Jul 07, 2021A group of bikers and entrepreneurs have launched an RFID-based system to help consumers track and recover their bicycles if they are stolen. The solution, known as the Bikebac Tracker, is designed to return stolen bikes to their rightful owners if they are detected by RFID reader portals located in participating bike shops.
The solution was taken live in May 2021, and the company has been selling the tracker (a UHF RFID-enabled sticker) through bike shops and online, while deploying its reader portals in stores around the area of Whistler, Canada, in the province of British Columbia. During launch, the system was sold both via retail partners and online. Participants each receive a tracker label, and if their missing bike turns up at a shop, the owner will receive a text or e-mail alert indicating that it has been detected. The system then directs them to local authorities with a case number, or to the bike store to retrieve their property.
The company's cofounders—Vincent Grace, Brian White and Brandon Phillips—share a passion for biking, and they have combined backgrounds in business and technology. The trio launched the company this year as a solution to combat the rising rate of stolen bicycles in their area. All three are avid bikers, as White and Grace mountain-bike in British Columnia, while Phillips rides on roads in Calgary.
Two of Grace's bicycles were stolen while he was in school, and he never saw them again. White, on the other hand, says that although he's never lost his own bike, theft is prevalent and several of his friends have had their high-priced mountain bikes taken. On average, in fact, two million bikes are stolen in North America every year, according to statistics compiled by security software company Project 529.
In Vancouver, where the highest percentage of bikes are stolen among the major Canadian cities, 2,115 went missing in 2020. That is partly a result of the area's high bicycle use, White says, which has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Although around 50 percent of stolen bikes are recovered by police, only approximately 5 percent are actually returned to the owners, simply because the bikes are not registered in any way that would help police locate them. Often, for instance, bicycles are recovered during a police bust or are found where they were discarded. Project 529 provides a means for serialization to uniquely identify and register bikes, and Bikebac is intended to take that effort a step further.
Grace is a technologist with a background in using RFID to monitor athletes at trampoline parks and other sports facilities, as well as in Web development, so he was familiar with how to build an RFID solution and knew the potential benefits. Traditional bike-tracking systems often depend on GPS units, he says, but they tend to be high in cost and their batteries run out. Other products designed to track keys or wallets, such as the Tile App for lost and found goods, are not built for bicycle theft and, therefore, have their own shortcomings.
The Bikebac system
With radio frequency identification in mind, White says, the company considered the profile of most bike thieves. While some theft events are crimes of opportunity, with a thief stealing a bike to take an immediate ride, in most cases it's a matter of organized crime. Bicycles are being stolen at a large scale so that criminals can then convert those bikes into money. The cycles or their parts are sold quickly, and most bikes end up at a shop, either for repair work or resale.
"So how can we track those bicycles if they pop up later in a bike shop?" White asks. "We thought RFID was the best tool. [There are] no batteries, and the read range is great." The team developed a UHF RFID tag that could be discretely attached to a bike and transmit data reliably to a reader portal. A third-party manufacturer builds the tags, while Bikebac designed its own reader portals using off-the-shelf components, including an RFID reader and antenna, a 4G cellular modem and an embedded computer.
Bikebac maintains ownership of the portals, which it installs at bike stores that agree to participate. The reader requires only a power source. Consumers must first acquire the tag, then either install it or hide it on their bike. The tag comes with an adhesive backing so it can stick anywhere on the frame, or on or inside a tire. It is designed to be discrete-looking, and a bike shop could install it in such a way that the tag would be protected and invisible.
In the long term, White says, bicycle manufacturers might be able to build the tags directly into the bikes' components. Each tag comes with a year of alerting service from Bikebac, and users pay a $12 annual fee during subsequent years. They can follow setup instructions to first scan a QR code provided by Bikebac, then register for an account and add a bike by inputting a nine-digit code printed on the tag. The system provides videos to help users properly apply the tag to their bike.
For credential information, users can provide a phone number and an e-mail address so they can be contacted in the event that their missing bicycle is detected. If the tag is interrogated by a Bikebac reader at the entrance to a store, it will transmit its unique ID number, which will then be forward to Bikebac's cloud-based software, which will automatically issue an alert to the bike's registered owner. In addition, the system can send a case number that consumers can take to local police authorities, or they can proceed directly to the bike shop to recover their stolen property.
In order for the system to succeed, Bikebac explains, a widescale rollout of its technology at bike stores is required, and that process is now under way regionally, beginning with the Whistler area. For bike stores, the company explains, there is little investment—they simply agree to have the portal installed, and Bikebac then owns and maintains the reader infrastructure. The primary benefit for shops, Grace says, is the community service offering they can contribute to fighting bike theft. However, the system also provides financial renumeration, for if a shop sells the system to a customer, it will receive a portion of the installation and tag cost, as well as a percentage of the annual fees paid by the bike owner.
The technology is being deployed at a time when bike ownership is more expensive, the company reports, and also more popular than in previous years. The Sea-to-Sky Corridor region of British Columbia especially features a large number of bike shops, and those living in or visiting the area have a large playground in the form of the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, as well as local parks for downhill and cross-country biking. Many of the bicycles in the area sell for between $4,000 and $8,000 apiece.
In the long term, White says, the company plans to sell the solution throughout Canada and in the United States. "We are focused on growth," he states. The enthusiasm of bikers, along with the growing challenge of theft, are helping to drive the business in its early days, he reports. "The biking community is stoked on bikes, all the time. People spend 8, 10, 14 thousand on their bike; most people I know spent more on their bikes than on their car, so that's where our strength lies, with the passion of the community."
