Moving to a new house with a detached garage. Keeping the bikes in the house will be tough, so looking to figure out how to keep the bikes safe in the detached garage. Anything good solutions to avoid bike theft in the event of a garage break-in?
BQ
We do not park in our detached garage, it’s only used for storage.
To help keep things safe
- I’ve detached the automatic opener and I manually lock the garage door. Prior to that, I zip-tied the emergency release in a what that someone cannot unlatch it from the outside, but I could use it as needed from inside.
- I’ve covered the window on the entry door so that no one can peer inside.
- I’ve installed a smart-lock on the entry door so that it automatically locks.
- I’ve reinforced the strike plates in the door jam with an additional metal plate and screws that go into the adjacent studs.
- I keep it lit so that it can be seen from the backyard camera.
- I have a camera in the garage that alerts with any movement inside the garage.
- My Strava has a privacy zone so that people cannot see my house location
Amazingly detailed response! I’ll be using lots of your suggestions.
One thing i dont see is whether you lock your bike up to any piece of the garage to make it more challenging for a quick smash and grab thief. Not necessary?
I keep my bikes locked in a locked garage. Just a 10’ long 3/8 steel cable run thru the frames, wheels, and an anchor in the concrete floor. Simple padlock.
Nothing special, but one more deterrent a thief would have to defeat after gaining entry.
We do not park in our detached garage, it’s only used for storage.
To help keep things safe
- I’ve detached the automatic opener and I manually lock the garage door. Prior to that, I zip-tied the emergency release in a what that someone cannot unlatch it from the outside, but I could use it as needed from inside.
- I’ve covered the window on the entry door so that no one can peer inside.
- I’ve installed a smart-lock on the entry door so that it automatically locks.
- I’ve reinforced the strike plates in the door jam with an additional metal plate and screws that go into the adjacent studs.
- I keep it lit so that it can be seen from the backyard camera.
- I have a camera in the garage that alerts with any movement inside the garage.
- My Strava has a privacy zone so that people cannot see my house location
Where the hell do you guys live, that all of the above are necessary? It’s really sad. The only missing element is a camera-based AI-enabled fire gun on a rotational basis - same as they do with water sprinkles for wild animals.
For reference, whenever I receive a new Canyon bike delivery, the courier leaves the big carton box at the front door and it waits for me to come back from work.
I’m out of town for the next 4 weeks. My front door is unlocked, my storage garage (tools, riding mower, etc) doesn’t even have a door and my main garage is never locked. I think my neighbors would have words with anyone who was poking around for too long. And if my neighbors needed anything, they’d be welcome to it.
Amazingly detailed response! I’ll be using lots of your suggestions.
One thing i dont see is whether you lock your bike up to any piece of the garage to make it more challenging for a quick smash and grab thief. Not necessary?
If you live in an area where the risk of that kind of theft is high, thieves might have power tools to deal with that. If it’s easy to lock up, do it, but it’s just one layer of defense.
Same goes for putting an AirTag in your frame. A thief might find it - or not. But it’s easy to do.
I work in risk management, so much of my world view is through that lens. If we think about it from a likelihood / impact standpoint, someone breaking into the garage may be low, but the impact is high if your high dollar bikes (and other items) are stolen. What they listed seems like relatively easy and cheap solutions (controls) to reduce the likelihood even more. If you start at a different likelihood (maybe living in an extremely low crime area) or have a lower impact (maybe you can afford to replace or have insurance that covers full replacement cost) then your calculus is different.
We do not park in our detached garage, it’s only used for storage.
To help keep things safe
- I’ve detached the automatic opener and I manually lock the garage door. Prior to that, I zip-tied the emergency release in a what that someone cannot unlatch it from the outside, but I could use it as needed from inside.
- I’ve covered the window on the entry door so that no one can peer inside.
- I’ve installed a smart-lock on the entry door so that it automatically locks.
- I’ve reinforced the strike plates in the door jam with an additional metal plate and screws that go into the adjacent studs.
- I keep it lit so that it can be seen from the backyard camera.
- I have a camera in the garage that alerts with any movement inside the garage.
- My Strava has a privacy zone so that people cannot see my house location
Where the hell do you guys live, that all of the above are necessary? It’s really sad. The only missing element is a camera-based AI-enabled fire gun on a rotational basis - same as they do with water sprinkles for wild animals.
For reference, whenever I receive a new Canyon bike delivery, the courier leaves the big carton box at the front door and it waits for me to come back from work.
Not a single thing that was listed is out of the ordinary nor requires any effort above and beyond what many people do for basic home deterrents on a regular basis. It’s not sad by any means. It’s unfortunate that thieves steal, however your response makes it seem like they suggested digging a moat and booby trapping their house when in reality its a basic home security camera that about half of all American homes have, some beefed up door jambs which many people suggest doing, and smart locks which many people also have. These are basic and often the cheapest upgrades to a house. The rest is just common sense: cover windows, no automatic opener, outdoor lighting for common areas, edit strava settings, etc.
Thieves stealing things out of garages is nothing new. Expensive bikes are stolen frequently enough that it is a concern but are by no means the only things thieves look to steal out of garages. Certain areas are higher risk than others. Crimes like what we’re discussing are often opportunistic and can happen in waves. It is a non-issue until it isn’t.
I like the list from pickels. Only thing Id add is a lock inside the garage for the bikes themselves. Or keep the wheels in a different place so its harder to transport.
Our garage is detached + is a bike and gear storage building, it’ll never see a car in it in my lifetime.
The main door is power operated, but only with a rddio key fob. No buttons inside or out. The driver motor also has a small solenoid locking pin too so if they try to force the door upwards there’s more resistance + sets an alarm off. Neither are 100% secure, but would take more than just a crow bar to force open. (Made by Sommer / Teckentrup).
I can also get a couple of steel carabiner into the mechanism if we’re going away, so the whole door jams and won’t slide up. They’d have to rip the whole door out of the frame to get in.
Side door is probably the weaker point. Similar construction to the main door (steel/laminated / insulated) and we put a 3* break-away lock onto it (most houses get broken into by someone snapping the lock barrel on a ‘euro’ style lock - in 5 seconds flat with mole grips or similar. Break-away lock barrels just break in a place where the door remains locked.
https://www.ultion-lock.co.uk/.
I’ve also then got some strong points into the wall, and lock all the bikes to it + to each other, so it’s a PITA to nick them and will have to do multiple cuts of cables and chains. The most pricey bikes are secured with a hefty Kryptonite chain to the strong point (which Kryptonite and others make).
I have had bikes stolen from a friend’s house, despite hit garage being well secured and all the bikes locked up. So it’s still possible. This (new MTB, 1 ride only on it at the time) probably taints my view.
Finally… there’s enough shite in there that hopefully they will trip, break their necks and either garote or skewer themselves on garden equipment, when entering or trying to take a bike !
Death to bike thieves !
We have a ring camera focused on the big garage door, and one on the front porch that catches our back garage door and home front door. So far over the last three years we’ve seen cats and dogs and raccoons, a turtle, some skunks, a few possums, and UPS, FedEx, USPS, and guests we knew were coming. No one has so much as snooped around, or tried our locked garage doors, but if they had, we would have seen it real time, and had a video record of it. The highlight has been catching the neighborhood dog walker who wasn’t picking up his dogs shit.
The number 1 garage security move is keep the garage door closed as much as possible - not just to keep people out but to keep passers by from seeing what it in there. Between all the delivery folks, lawn crews, construction crews etc, even a quiet neighborhood is going to have dozens of people passing by your garage every week. All you need is one of them without morals to see something they like and its gone.
Once my kids stopped leaving the door open all day, I stopped getting stuff stolen out of my garage 
A “smart” garage door opener can send you a text when the door has been left open and you can close it from your phone. There are ways to have a garage door auto close after a set time period.
I typically have at least $300K worth of bike frames and parts in my detached garage. The roll up doors are always locked, but the man door that we use to go to the house is almost always open.