Tips to outsmart bike thieves using Strava

It’s probably the first thing you do as a recreational cyclist before getting on your bike: turning on Strava. But sharing your route on the popular training app is not without risks. Thieves are watching too, but there are ways to mislead them through Strava.

“If it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen. So there are many people who like to upload their rides to Strava and then maybe forget to turn it off again. They forget that you can also see where someone lives through Strava,” points out Rolf van Wegberg, cybercrime researcher at TU Delft, in a feature on Editie NL.

Many cyclists also share the model of their bike via Strava, which can attract the wrong kind of attention. “Then you basically have all the ingredients together, and someone can easily look up how expensive a bike is. It becomes quite easy to see where someone lives and where the bike is kept.”

Recently, quite a few expensive racing bikes have been stolen from people, even though the solution is quite simple. “What you can do here is avoid entering your home address in Strava,” Van Wegberg advises.

“Strava can then cut out the section around your home from your rides. Another option is to set the start and end points of every ride to not be shown online.”