Stolen Bikes UK (and FindThatBike/CheckThatBike) were setup when I had my own bike stolen as a hobby primarily aimed at building the tools I need to get my own bike back and helping others along the way. It morphed into this project that has I think achieved it’s goals in hitting bike thieves where it hurts and helping spur innovation in bicycle registers (I think it's pretty clear a certain register has been taking notes).
It’s now been over 13 years and the services has grown to:
- 54,186 stolen bikes listed and 2,650 recorded as recovered
- 5.4 million CheckThatBike queries to registers we supported on the service, resulting in 218,968 frame numbers flagged
- 2.6 million emails sent every year
- 60,000 likes/follows on social media
- Too many media requests to count
All big numbers no doubt but unfortunately it comes at an operational cost that is no longer self sustained by advertising, add to that a need to focus elsewhere, a lack of time and an increase in effort required to keep the service running smoothly and it’s no longer a project that takes the priority it should.
I will continue to watch this space, I still stand by my premise that Check That Bike! should have been the service that changed how UK handled theft by making it incredibly simple (and free) to check identifying numbers (i.e frame numbers) against any number of databases (be they government or private). However a lack of interest in police forces both in providing a way to query internal stolen items datasets and/or making it a term in their contract for registers they work with make it unworkable at this time until something happens at a central government level.
The below will outline what is going to happen in the run up to closing the site at the end of July 2025
- Email With Your Data
I will be sending an "End of the Road" email with details about each of your bike(s) that we have in the database. - Opt-In Transfer
In the same email there will be a button for transfering your bike data to Bike Index, also available via your dashboard after logging in. - Open Data
I'll be publishing Anonymoised data sets to enable research into UK bike theft, if you don't want to be included then there is a link in the above email or a link in your dashboard for deleting your account. - Domain/Social Media
I'll be on the lookout for a home for the domain and social media (no data or code available). - Site Deletion
The site and all backups will be deleted at the end of July 2025.
It’s been a journey!
John
twitter.com/x41x41x41
linkedin.com/in/mossj