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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

#41

Post by healeycodes »

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…

> It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle.

I like this blog on that topic:

https://calpaterson.com/bicycle-threat-model.html

> One father I know had his primary-school-age daughter "decorate" his commuting bicycle with girly stickers and pink glitter. If anyone examines his bicycle closely he looks like a complete loon but I think his motivation is right: it's going to be much less appealing to steal when it's covered in Miffy stickers.

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

#42

Post by phreeza »

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…

Something like this i guess?

https://youtu.be/BXY_fqDBg5E

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

#43

Post by techdragon »

pmontra wrote: post #33
aigo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably b…

Another tip: lock your bike close to more expensive ones.

This is the bike theft version of “I don’t have to outrun the bear/tiger, i just have to outrun the slowest other person.”

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

#44

Post by devoutsalsa »

healeycodes wrote: post #41
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…

> It seems the only way to protect against theft is to ride an old bicycle. I like this blog on that topic: https://calpaterson.com/bicycle-threat-model.html > One father I know had his primary-school-age daughter "decorate" his commuting bicycle with girly stickers and pink glitter. If anyone examines his bicycle closely he looks like a complete loon but I think his motivation is right: it's going to be much less ap…

I knew a guy with a similar philosophy. He spray painted his bike ugly color.

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

#45

Post by globular-toast »

maeln wrote: post #28
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…

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.

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

#46

Post by im3w1l »

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…

My bike was stolen enough times that I gave up. I don't own one anymore.

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

#48

Post by jaclaz »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #25
Talanes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement isn't reading random cycling blogs looking for admissions of crime. It's hard enough to get their attention with a call of "Hey, there's this crime happening right in front of me and it's causing a pretty big scene."

Our new product - The Inditer Pro - uses state of the art machine learning to crawl the web and identify travelers coming into your country as criminals! You will be able to proactively lock up potential threats and keep the population safe, all thanks to the expertise of the Inditer Pro. All the world's bad guys under your thumb! (Rolling Stones 'Under my thumb' starts playing as a border guard presses Inditer Pro s…

>on edit: yes, it should be Indicter, but ours is a web 4.0 company.

I thought that to qualify for web 4.0 you needed Indite*ly.

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

#49

Post by darkwater »

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.

Yes and no. E-bikes start at 2-3k EUR and the norm is 5-6k. Obviously you can buy a road bike for 15k EUR as well but most will gravitate toward the 1-3K EUR range.

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

#50

Post by Panzer04 »

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.

In fairness, a car represents more than 10x the manufacturing effort. A 10k fancy road bike is going to be much easier to manufacture than the equivalent small 10k hatchback.
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