Registering bicycle with City of Austin

My friend’s bike was stolen the other evening. She had it bike locked; and, it was inside the bike room at her apartment complex. It is a terrible reminder that no matter the precautions we take, there are bicycle thieves in Austin. Through her experience, she found out from the police that she needed to have her bike registered in order for the police to take action. What a terrible loss of a nice road bike.

This blog post will walk through registering bicycles in the City of Austin. The website is http://www.austintexas.gov/page/bike-registration.

Click here to register your bicycle – Once your bicycle is registered, it will remain in the system until you notify us that your bicycle has been disposed of. If you sell or dispose of your bicycles in any way please update your report by submitting a supplement to your original report. When adding a supplement to the registration, you will need to re-enter personal information. You will receive a copy of your original report once it has been processed. Please keep a copy of this report and the case number for your records.  Only 1 bike may be registered at a time.

http://www.austintexas.gov/page/bike-registration

After clicking Click here to register your bicycle, you’re taken to the Austin Police Department Bike Registration page. Choose “New Bike Registration” and click “Continue”.

A new window opens up where you’ll need to list your name, address, email, ethnicity, gender, date of birth and driver’s license number. After completing the fields marked with a red asterisk (*), click “Continue”.

In the next window, you’ll need to list your street address and upload photos of the bicycle that you’re registering. You can also upload documentation of purchasing your bike. When you click “Attach/Detach Documents and Photos”, a new window pops up. You can attach up to six photos (gif, jpeg, pjpeg, jfif). However, overall total size of all 6 photos has to be less than 7 MB. Each file has to be chosen one by one. My third photo pushed me over the 7 MB limit; and, the window refused to let me upload it. Once finished, click “Continue to Report Filing”; and, the pop up window will close, returning you to the Registery Information window. Click “Continue”.

On the next screen, you’ll enter the details of your bicycle, including Type, Brand, Style, Speeds, Serial Number and Market Value. All fields with a red asterisk (*) must be completed. Click “Continue” once finished.

The next page asks you to describe the incident. However, since you’re only registering the bike, I’m at a loss on what to actually list on this page. Clicking “Continue” brings you to a page to review all the information that you have entered.

On this summary page, it lists “incident information” for your street address and the photos of your bike. At the bottom, click “Submit Registration”.

Your registration is complete. Please use the button below to view and print the temporary registration for your reference. You will be emailed a copy of the final registration once the registration is approved. The copy of the registration will be sent as a PDF attachment, please make sure your email settings will permit this.

Click “View and Print Report”. A file with “Temporary” watermark written across it appears on screen. I’ll provide a further update once I receive the final registration report from the Austin Police Department.