GPS tracker on bike and which one
 

Hello,

In January I hope to go to Colombia to ride through South America on my new BMW F750GS.

I take a brake disc lock and a cover for my bike with me and I try to park my bike in at a safe place at night (hotel parking area or so?), but I'm still a bit nervous about the risk that my bike will be stolen. Maybe because I lived in the centre of Amsterdam for 20 years and I would not let my bike there on the street at night without a big chainlock on something solid.

I'm now thinking of buying a GPS tracker and wonder if that will be a good idea. I don't see myself go after my bike after it has been stolen and I wonder if the police will do that.

If it is a good idea does anyone has an advice which one to buy and were to install it on the bike?

Thanks a lot!

Your instinct about not going after the bike is probably correct. Two additional thoughts:

1) A GPS tracker must *send* a signal for you to find the bike - so it must have a phone connection or something like that, and your bike may travel to an area without phone coverage, or the tracker's SIM card might not be supported.

2) It's easy to put a bike inside a metal shipping container etc. to block the signal. Assume that bike thieves know about GPS trackers and expect there to be one on a fancy expensive bike.

That said, compared to the price of an F750GS, the tracker will be inexpensive. If it gives you peace of mind, absolutely get one. Alternatively, consider buying a cheap bike locally so that you're not worried too much about it being stolen or breaking...

I was contemplating getting a GPS tracker for my bike but then saw the Apple air tag - much cheaper, a battery that is easily replaced and the tag will link into any Apple product so that the location can be a seen by one of the 1 billion Apple products that can use GPS. It connects by bluetooth to the, say, iPhone and piggy backs off the “Where’s my iPhone” system.

There are similar systems for Android but I suspect that they are not so widely uploaded whereas the Apple product is built into the Apple operating system - don’t worry, Big Brother is watching (out for) you.

As you and others say, once it's stolen forget about anyone, you or the police, ever finding it. It's gone.

So I would concentrate instead on preventing the theft in first place. Personally, I have so rarely found it necessary to park my bike on the street while traveling. This is, in fact, because I won't stay anywhere that doesn't have secure parking for my bike.

If the hotel can't come up with secure parking: a corner inside the gates, a guarded lot or a slot in a garage down the street, I'll move on.

A spot behind a gate where this hotel in Mexico kept their recycling. Worked fine for us...
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...720&fit=bounds

This was marginal but okay- out of sight and tucked away. My room is the only room back in that corner....
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...720&fit=bounds

A courtyard next to the gasthous in Tajikistan....

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...720&fit=bounds


Even a spot through the front door of the hotel and into an unused hallway, or the enclosed interior courtyard...

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...720&fit=bounds..



..................shu

I think that Shu has made the most practical suggestion, that being to only park the motorcycle in locations that you feel comfortable with.

I've done a lot of international touring over the past 20 years - all of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, and most of North Africa - and that is the strategy I have followed.

My experience has been that local providers of accommodation (hotels, guest houses, hostels, etc.) have a pretty good idea of what the security situation and risk levels in their community are, and they have already made provisions to provide an appropriate level of security for their own vehicles. Motorcycles are pretty small, relative to the hospitality operator's car or light truck, hence it's no problem for them to offer you space in a garage, fenced compound, barn, or whatever.

Antyx's idea of using an Apple tracking device sounds like it will address your desire to be able to find out where your motorcycle is if it does get stolen. If you use an Apple phone, it's probably the cheapest and easiest solution, although there might not be a lot of other Apple products in use in the less-wealthy countries that you plan to ride in. Realistically, though, I think Shu made the most realistic comment - if it does get stolen, once it's gone, it's gone. Face it, it's unlikely you are going to hang around in the location where it disappeared for long enough to be able to find it.

Michael

For me, committing to "always" finding secure parking for a bike is similar to committing to "never" riding at night in the less-well-lit corners of the world; I try to follow through, but in the end I ride at night sometimes (dodging sleeping animals, invisible pedestrians, and sometimes black ice and scary potholes), and I sometimes give up and just leave my bike out (with disc lock and cover, generally). Sometimes I've left it parked someplace marginal for a week or two--while flying back to the States for a wedding, on a boat trip to Antarctica, hiking the "W" in Torres del Paine, spending the day on the island of Capri....

Funny, but it's always been there when I returned. I wouldn't do this in London (unless pressed), and I try not to do it no matter where I end up. But sometimes it's a calculated risk and an exercise in non-attachment.

Mark

I have to agree. Prevention is always better than cure.

Prevention is also travelling on a bike you can afford to lose. It's easier to walk away from a £1500 old Transalp than a £20,000 BMW. It's also far less desirable to thieves although potentially easier to steal.

I had to park my DRZ in Barcelona city centre. On the street. Whilst in the hostel around the corner overnight. I didn't sleep a wink with worry.

Simple things like a good lock and a cover will help A LOT. There are lots of locks that look chunky but are hollow and easy to carry.


I wouldn't dismiss a tracker just yet. If you're bike is stolen, it's likely that it will be in a busy town or city. And I think you're likely to have signal in these areas. I find it very unlikely for it to be stolen in the countryside or superbs unless you're being naive about security.

Hello

Only if you are in a country with no TIP or CDP.

The parking situation is always my main concern when I look for a room.
First question how much is the room to see if that place is for me at all, second question is where can I park the bike.
Then I go and have a look at both, first the parking, then the room.

sushi

An apple air tag will only work properly when it is used in an area with a lot of iphone/ipad devices. The range of an air tag is max 100m outside without getting blocked by huge buildings made with a lot of steel. Inside a building the range varies between 15 to 45m still depending on the material and technical furnishing of the building.

Air tags are functioning pretty well where a lot people live in a relative small area as in congested and overcrowded areas. If you look to the statistics of iphone/ipad ownerships worldwide you recognize that these are mostly industrialized countries like US, UK, Japan and europe countries.

That you should have always in mind when you travel through south america and you are visiting small towns or areas with low population mostly creating a low income from agriculture or similar.

But you should also aware of that air tags could be used in a different way: If somebody is interested in you bike or car, he can place an air tag on it and track you all the day and night to find the right opportunity to steel your property.

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/2...technology.htm

https://www.businessinsider.com/appl...police-2021-12

There are lot of gps products who offer a tracking service like

- Trackimo TRKM007 GPS Tracker
- TrackmateGPS MINI PRO LTE GPS Tracker
- AES RGT90 GPS Tracker SMS Locator
- Racelogic VBox Sport
- ATian 303G GPS Tracker
- PAJ Motorrad GPS Tracker
- Globalstar SpotGen3

to name a few.

Best you can do is to use your senses and your personal feeling as well as to communicate with locals to find a safe spot to park. And not to use a bike looking brand new and telling everybody around you that you spent a lot of money for equipement on it. These types of bikes get stolen from people who know how to use a gps blocker.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...ocker&_sacat=0

In a lot of major cities, there is an option that would provide reasonable security against thieves - but at the cost of biker karma... so use this advice sparingly if at all!

Look for secure paid parking. Shopping centers, office buildings, etc. - anything that costs money to park a car. Ride in, take your ticket. There are cameras, there are usually guards to look out for shady characters. When you are ready to leave... it's usually easy to ride around the exit boom without paying.

Yes, it absolutely IS an asshole move. But yes, I have absolutely done it. In the same way that I have absolutely walked into the door of a paid toilet when someone else is coming out, without putting my coin in the machine. :)

To decrease the hit to your and fellow bikers' karma a little bit... try to park in a corner, or between pillars, or generally anywhere that a car would not be able to fit. So you're not taking away the parking operator's revenue for a car's worth of space.

Meh - if you present an official police report saying your bike has been stolen, that should be enough to get out of a TIP?

In general, I would definitely agree. But I do remember seeing a surprising amount of (three-generations-old) used iPhones on sale in the middle of a village in rural North Vietnam... :D It might be a surprise how many iPhones might end up with refurbished batteries in rural areas of the global South. (Not that this makes an airtag a viable tracker there. But hey, the airtag costs thirty bucks, it's worth a shot.)

Thanks a lot for all your advice!!!

A few days ago I bought a gps tracker of Monimoto. I thought it would be nice to find out where I left my bike! So often I forgot where I left it. I always try to make a picture of the street or make a waypoint on my gps, but sometimes I forget that and my memory and sense of direction are not exactly my best qualities...

But I am glad with the advice about secure parking. I used to book hotels and guesthouses in advance, but I think it is a better idea to just find something when I arrive in a village or town so I can check the parking.

To get a good insurance seems the best way to sleep more relaxed.

To be able to locate your bike, is not the same than get them back.

I did had to do a house search in peru by myself, after a enabled satellite messenger with livetracking was stolen...

Guess in many countrys the thiefes will get warned in front, before you can enter the terrain together with the officials.

My vehicle was always insured with mods, independend if it happens a break in or if it would get stolen - at least the cash will come back.

But yes, I did add a "delayed" disable function in my car, without a keypress you cant drive further than 1 kilometer, what can help for a steal / or too car jacking situation.

But: that is a big handicap where ever I had to give the car/keys away: mechanic, car cleaning, valet parking. Today I would opt just for the insurance....

The trip is the important thing, not the gear/vehicle itself.

A airtag with a disabled speaker dont hurt a lot - but it is not a livetracker with battery & "satellite network or mobile network & GPS" which you can exactly locate when you need it. Outside of the civilisation they will dont use jammers for avoiding the localisation.

Surfy

I mean that when I visit something during the day for a few hours I sometimes forget where I left my bike.

You can still book in advance, in fact it may be easier to find a place with secure parking if you use an online booking site.

These days I usually look at my maps at night in my hotel room and decide where I want to ride, how far I want to go and where I might want to end up. Then I get on Booking.com and do a search, looking for an economical hotel. Those kind of hotels very often use a a listing service because they are not so visible. They tend to be the kinds of places where local small business people or people visiting family might stay: clean, serviceable, not fancy, and relatively cheap.

These hotels almost always give information about their parking facilities, be it onsite or in a local garage or just on the street. If it's not clear what they have, you can send them a quick message to clarify it.

Sometimes they are hard to find if you just ride into town. We've all done that old neck wrenching act of scanning both sides of the street for hotels while staying safe in traffic- not so much fun.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...720&fit=bounds

...............shu