Index Your Bike

List your bike on Bike Index, right now

As always, the best prevention to bike theft is to lock your bike securely. But if your bike is stolen, you will have wished you had indexed your bike.  Recovering stolen bikes is already very difficult, so don’t make it harder by not having any record of your bike.

There is no official bike registration system in Seattle or Washington State, although some employers and college campuses require people to index their bikes.  Bike Index and Project 529 are the two leading online bike registration systems.  The services are free and easy, so do it now.

Tips when indexing your bike:

• Provide multiple photos of your bike from multiple angles.
• Include a photo of the bike’s serial number, which is usually under the bike’s bottom bracket.
• Include a selfie photo of yourself with your bike.
• Provide a detailed description of your bike and all its components, scratches and stickers.
• Regularly update your bike’s registration page. If you add or remove accessories on your bike, take new pictures of your bike.

Bike Index

• Largest and most successful registration and bike recovery website in the country, with more than 4,400 recoveries in the last few years.
• Partnerships with the University of Washington, University of Maryland, and University of Pittsburgh.
• Searching for stolen bicycles is very easy.
• Police departments, including the Seattle Police Department, King County Sheriff’s Office, University of Washington Police, and many others, regularly searches Bike Index for stolen bikes.
• All bikes listed as stolen on Bike Index get added that day to LeadsOnline, a stolen goods database that pawn shops are legally required to check against. Bikes reported as stolen to police departments take longer than the amount of time a pawn shop is required to hold bikes prior to sale, so the integration of Bike Index into LeadsOnline addresses a significant problem that existed up until November 2016.
• If your bike is ever stolen, the volunteers who run Bike Index work exceptionally hard to scour Craigslist, OfferUpNow, and other online sites to help you recover your bike.  They also have a big twitter following through their local twitter accounts (@stolenbikessea, @stolenbikespdx, @stolenbikereg, @stolenbikespo, etc.) that helps crowdsource the search for your stolen bike.
• You can buy a Bike Index RFID tag that directly connects your bike to your Bike Index registration.
• Bike Index is a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon.

Index your bike on Bike Index >>

Project 529 Garage

• Mobile app that helps keep your bike’s profile updated with the latest photos and that sends push-notifications of recent nearby stolen bike reports.
• Integrates with your Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ profiles, providing added assurance that the posted bikes belong to the people indexed on the site.
• Search and email notification alert systems that increase the odds you can find your stolen bike.
• For purchase, you can buy a unique sticker that acts as a second serial number for your bike.
• Integrates all bikes reported as stolen on Bike Index, but does not share its data back with Bike Index.
• Project 529 is a corporation based in Seattle with significant partnerships with police departments in British Columbia.

Index your bike on Project 529 Garage >>

Comparing Bike Index & Project 529 Garage