In Stellenbosch, where cycling is part of the town’s lifeblood, stolen bikes are almost as common as wine tastings. But in recent months, owners have begun receiving WhatsApp alerts within seconds of their bikes being touched. And, within minutes, those bikes are recovered.
Carinus Lemmer, who once earned national colours for cycling, says the turnaround time is deliberate.
“We lose bicycles in Stellenbosch and we get them back in an average of 14 minutes,” he says. “They can’t remove the unit in 14 minutes, because the person who steals a bicycle is not a professional. Then they have to break it, or melt it, or hit it with a hammer. That devalues the bicycle, which they don’t want.”
The device behind this success is produced by his company, 3BO.MOBI, which he calls an “Assure-Tech stack” for cycling. Permanently bolted into the frame, the hardware combines motion detection with GSM connectivity.
“Motion detection is instant,” says Lemmer. “It takes me about one and a half seconds to get a message on WhatsApp: ‘Was it you?’ If I say yes, I can put the bicycle to sleep. If not, escalation happens instantly, with a live link I can share with my community or local security.”
The system was designed not only for everyday theft but also for targeted heists against pro teams. In August, during the Vuelta a España cycle race in Spain, Team Visma | Lease a Bike lost up to 18 high-end bicycles worth €250,000 when their mechanics’ truck was raided overnight near Turin. Days later, Team TotalEnergies suffered a similar loss during the Tour Poitou, with 20 bikes worth €300,000 stolen in one night in France.
Introducing 3BO on LinkedIn, Lemmer wrote: “The moment they touch the team’s truck or force the door, all the bikes inside emit a signal straight to people’s mobile phones, onto their WhatsApp, in the middle of the night. Criminals can be stopped in their tracks, while you’re still in your pajamas.”
Part of the appeal is that the system does not compete with insurance, but complements it.
“If the price point is too high, people can’t afford it, then you’re competing with insurance. So we’re not competing with insurers at R95 a month.”
One local insurer has already agreed to waive excess fees if a bike is fitted with the device.
“When the bike is truly gone, because it will happen, there is no excess payment on the bicycle’s replacement. Excess payment is mostly a nuisance fee.”
This changes the risk equation for professional teams. Instead of a truckload of bikes becoming a R6-million liability, a relatively small investment in trackers ensures continuity, and allows riders to focus on performance rather than prevention.
Before founding 3BO.MOBI, Lemmer had already made his mark in cycling technology. He was an advisor to iKubu, the Stellenbosch-based startup best known for developing the Backtracker, a radar system that alerted cyclists to vehicles approaching from behind. The innovation attracted global attention and, in 2015, was acquired by Garmin, which integrated the technology into its Varia range of cycling safety devices. That exit gave Lemmer both the credibility and the lessons he would later apply to his current venture in bicycle security.
We sit down to chat in his “office”: a hip coffee spot called Luc’s Coffee, run by Lemmer’s son at the Art and Wine Gallery in Dorp Street. The inventor’s informality belies the serious insight and innovation that has gone into his new venture.
3BO.MOBI, he says, is set apart by its frugal approach.
“We have spent half-a-million rand, mostly on hardware and studying hardware and getting people to help us formulate the research. Now we are running at only about R500 a month cost, and that’s the only way it’s going to work. Competitors make the classic mistake of raising a lot of money and going in big. I don’t think that’s the way. We do the opposite: don’t raise money and go in low. That is how to get something like this to work, because it’s so uncertain and so unknown.”
Instead of relying on complex IoT systems, the team found that only GSM networks were reliable.
“Narrowband won’t work. The IoT journey doesn’t work. Bluetooth doesn’t work. So we tested them all, Sigfox, Lora, everything you can think of. In cycling, what works is 2G and 4G. It is ubiquitous. It does not tether to anything, and mobile is a beautiful thing.”
While theft recovery remains the priority, the system is expanding into safety.
“Somebody is helping us at the University in Ghent to define what an accident looks like. What’s the velocity? What’s the impact? Then the next question: Are you okay? Are you back on the bike? Is the bike moving in the right direction, or into the bush?’”
In South Africa, a further concern as addressed by integrating a panic button into 3BO.
“You see somebody approaching you, and you feel unhappy, and you press the panic button. That panic button will text you on WhatsApp. If you can’t answer and if you don’t answer, escalation happens.”
This dual use, theft protection and accident detection, makes the device appealing to both commuters and racers. Professional downhill rider Greg Minnaar has joined the project to explore how concussion monitoring could be built into the same ecosystem, with alerts routed instantly to medics and trainers.
3BO.MOBI is also creating a “bicycle passport”: a registry of serial numbers and unique features of a bike.
Says Lemmer: “You see a bicycle being advertised three days after it was stolen. Imagine sitting at home on WhatsApp and just check whether a bicycle is stolen or not.”
For insurers and security firms, this could become a vital tool in reducing resale markets for stolen bikes. For riders, it offers a quick way to verify second-hand purchases.
Currently around 100 of 3BO’s devices are in use, half of them sold, generating R10,000 a month in recurring revenue.
“Those 50 sales are all by word of mouth. Mostlyin Stellenbosch and a little bit in Europe,” says Lemmer.
His vision for growth is characteristically grounded. “We want one retired policeman with one crowbar and one sidekick and one bakkie per territory.”
Lemmer says the project is as much about persistence as it is about innovation.
“I joke often about the headwind and bicycles. Things take time. My partners become frustrated and I appease them, because this is not a rough journey. It’s just a long journey.”
The difference is that this time, the technology is mature, the economics are lean, and the need is urgent. Bicycle theft is a multimillion-rand threat to the professional peloton. In South Africa, it remains a daily nuisance for commuters and weekend riders alike.
Lemmer is betting that a small device, a WhatsApp message, and a 14-minute window are all it takes to change the balance of power between thieves and cyclists.
* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge”.