111–120 of 307 posts
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I might as well start a club doing that (or a company if I had the skills). Bike theft is such a sad load on bikers mind.. (even it can be cool to carry a 3kg chain to secure it.. not always)
Watch out - you know heavy chain is also worth money on junkyard so they are going to steal that as well.
There's a Dutch bike company (VanMoof) that offers a Theft Recovery service for their bikes: they have teams of people that track down the bike (using GPS primarily) and basically steal it back. They used to produce monthly videos of bike recovery operations, though it looks like they've stopped the videos so you'll have to scroll past a few years of promo videos: https://www.youtube.com/@vanmoof Often they recover t…
> basically steal it back This brings up an interesting legal question. Is it illegal to steal back your own property? Even if you trespass onto private property to do so, the person would have to get the Police involved to do anything about that, at which time you can say "Sure, I'll take the trespassing charge, and while we're here I'm leaving with all of my property".
Strangely there are jurisdictions where if your stuff is in a pawn shop and the pawnbroker claims he didn't know it was stolen, he might have the legal right to recoup what he paid for it from you!
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In high theft areas, insurance is jacked up because the risk is so high. If you are getting your bike stolen every 3 or 4 months, the insurance company has already adjusted your premium so that they aren't losing money. Insurance is great for rare unpredictable events. It is not cost-effective at all for common predictable events.
I live in a county with almost 100k homeless people, and I pay another $1 a month on my renters insurance policy (itself around $12) to insure the bike with no deductable. It really is cheap if you use renters or homeowners insurance. I'm sure many of those "bike specific" insurance policies nickel and dime since the pool is probably a lot smaller.
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I saw a decent bike a while back that had had newspaper glued all over the frame.
Write your phone number all over every part in permanent marker. Nobody will buy something covered in phone numbers without at least calling the number. The thief can't be bothered to repaint the whole bike to cover it. Hence, the bike is now worthless to a thief, so it won't get stolen.
There's a Dutch bike company (VanMoof) that offers a Theft Recovery service for their bikes: they have teams of people that track down the bike (using GPS primarily) and basically steal it back. They used to produce monthly videos of bike recovery operations, though it looks like they've stopped the videos so you'll have to scroll past a few years of promo videos: https://www.youtube.com/@vanmoof Often they recover t…
Once I lost a bike that was parked right outside my house. Couple of days later I saw a guy ride around on my bike! I sprinted over and somewhat aggressively yelled "you're on my bike, buddy!" He got off, very politely handed me back my bike, and thanked me for letting him borrow it. Almost made me feel like I was the bad guy in the situation. Anyway I guess in some cases, a stolen bike doesn't go far at all.
Helps to ride a $100 bike. If somebody ends up with it, they won't be too attached.
If one's bike is stolen in the San Francisco Bay Area, there's a small but significant chance you can find it for sale at the Laney College Flea Market (e.g. [1]). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/BAbike/comments/8mmrne/stolen_bike_...
In the Oakland/Berkeley/Albany/El Cerrito area, you want to check out Karim's in Berkeley.
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Jeez man why aren't you insuring them?
These are $25 bikes that I buy in bulk and just use around the city for me and my friends. They're locked with $2 combination locks, sometimes just to a plant. It really isn't surprising they go missing, but they're cheaper than a rental bike.
I had a £2,000 electric bike stolen in Oxford. No worries - it had a GPS tracker, and I could see it heading to Birmingham up the M40. Also, my neighbour had CCTV footage. You couldn't make out the faces or number-plate, but you could see it was a black Mercedes. It was taken at about 3AM. So they had "liberated" the bike (it was locked up), and immediately headed out of town. I'm sure it was scouted, then they came…
> They weren't interested - they told me to contact West Midlands police. So I rang them. No, they were not going to investigate: "Don't you realize how many Porsches are stolen in this city every day?" Also, they said they can't just walk in and have a look around (I guess they need a warrant, which is fair enough; but then why not get a warrant?) I've seen/heard this numerous times. Cops really don't give a shit ab…
To further clarify, unless it’s a business that makes routine donations to the police department.
Police started out as private business protection for those who paid, mafia style, and they haven’t changed since then.
I had a £2,000 electric bike stolen in Oxford. No worries - it had a GPS tracker, and I could see it heading to Birmingham up the M40. Also, my neighbour had CCTV footage. You couldn't make out the faces or number-plate, but you could see it was a black Mercedes. It was taken at about 3AM. So they had "liberated" the bike (it was locked up), and immediately headed out of town. I'm sure it was scouted, then they came…
> They weren't interested - they told me to contact West Midlands police. So I rang them. No, they were not going to investigate: "Don't you realize how many Porsches are stolen in this city every day?" Also, they said they can't just walk in and have a look around (I guess they need a warrant, which is fair enough; but then why not get a warrant?) I've seen/heard this numerous times. Cops really don't give a shit ab…