Markus P. parked his pedelec in the town of Riehen, east of Basel, in September and secured it with a bicycle lock as usual. An unpleasant surprise awaited him the next morning: his bike had been stolen in the middle of the night. He reported the theft in the IT’S MY BIKE app at 7:22 a.m. 

Thanks to the built-in GPS tracker, the IT’S MY BIKE team was able to trace the GPS signal very closely. The bike had been taken at about 1 a.m. and then presumably driven across the border into Germany in a vehicle. The IT’S MY BIKE team received the next accurate GPS signal from a mobile network base station in Bad Kreuznach, some 300 km away from the bike’s original location.   

The team then managed to pinpoint the pedelec’s precise location about an hour after the theft had been reported: It was transmitting a signal from near the town of Bad Sobernheim, not far from Bad Kreuznach. The Bike Hunter Team informed the police immediately. The stolen bike was recovered just one hour later. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the thief. 

 

*Name has been changed