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Around 50,000 motorcycles are stolen every year in the UK and 40% of them are never recovered, according to the Motorcycle Industry Association.

If we add to that fact news such as a scheduled disband of the Metropolitan Police's stolen vehicle squad from April 2012 due to budget cuts, the situation could not look worse for bikes owners.

An intelligent means of recovering a stolen motorcycle can be by fitting a tracking device to it.

Bike Trac, developed by Road Angel, has a motion detector that triggers a GPS receiver under suspicious circumstances. If the bike is moved more than a certain amount without the ignition being on, an alert is sent to the owner by email and text message.

This facility also gives valuable information on legitimate journeys by monitoring the bike position at regular intervals and updating data to the company computer servers.

That information is then processed to display the route on a Google Earth map with a "breadcrumb" trail, and even includes information on times and speeds.

Another advantage is the virtual invisibility of the system. The small black box is buried deep within the motorbike, so it is very unlikely to detect without some serious dismantling.

The cost of Bike Trac is £299 plus an annual subscription of £99 to cover the cost of the data transfer via the Orange phone network.

An alternative popular option is the T22 Moto Tracking Device developed by Tramigo. In the same way that Bike Track, the T22 unit user only needs a mobile phone to check its location. The Tramigo T22 regularly updates its position using GPS satellite navigation system. Inside the Tramigo T22 is a GSM modem/phone and a SIM card, so all that is needed is to send an SMS to use the system.

The device only needs a normal SIM card. Once the £249 of the purchase price is paid there are no monthly fees or additional charges other than for text messages sent or calls made from the T22 to other phones.

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