Zero tolerance on bike theft Leading the way
Electric bike tech used to thwart thieves
ASSISTANT EDITOR, MOTORCYCLING
American electric motorbike manufacturer Zero fit their top-end bikes with some nifty security tech as standard and it worked to the advantage of one rider whose SR/S was stolen in Leeds last month.
Adam Sawkins parked his pride and joy outside the Arcade Club in the Headingley area of the city while he went inside. “A guy just said to me, ‘where’s your bike?’ and I said, ‘well it’s just…’ and it had utterly gone,” Sawkins told MCN. “There are a lot of cameras and so we watched the footage back and it’s four kids who turn up on three little 125s.
“One of them jumped on the bike and another one knelt down by the front wheel and the steering lock lasted half a second. It wasn’t even two seconds from jumping on the bike to pushing it off.”
Because the SR/S is fitted with Zero’s Cypher software, Zero were able to provide West
Yorkshire Police with its precise location. Cypher connects the bike wirelessly to the internet and lets owners customise various features and performance settings, check battery levels and run wireless software updates. The bike’s location is also ‘pinged’ to Zero each morning when it checks for these updates and it was this communication that gave Sawkins’ bike’s position away.
Once it had been recovered, Sawkins could head to a police impound yard to assess the damage. He continues: “The cheeky little scrotes had put a disc lock on it so no one could steal it back from their garden. I couldn’t believe it!
“I’ve been riding for 12 years and when I first started it was locks on, chains, locked together, locked to lamp posts and nothing ever happened so I got lazy. Hopefully my story will get around and people will say ‘don’t bother nicking that, it’s a Zero, it’s un-stealable’.”
Electric brands seem to be taking security more seriously than some traditional competitors. Zero’s anti-theft commitment, for example, doesn’t end with the tracking software that forms part of Cypher. Other equipment on the SR/S includes an RFID ignition key which prevents hotwiring and now Zero UK have put measures in place to prevent the sale of ignition lock and key sets without proof of ownership.
And even small electric scooter and moped brands like Super Soco and Niu include, as standard, tech like trackers, alarms, and motors that make it difficult for bikes to be freewheeled away.
‘Don’t nick that bike, it’s un-stealable’