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I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

cyclingtips.com

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Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#131

Post by ufmace »

kuschku wrote: post #87
globular-toast wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say thousands actually (also specifically said it wasn't normal). It's just that I own a fairly mid-high end road bike (that I bought 10 years ago) that cost more than €1000. I used to ride a road bike that cost around €800 as my commuter bike until it got stolen. The quality at this price point is definitely worth it, with diminishing returns above it. I would strongly recommend upgrading to a road or town…

I’d honestly consider 800€ already enthusiast grade, but I’m interested. What does your 800€ bicycle have that mine doesn’t have? For reference, I’m currently using https://www.boc24.de/p/bocas-bari-trapez/217333/ (which I bought at 320€ on sale) with some changes (B&M 100 lux front light, seat post with suspension), and I don’t think I’d get any major improvements with other changes. Due to cycling in city traffic,…

IMO, most of the real improvements are seen going from $300-ish to $1200-ish. Going higher doesn't give you more features so much as more quality and durability. In my experience, if you ride a lot of miles consistently on a cheap bike, parts will wear out or break pretty fast. Especially if the terrain is at least mildly rough, as found on most commutes and country roads.

Cheap wheels go out of true easily and before long are often too bent to be able to true by spoke adjustments. Cheap tires wear out fast and puncture easily. Cheap brakes wear out and go out of adjustment fast. Ditto cheap shift gear. I've broken pedals too, and I don't pedal all that aggressively. Really cheap stuff tends to be excessively heavy too, which can be a drag on uphills and when you need to carry it.

Yours looks like a perfectly fine commuter bike to me. I'm not familiar with the wheel or shift gear classes, but if it gets you where you need to go without wearing stuff out too fast, by all means no need to spend more.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#132

Post by zamadatix »

franciscop wrote: post #76

I find it sweetly ironic that ALL those magazines talking about stealing bikes are committing copyright infringement (which the media is used to call "stealing").

At the same time they'd probably find it a sweetly ironic show of how it's too hard to control copyrighted material on the internet or something for. After all like the article says it probably wasn't intentionally ripped or any claims avoided it more likely ended up in a stock photo site with the wrong license attached and the author never pursued it.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#133

Post by maeln »

globular-toast wrote: post #45
maeln wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With e-bike costing over thousand euros, bike stealing has become way more lucrative, attracting more and better thief ...

Erm.. my non-e-bike costs well over a thousand euros! But I guess e-bikes have made "normal" people consider spending that much money on a bike. People into biking have always been spending this much money on bikes although oddly it seems to surprise many people, even though they'll happily pay 10x that for a car that requires fossil fuel to do anything.

Funny thing, I knew when I wrote my comment that they would be at least one answer mentioning enthusiast with their fancy all carbon fibber road bike that cost has much as a car :) .

While it i definitely true that expensive bike existed for a long time, enthusiast where rarely parking this type of bike in the middle of a busy city. These are the kind of bike who are always kept safely in a locked garage. Plus, the number of enthusiast who pay for this kind of bike are way lower. So not only is it more rare for a thief to come across this type of bike, they also might have an harder time reselling it, and reselling it is more dangerous because those bike are easily identifiable and the legitimate owner usually care enough about it to have made it registered.

E-bike are just plain more common, and most people use them for commute which mean they tend to be park in places that are more vulnerable to thief and are easier to resell.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#134

Post by jaclaz »

javajosh wrote: post #116
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but if you are arrested through the high quality solutions Indite Pro provides you can use our partner app Paroll-io to bail yourself out with our hot new cryptocurrency $ukka$ which has end to end $.

Now the interesting question is this: if your government did something like this - what would you, could you, do about it? That's the scary question, because the answer is "almost nothing". That's especially true if "Inditer Pro" had, say, a 90% success rate. (Success is defined as "% convicted". To solve this you offer a choice: plea bargain or indefinite detention until a trial. It would be more correct to accuse p…

Oww, come on, be realistic.

IF Inditer Pro had 90% success rate, it would actually substantially solve (wrongly) a problem, and that would again disqualify it from being web 4.0.

The actual success rate would probably be - by design - around 59-62%, high enough to be better than flipping a coin in preliminary controlled studies and allowing yearly improvements (I beg your pardon, I meant OTA updates) of 1-2%, so that the company would have guaranteed income for the next 20 years or so.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#135

Post by markstos »

Or you upload some photos to Unsplash. My bike photos there have been viewed about 2.5 million times on the site and downloaded over 1,000 times, findable on many sites around the world.

Publishing the photos on Flickr doesn’t hold a torch to the exposure from Unsplash!

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#136

Post by trulyme »

mbg721 wrote: post #130
trulyme wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can only recover or replace a stolen bike if the Theft Defense system was armed and the Kick Lock was properly engaged when your bike was stolen. They also recover the bike only up to three times in 3-year timespan. Still, sounds like a great service!

That sounds like two more times than anybody else would recover it.

True, I find the service more than fair.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#137

Post by mulcyber »

Freak_NL wrote: post #38
ThePhysicist wrote: post #26

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unf…

These days not having an e-bike is probably one of the easiest deterrents. Next step seems to be to avoid design bikes like Van Moof. And finally, have your bike look used. Then again, my bike is probably not the first one they'll consider, given that it has a 70cm frame making it all but impossible to ride for anyone under 195cm (being 200cm myself). If you steal a bicycle you have to be able to sell it, and given t…

The only real protection against theft is not having your bike among the most valuable and/or least secure ones on the rack.

Most protection can be circonvented if the thief is savy and equipped.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#138

Post by GuB-42 »

jackvalentine wrote: post #51
dustintrex wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Virtually all stock photography involving people is staged, and that's OK, because they're meant to be just that, illustrations.

They are all so light in relevance that the content would be better if there were no imagery at all. None of these articles are improved by having a stolen staged image of a bike thief in them. Might as well draw a picture of a bike in MS paint. Same effect.

I think that a picture is easier to get at first glance than the words.

Let's pick an article at random: "End of UK lockdown may mean a rise in bike thefts". You most likely need a few seconds to read and understand that the main topic of the article is bike theft and start to visualize it. I mean, chances that you start reading the title and think "it is about covid" and as you read the end, you think "no, it is about bike theft". Put a really obvious and staged picture of someone stealing a bike and you instantly get it.

Kind of the same reason why we put icons next to text in software UI, even though it is redundant.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#139

Post by jackvalentine »

GuB-42 wrote: post #138
jackvalentine wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are all so light in relevance that the content would be better if there were no imagery at all. None of these articles are improved by having a stolen staged image of a bike thief in them. Might as well draw a picture of a bike in MS paint. Same effect.

I think that a picture is easier to get at first glance than the words. Let's pick an article at random: "End of UK lockdown may mean a rise in bike thefts". You most likely need a few seconds to read and understand that the main topic of the article is bike theft and start to visualize it. I mean, chances that you start reading the title and think "it is about covid" and as you read the end, you think "no, it is abo…

I understand what you’re saying but perhaps the reader should be required to put the effort in to read 11 words rather than seeing a shorthand and jumping to conclusion!

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#140

Post by GuB-42 »

jackvalentine wrote: post #139
GuB-42 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that a picture is easier to get at first glance than the words. Let's pick an article at random: "End of UK lockdown may mean a rise in bike thefts". You most likely need a few seconds to read and understand that the main topic of the article is bike theft and start to visualize it. I mean, chances that you start reading the title and think "it is about covid" and as you read the end, you think "no, it is abo…

I understand what you’re saying but perhaps the reader should be required to put the effort in to read 11 words rather than seeing a shorthand and jumping to conclusion!

I am strongly in favor of the least effort principle. So if an article can spare me a second of effort, I take it. I particularly appreciate it when a journalist recognizes that their readers attention is precious and gets to the point without wasting it. (I know, ads, but that's another subject)

By least effort, I don't mean that people should make no effort, but I don't want to force them just because it feels virtuous. In the case of an article, ideally, it should follow a progression. The illustration is the first step: it is quick, and intuitive, enough to know if want to continue or not. Then there is the title, intro, the article itself, and the references. This way, I can spend as much effort as I want, but I am not forced at any point.

So, for example.

1- Illustration of a bike thief: This is about bike theft, I am interested, let's see (alternatively: I don't care, I don't have a bike anyways, let's see the other news)

2- Title: This is about bike theft after the UK lockdown, ah, interesting, I didn't think about that (alternatively: meh, I heard enough about that lockdown)

3- Article: That's a good overview of the situation, but I'd like to learn more (alternatively: fine, that's all I need to know)

4- References: and so on, and so on, ...

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