BikeBiz

This is good news. However, we were disappointed by the vague specification of the original challenge itself. It says "The winning innovation will be the one that results in the longest time to steal the bike with a minimum threshold of five minutes." but it does not give any other information about the range of tools and it says this resistance-to-theft time is the ultimate arbiter of the winner of the test. Other aspects will be considered, it says, but theft resistance time is the aspect that will decide the winner. We queried this when the challenge was first launched and were doubley disappointed that there was no response from Nesta. We suggested that we could submit a military tank as an impenetrable container for a bike and would therefore expect to win the challenge, with something that was obviously totally useless from the public perspective but that, or something similar to it, would defeat any credible attack. We are concerned that this, in common with some previous contests, has not been thought through that well and may be derailed by ideas that won't actually contribure significantly to cycle security. We are an active manufacturer of security products for cyclists but we have ignored this challenge after the poor positioning of this challenge and, particularly, the lack of response from Nesta. If Carlton is able to give more detail then that may help to get the challenge back on the rails. I hope so.

Stephen Good points, and I shall send them to Nesta, and hope you'll get a direct response. I agree about the range of tools thing. I've previously done an article - and video - on this http://quickrelease.tv/?p=327 I'd say enter the comp, the judges will sort the wheat from the chaff.

Hi Carlton, Yes, I've seen and commented on your earlier video. I think it doesn't help, honestly, to _still_ have inaccurate information there about Sold Secure. I pointed that out 2 years ago and it's still wrong. You say that the Sold Secure tests don't include bolt croppers but they do (at least at all significant levels). I'm not sure if they're going to add stubby bottle jacks, however. You also say you think Thatcham have higher test standards - we think the opposite is true! There have been numerous products that have failed Sold Secure and then been put through Thatcham and passed. We think Thatcham are great for alarms and immobilisers, but nowhere near as good as Sold Secure for physical security testing. You also mention Trading Standards and that was all concluded, including with involvement from ACPO, saying that Sold Secure were doing what they should be doing. Undermining confidence in one of the few organisations that tries to give some guidance to members of the public ultimately plays into the hands of the thieves IMHO. Coming back to this challenge, we were encouraged to enter a Design Council challenge last year but our entries were dismissed as not being "designey" enough. That challenge awarded about £40K of public money, as I remember, and I have serious doubts as to whether it has made any useful difference to the problem of cycle theft. Public money well spent? I'm not convinced. It had Home Office involvement but did not take any notice of the Police Secured-by-Design initiatives or of Sold Secure, as the Police-approved independent test organisation. That seemed to be half-baked and flying at odds with other Government-supported schemes. The lack of response to our questions on the specification of this challenge has done nothing to give us confidence that it will be a worthwhile use of more public(?) money. I sincerely hope it does result in something new that helps to solve the problem, as the problem is growing and we don't want people to be deterred from using bicycles. Thanks, Steve.

Hi again, I'm sure thanks to your prod, Nesta have contacted us and I've spoken to the guy in charge of this Challenge. I understand more what they are after as a result of that conversation and it is more sensible than their wording implies. They are looking for any ideas that could make a big difference to cycle security and don't want us to be too focused on the type of attack etc as they will decide the tools to be used, etc, in the light of the entries that are shortlisted and with the support of their experts. The winning idea is likely to offer a good compromise between absolute security and environmental impact, cost, etc. All in all, they are looking for sensible entries, so military tanks need not apply :-) We are now expecting to make an entry. Thanks again for your help, Steve.