Bike Theft: You May Regret Your Apple AirTag or Tile Stickers. Plus Bonus Anti-Theft Options.

I just got my electric scooter back thanks to my AirTag! I tracked it to the thief's house and saw him taking it inside, the right moment at the right time. Called the police after an initial report that lead to nothing, but they did take action this time when I tell them as a witness I saw him, they questioned him and basically they could tell he had it, and retrieved my $800 scooter and took the guy in handcuffs.

You can easily disable the speaker on your Airtags. While they will still receive the notification and map view, but the speaker will not work, and you will have valuable information on the location of your bike. It is not enough for a search warrant or probable cause, but it can certainly help.

The government needs to take theft seriously and not just give thieves a slap on the wrist or even no punishment at all. I have had things stolen at least half a dozen times, and it always scares my wife and makes me paranoid about any sounds at night. They really have to track down thieves and deliver strong justice to them, ankle monitors and curfews for a first offence, not just giving them probation to not get caught for 90 days. Everything is so expensive nowadays, and replacing a bike or camera or phone takes so much work to cover the cost and hassle of replacing something. I got a security camera for safety, and they smashed the cage around it and stole the camera, luckily they had their face in front of the camera and had a facial tattoo so were easily identified and got put away for 6 months. The police weren't even going to pursue it till I kept pushing for it, they really didn't care till I complained, but it still took 18 months to get them and I still didn't get my camera returned, or the cage fixed.

Air tags have been used to recover thousand of stolen cars and bicycles, it still by far the best tool to locate.

There is so much information left out of this video: Removing the speaker from an AirTag is trivial, it removes the audible alerts and makes finding the tag harder, Tile stickers ONLY locate when they in in proximity to a phone whose owner uses Tiles while AirTags ping off of every iPhone out there. There have been billions of iPhones sold, how many Tiles users are there? Another point to make is that there is NOTHING you can put on a bike that would give a police officer probable cause to enter a domicile without a warrant to retrieve a bike, an AirTag is still the best option. Also, forget the simple AirTag stealth accessories, I put an AirTag inside the bottom bracket area. It works fine there (carbon frame) and good luck trying to find it, much less remove it. I doubt a bike thief would have the specialized tools necessary to remove the bottom bracket. Are these options a guarantee? No, but they are the best we can do. Another point to make is that many bike computers (I use a Garmin) have an alarm mode that will alert your phone/watch if someone moves your bike (you must be within Bluetooth range), this is the only device that I have had to use. I was in a fast food place when someone moved my bike (it was only to make room for their bike) but I was alerted on my watch and darted outside to hear the bike computer alarm sounding. Again, not perfect but securing a bike is not a matter of using one device, it is a layered approach and the more layers, the better.

I removed the speaker from my AirTag and put it inside my tubeless tire with the Muc-Off stealth AirTag holder. The only way a thief would be able to find it would be to remove my tire from the rim 😏

I keep a couple of those small little luggage padlocks purchased from the Dollar stores. I put these through the links on my chain to stop it from going over the chain ring. They're out of sight usually and will stop a thief from riding away on your bike only (they won't know what is stopping them at first). They are not the easiest to cut off either so don't lose the keys.

Great information. Being very "old school" I didn't know anything about air tags or tile stickers. Always good to learn something new. Thank you Dylan 😊

You can buy a knog alarm that uses the air tag network system but adds a vibration alarm. And it doesn’t do stalker anything

Great advice! Thanks for the share i learned a lot in this video. I use a tile and installed a alarm I bought off Amazon, it's actually a pretty good add on. Again appreciate the help and advice.

Great info I have one myself ands it’s great for loosing keys and stuff

I take my bicycle in the store, the bank, the hardware store ect. I resupply by ordering the groceries and waiting at the grocery pickup parking area.

I use an Invoxia tracker. I saw it briefly in your video when you were highlighting other YT videos. I paid upfront for the version that has 2 years of included LTE tracking. Which means it has GPS, LTE and Bluetooth. It also has a very sensitive movement detector, so if anyone is outside messing with your bike while you grab a drink it will pretty much instantly notify your phone. I have almost nothing bad to say about it, aside for maybe the size. It obviously isn't as small as a tile or airtag, so hiding it takes more creativity. But it's also pretty obscure, so a thief may find it but will they even know what it is?

Food for thought. Thanks.

Thanks. Great video

I personally like the kryptonite chain lock... but it's very heavy.

Two anti theft tactics I've used traveling solo: 1Take a quick release lever with me and leave the wheel a bit wonky. 2) Release the air from a tire giving it a reinflatable flat. Take the pocket pump with me. I walk up rocking this look if necessary. Others too fragile to mention here.

You could make additional countermeasures in the form of changing front gear to the lowest chainring but without pedalling, so once someone will start pedalling gear will change and if someone will try to pedalling fast then he could lost balance and found himself on sidewalk... with bleeding limbs or another injuries. But be very careful cause you may fall into your own trap.

whenever I have leave my bit for a bit to go into a store. I put the bike in the biggest gear then stop. Once stopped, i push my gear shifter so the gears will fall all the way down when pedaled. if you try to jump on it and pedal it, it will lock up the rear wheel.

As mentioned in comments, diy disabling of speaker might be done. And I think I recall Apple stating AirTags weren't offered as an anti-theft product. - And yes, I wish it did work as one. Video laid out a lot of the difficulties with using one for dealing with someone stealing your bike.