Police raid bike shop and recover £20,000 worth of stolen bikes

hmm, it did seem a bit odd for a bike shop to be involved in that. I have no doubt this sort of thing goes on privately though.

I dont know if any of you guys are aware but this case now looks more and more like the police have made a large screw-up, many of the 'stolen' bikes have been identified on forums as being in the shop for repair
The bike shop does run an ebay business as do most bike shops these days

Its sad that the police arent actually able to get the real bike thieving scrotes instead making a headline grabbing raid on a real bike shop!

Ive heard of companies laser etching names/graphics onto bikes as this is almost impossible to remove. My tutor at uni used to put his pinarello and principia frames in our lazer cutter and create really snazzy and detailed designs that incorporated his name and do a light sweep (about 1mm down) into his seat tube.

Years and years ago I did jury service and one of the cases that came up was a bike stealing ring in East London - they weren't very sophisticated it was a numbers game –quantity rather than quality – but they whole thing unravelled for them when they nicked a bike that had been slightly customised and the owner then spotted it a few weeks later, stopped the fella riding it, called a passing cop over… etc etc.

That, and a few other cases I've heard off brought it home to me that personalising your bike while it may not deter thieves is one way of upping the chances of it getting back to you if it is nicked.

I'm surprised that no-one has come up with some sort of stencilling kit so you can paint your name on your bike, or that bike shops don't offer the service (maybe some do) in the same way that people often have their names painted on custom frames.

That kind of thing does seem to be pretty common around these parts (Bristol), particularly people with high end MTBs. I had all the wheels nicked off my car on Monday night and all I could think was 'thank god they didn't try the garage!' - can't imagine how gutting it must be to lose the best bike(s).

There was a similar case here in London a couple of years back. And as I said in an earlier thread, a visit to Brick Lane market made it very clear to me how many dodgy sellers there were around and how many people seemed perfectly willing not to ask questions if what they wanted was being sold cheaply.

Sadly that seems to be the unwelcome side of cycling's rise in popularity

Granted, there has been a marked uptic in bike thievery this summer. With university starting up, I went ahead and made use of one of the free public BikeRegistry services off the net to register and TAG my bike, in advance of a visit from such scumbags.