like velospace expand into managing the
provenance of bikes and for that to be used as a major deterrent to bike
theft.

~~~
rohin
We considered the "registry" angle but decided against it since it only works
if everyone uses it. We wanted to build a tool that could be useful without
needing any network effects to kick in.

~~~
buro9
Sure, but registries don't have to just be focused on "find once stolen". Who
wants to fill that in?

Velospace is a great example of a registry based on people loving their bike
and wanting to share it. People use it even without the trace functionality.
It didn't need to overcome any network effects, people love posting pictures
of their bike online and talking about it only second to posting pictures of
cats.

What I'm saying is:

Build something that has such a great utility without your bike being stolen,
such that if that unfortunate event occurs you already have a record of the
provenance constructed.

If someone builds that, then I will email my 22,000 London cycling contacts
and tell them to put their details in. And then I will post on my forum, and
then I will email other forum admins (and I know a fair few personally) and
say... this is awesome, tell your users too.

And people will do it, because they love posting readers wives pictures of
their bikes online and would love to do so yet again and talk about it.

And with all of the avid cyclists reached pretty quickly, the utility cyclists
would follow naturally as more blogs, forums and magazines say, "use this
awesome registry to keep your bike safe".

Seriously, I'd champion it. I might even build it... #4 on my list of startups
to make if Microcosm fails.

------
bdr
I'm impressed by your transition from the blog post to doing this site, and
hopeful that a site like this one will finally take hold. Good luck!

~~~
kunle
Likewise. Seems like a smart use of the pricenomics search/algorithm engine.

------
ianlevesque
I don't understand what they are actually doing to prevent the sale of stolen
bikes through their site? I don't see anything on the bike listing or stolen
bike search pages that would help with this.

~~~
rohin
Primarily community driven to raise red flags about stolen bikes. That said,
it's pretty easy to look at an advertisement for a bike and know if the seller
actually knows anything about it.

~~~
kunle
2 ideas: 1\. stolen bike finder button should stand out a bit more. maybe in
red (btn-danger) 2\. Dont have a stolen bike but is there a way to flag
listings so that other browsers know they are browsing a stolen bike. Might
auth with a social network and require a couple friends to flag it as well (so
individuals dont do it maliciously). But would massively improve your data and
would help the community self police.

~~~
phreeza
How would people identify stolen bikes that are not their own?

~~~
ipsin
I've seen suspicious craigslist ads in the past.

Many bikes photographed in the same spot. Poor-quality photographs (blurry,
etc.) that make it difficult to pick out distinguishing marks. Very little
detail about the bike's components.

None of these are proof of a stolen bike, but each is a useful flag, an
indicator that the ad is worth further scrutiny, and flagging could help
people looking for their bike.

------
jdietrich
One of the great frustrations of bike theft is that we know almost nothing
about it. Auto insurers have an obvious incentive to research auto theft,
which has led to numerous innovations in theft prevention. Things like locking
wheel nuts, radio coding and immobilisers have hugely reduced automotive
theft. With no such interested body in cycling, any efforts to reduce cycle
theft are just guesswork.

We have absolutely no idea whether chains are better than D-locks. We don't
know which kinds of bicycle are most likely to be stolen. We don't know what
the most common methods of lock removal are. We don't know if any of the
tracking products actually provide a deterrent or facilitate recovery. It's
practically impossible to give good advice beyond the most basic aspects of
using a good quality lock and parking in a busy area.

If anyone can think of a good approach to gathering this data then please let
me know - I believe it's the biggest single solvable problem in cycling
development.

~~~
corin_
With a little time and a little money it wouldn't be hard to get answers
straight from bike thieves themselves. Give me a day and £200 and I don't
think I'd have a problem getting taken along watching bikes being stolen while
being talked through it all.

------
Camillo
Let's say a bike would normally last you ten years, but it gets stolen every
two. Each time you buy a new one. Therefore, there are now five as many bikes
as needed. But then, why isn't the market saturated? How can it sustain such a
high churn rate? It seems to me that bike thieves need a way to get bikes out
of the market, too. They can do it in two ways: by hoarding bikes
([http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/FORDSVTPARTS/Bikes/bik...](http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/FORDSVTPARTS/Bikes/bikes.jpg))
or by destroying them. Couldn't something be done about that side of the
equation? Reporting people who have abnormal numbers of bikes, or who sell
hundreds of old bikes for scraps?

~~~
streptomycin
_But then, why isn't the market saturated?_

Because the price isn't fixed. If you dump a whole bunch of bikes on the
market, you'll have to lower your prices to sell them.

~~~
msrpotus
Also, people need new bikes. Bikes break, people want a new bike, people stop
riding and just store their bikes, and people whose bikes are stolen need new
bikes. Neither supply nor demand is absolutely fixed.

------
socallj
Has anyone ever considered engineering a disable feature into bikes? What if
there was, for example, a lock for the crank that would require too much work
to defeat/break. The thief wouldn't steal the bike because his
costs/time/difficulty would go up. Car stereo manufacturer's had this same
issue a couple of decades ago. One brilliant solution was a removable
faceplate for the the stereo. The owner just pulled that out (about the size
of an iPhone 5) and took it with him/her when leaving the car. Another
solution was to put a matching chip in the speakers...if the stereo was stolen
and connected to an unmatched set of speakers, it wouldn't work. Let's get
creative and end bike theft!

~~~
bazzargh
It's been done a few times. Biomega and Puma made a bike with a structural
wire that could be used to lock the bike; cutting the wire made the bike
unrideable. There's the n'lock, which lets you turn MTB style handlebars
sideways for hallway storage, but also acts as a theft deterrent, since you
can't ride the bike with floppy bars. Removable pedals (Wellgo QRD, MKS EZY,
etc). And dozens more.

There's a problem with designs like this. Bikes are very portable; thieves can
walk with them, shoulder them, stick them in a van. The designs do not
discourage the thief from cutting your U-lock in the first place - they only
discover the bike is unrideable as they try to leave, and your bike still has
value in parts.

------
cjfont
I've always thought that bicycles should have a standard ID number similar to
how vehicles have a VIN (a BIN maybe?). This would go a long way in allowing
victims to search for their bike in a registry, and also allow buyers to
confirm the bike they're buying from some flea market wasn't nabbed the week
prior somewhere. To me this would be the first step no-brainer to helping
discourage this kind of theft.

~~~
ghayes
I think this is clearly the easiest solution to the problem if we want to fix
it in the long run. It requires people to boycott bikes with a scratched off
BIN, but shaming can go a long way to adjust demand. +1

------
kazevedo
I like the concept - a good addition would be to provide reporting and/or
policing tools if you find a stolen bike (notify the local PD perhaps, or
automatically send CL a takedown notice). It seems like Craigslist would be
the first place you go if your (nicer) bike gets stolen, so as it stands, the
Racklove search engine doesn't provide a lot of extra value.

As someone who works to provide better access to bikes via bike-sharing, I've
seen that it's actually an incredible way to prevent bike theft. Sharing
systems are over-engineered to the point where they're very difficult to mess
with. However, deterrence for personal bike theft is an interesting problem.
Despite the prevalence of bikes, nobody has found a method to secure or track
them that's better than a standard U-lock. We're close to the point where GPS
units could be installed on many bikes at reasonable cost, but it's still not
easy. Something to work towards, or perhaps there's an easier solution out
there.

------
marquis
I'd propose another feature: you can upload a picture of your stolen bike
(make one now!) and crowd-source finding a match. Like others have said here:
even if one person finds their bike on this service it's worth it. I've had
bikes and bike parts stolen all over the world and I won't buy another one as
I can't keep it indoors where I live at the moment. This service won't make me
change my mind to buy another one but I might spend a few minutes a week
comparing bike pictures as a good samaritan.

------
digisth
More private garages that accept bikes would go a long way towards mitigating
the problem. They've just started appearing here in NYC (the muni garages
are/were free, but maintenance and sanitation seemed like major issues) so
I've started using them. I've been using Parkfast (<http://www.parkfast.com/>)
for about 6 months and have been very happy with them. Your bike gets some
protection from the elements too. $20/month

------
jff
The major problem with trying to locate a stolen bike is that it's quite
likely not being listed as a "1995 Schwinn YZ123", it's listed as "MANS BIKE
L@@K".

------
andrewtbham
Makes me think of this:

25\. A Craigslist competitor. Craiglist is ambivalent about being a business.
This is both a strength and a weakness. If you focus on the areas where it's a
weakness, you may find there are better ways to solve some of the problems
Craigslist solves.

<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

------
jasondenizac
It seems like a good way to legitimize a bike market place is to require
listings to prominently feature bike serial numbers to search for their bike,
thus reducing the revenue potential for flipping stolen bikes (and playing
into the market theory in the linked article).

------
jonasg12
Really awesome, not sure how Racklove will prevent thives from selling stolen
bikes... Maybe if it will be integrated more with FB, it will be less likely
that thieves will use their real fb profile.

------
heyrhett
spoiler alert:

[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&noj=1&site=webhp...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&noj=1&site=webhp&source=hp&q=site%3Acraigslist.org+bianchi)

~~~
wtvanhest
Try doing that for trek and you end up with 67000 results. I don't think that
would work.

------
sixQuarks
It sounds like Priceonomics is pivoting... into a bike classified site.

~~~
rohin
Not likely. This was a self-contained project to scratch our own itch.

------
EGreg
A rabbi visiting my house had an easier solution:

Every time he left his bike, he removed the seat and carried it with him.
Annoying to steal a bike without a seat! Cost goes up!

~~~
corin_
Annoying if youre an amateur about to ride off on it, not particularly
annoying if you have a van to load it into.

------
Natsu
Weird. The story with the YouTube video of the bike theft sting has apparently
been taken down for violating the YouTube ToS.

------
di
This is yet another Craigslist scraper, no?

So it's vulnerable to the same issue that Padmapper, Carsabi, etc. have met...

------
benjiweber
A similar service for London <http://bikeshd.co.uk>

------
ajcarpy2005
The city should place closed circuit cameras near bike racks and prosecute the
thieves seriously.

------
lurkinggrue
Found my lost bike the the basement of the Alamo.

