Wow, that's super cool, especially for a first Ruby project. Hopefully my bike doesn't get stolen, but if it does I'll be sure to use this (Who am I kidding? It's the bay area, when it gets stolen).
Yeah, I was aiming at high visibility research for Craigslist shoppers. I'm limited by Twitter, but luckily the bikeindex site looks good on mobile too.
1. Reporting stolen bikes makes it harder to sell stolen bikes, making bike theft less profitable - and ultimately making it less likely that you'll be looking for a good deal on a new bike, since your old one won't have been stolen.
isn't (3.) 'knowingly' buying stolen property that is illegal? but 'unknowingly' buying stolen property would at worst mean you will have to surrender the property to the original owner?
You should register it before it gets stolen, so that you have all the important information if it does. https://bikeindex.org/bikes/new (you have to create an account)