Here's a very frightening statistic...80% of bike thefts happen right at home. However, if you take a few pre-cautions, you can increase the chances of keeping your bike for awhile. While a determined thief or band of thieves will be able to by-pass any pre-caution you take, hopefully, if you put enough deterrents in front of them, they'll move on to an easier target.

Alarms

Alarms used to be very popular many years ago but unfortunately, these days even the wailing siren of an alarm doesn't stop the more determined thieves. They will just ignore the decibels, pick the bike up, throw it in a van and drive away, alarm still blaring away. Even if the alarm is activated and attracts attention, many people won't know what to do or are not willing to do anything to stop the crime. Fortunately, the newest and most advanced alarms come with two-way pagers which will alert the bike owner and tell him/ her when their prized possession has been disturbed. It will also tell the owner on the small screen of the pager whether it's just been touched, moved or has been carted away. Arguably one of the best in the industry is the Scorpio SR-i500. This security system is designed specifically for motorcycles and has a 1/2 mile radius transmitter. Their small transceiver incorporates an interactive LCD display. For more information, visit www.scorpioalarms.com.

Chains and locks

The disc-lock is probably the most popular anti-theft device. It is compact enough to throw in the storage areas of you bike or throw it into your back-pack or tank bag. They are also relatively inexpensive. Disc-locks typically go between the holes in your brake rotors to prevent the bike from rolling, thus preventing the would-be thief from just rolling your bike away. Unfortunately, they do not prevent the bike from just being picked up by a few thugs and tossed into the back of a truck or van. A better idea would be to chain or lock your bike to something solid like a lamp-post or ground anchor. You can do so using a chain, a reinforced cable or a u-lock. This prevents your bike from being wheeled away or picked-up. Most of these specially-made chains and cables are strong enough that it would take a thief a few minutes to cut through them but they are by no means completely fool-proof. The most well-known company that makes motorcycle locks is Kryptonite. They make a variety of disc-locks, cable locks, chains and u-locks that are designed specifically for motorcycles. You can see the range of their products at www.kryptonitelock.com.

And the most important theft-deterant...

...is common sense!!! While some of the general population lack much of it, I would like to give my fellow motorcyclists the benefit of the doubt and say that most motorcyclists have a good degree of it. As much as possible, try to keep the bike out of sight. As the old saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. If you cannot keep your motorcycle in a locked garage, try to park it behind your house where it cannot be easily seen. Worse comes to worse, throw a bike cover over it. Also, try not to linger in front of your place of residence or work for too long with your motorcycle. This might alert would-be thieves to the whereabouts a motorcycle would be parked at certain times of the day.

Keeping your bike to yourself...

While there is no sure-fire way to keep your bike from being stolen, if you give the thieves many obstacles to by-pass just to get your prized two-wheeler, you might find that they will leave your bike alone to look for an easier target. Whenever at home, the best you can do is use the steering lock and chain your motorbike to something secure in a locked garage, Lock it or lose it...



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Shawn H. Ooi is a resident of Los Angeles and has been riding motorcycles for over 14 years. He has owned many makes and models of motorcycles and his current ride is a Ducati 748. Shawn is also one of the owners of Moomba Cyclesports Inc., which specializes in suspension set-ups and race-tuning. Moomba Cyclesports also provides regular service & maintenance and does parts & motorcycle apparel sales. He can be reached at shawn@moombacyclesports.com or at (626) 618 0385.

Photo credit: Shawn Ooi

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