How many bikes have you had stolen…?

soulstyledevon

soulstyledevon

Kennycalifornia
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Cali now sold
How many bikes have you lost/sorry some cheeky bugger helped themselves too…?
I was listening to Vine today and it made me think about the loves I lost. Play from 1h 37m

www.bbc.co.uk

Jeremy Vine - Pensions and bike theft - BBC Sounds

Jeremy discusses state pensions, children's care homes, portable heaters and bike theft.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

1 - First was at secondary school, about 13 years old. Peugeot mountain bike, an absolute beautiful bike, gone.
2 - Then a racing bike, again another Peugeot from the shed.
3 - Then I lost my Cannondale from the paper shop, which made my bike round a bit longer…:headbang
4 - Saracen mountain bike got taken from the College racks
5 - Muddy Fox stolen from my nans coal shed…
I’ve been lucky of late, so far I’ve not had one go missing for a while…
 
Some 10 years ago - three of them in a month ... and I think I know who took them too ... but that was in Glasgow
  1. A specialized rockhopper and my daughters' again a specialized but unknown model. Both locked to a pipe near the community parking. Morning, both bikes gone.
  2. Another Specialised MTB ... this time chained to the stairwell rails inside the apartment complex. Funny, the local pizza delivery guy, left his half non-working bike in its place and took mine. :headbang
Been very careful with cycles since then.
 
Never had a bike stolen, suspect not worth pinching, however did have my seat swapped whilst parked in bike rack outside Tesco’s.
 
One-
Marin Pallisades from outside Kings College, Cambridge.
5beb11ccb61d3e63b84f16ad68bcdc25.jpg



It was locked with three locks: D lock locking the front wheel to the bike rack, chain locking panniers to the rack. Cable through the D lock and both wheels.

The crooks cut the cable, took off the front wheel and took the frame, rear wheel and panniers. I still have the front wheel!

The insurance paid up £366 and I bought another Marin Pallisades for £545. I still have it. Just… Five bikes in the garden shed of our shared house in Cambridge. Four were stolen but not my nearly new Marin which was locked to a rusty old bed frame in the shed.

I had my Thorn Raven Tour written off when a white van man turned his white van into me as I was overtaking on the outside in slow moving traffic. His insurance paid for a replacement bike after a court ruling, and I bought a Brompton with the compensation payment for an injury to my shoulder. The insurance company which paid for my replacement bike didn’t want the old bike and while the frame was bent, the front wheel, including a SON dynamo hub was fine. I still have that front wheel too.

After ~20 years of loyal service, my Brompton is near the end of its useful life.
 
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Don’t know if i should feel blessed or embarrassed at never having a bike stolen despite growing up in South London…..once someone tried to take my fave Marin and backpack from me at knifepoint in the underpass at Shepherd’s Bush roundabout, but I was wearing a cycle helmet so head butted him and cycled off at breakneck speed!
 
Corradobrit said:
No bicycles but had 2 motorbikes snatched. My first moped, a Puch 50cc in London in the early 80's and a friends Honda XL250s Trail bike (loved that thing) parked outside a shopping centre in Kettering in 1982...bastardsView attachment 104398View attachment 104399
Click to expand...

The Puch was my first motorised experiences. My Great uncle had one sitting in his garage. He got it working for me and let me go for a spin round the streets of Geneva and St Charles. I was only about 12 at the time. No helmet, no license and no sense.
I remember my parents going ballastic at him when I got back from my joyride.
One of the best life experiences :D
 
Never had a bike, car, or anything stolen .................. and I know very few people who have. However we have always lived 'in the country' ..........
 
Amarillo said:
After ~20 years of loyal service, my Brompton is near the end of its useful life.
Click to expand...
Oh what!? Does this mean me and Mrs Chox have only 3 years left on ours? :D:D
 
Had my highly customised singlespeed commuter pinched from work a few years back. They didn't snip the lock but rather managed to rip the bike mount from the wall - saw them on CCTV afterwards carrying the bike with the mount attached to it! I got a payout but it's taken a while to get a bike back to how it was as it was very bespoke. No idea where it ended up, I spent months trawling "findthatbike", marketplace etc.. but to no avail. I was surprised actually how much it made me feel violated (especially given it was stolen from work, not home). I have a much more substantial holder now and use a motion-alarm too.
 
RockinNRollin said:
Had my highly customised singlespeed commuter pinched from work a few years back. They didn't snip the lock but rather managed to rip the bike mount from the wall - saw them on CCTV afterwards carrying the bike with the mount attached to it! I got a payout but it's taken a while to get a bike back to how it was as it was very bespoke. No idea where it ended up, I spent months trawling "findthatbike", marketplace etc.. but to no avail. I was surprised actually how much it made me feel violated (especially given it was stolen from work, not home). I have a much more substantial holder now and use a motion-alarm too.
Click to expand...

Can you get trackers for bikes?
 
Mongoose BMX from the shed while at uni, and a Trek 6500 which I'd built from a frame a few years later. The ones which really stung were a full-sus Marin (I forget what) off the roof rack with an extra lock, in the barrier-controlled car park of the Hilton Birmingham airport whilst parked under a floodlight / CCTV camera, and then my Bronson from the roof of the car at Hamsterley forest while I went for a run. I now have a 6kg chain that goes everywhere the bike does. It's a shame we can't have nice things.
 
My Cube MTB got stolen off the bike rack of my Cali while parked up in Nimes, France while staying at a hotel to be able to visit the city.

The sad thing is we specifically phoned up the hotel beforehand to ask if the car park was high enough to fit a Cali. They said yes, 2M. Turned out it was 1.9 when we arrived. They wouldn't cancel our booking. So we chanced it and parked in the street. Woke up to a cut lock and an empty bike rack.

Wasn't really angry at the thief. Figured if he was stealing an older MTB (which, not to mention, had a flat tire) , he probably needed it more then I did. Was pissed at the hotel though.

Guess that's what you get for staying in a hotel when you could've slept in the Cali ;-)
 
ThomasHJ said:
My Cube MTB got stolen off the bike rack of my Cali while parked up in Nimes, France while staying at a hotel to be able to visit the city.

The sad thing is we specifically phoned up the hotel beforehand to ask if the car park was high enough to fit a Cali. They said yes, 2M. Turned out it was 1.9 when we arrived. They wouldn't cancel our booking. So we chanced it and parked in the street. Woke up to a cut lock and an empty bike rack.

Wasn't really angry at the thief. Figured if he was stealing an older MTB (which, not to mention, had a flat tire) , he probably needed it more then I did. Was pissed at the hotel though.

Guess that's what you get for staying in a hotel when you could've slept in the Cali ;-)
Click to expand...

I always lock the outer bike to the rack and wrap a long cable around all bikes and the rack. But I guess a grinder would go through the aluminium bike rack like a hot knife through butter and the crooks would have a nice package of four bikes.
 
ThomasHJ said:
My Cube MTB got stolen off the bike rack of my Cali while parked up in Nimes, France while staying at a hotel to be able to visit the city.

The sad thing is we specifically phoned up the hotel beforehand to ask if the car park was high enough to fit a Cali. They said yes, 2M. Turned out it was 1.9 when we arrived. They wouldn't cancel our booking. So we chanced it and parked in the street. Woke up to a cut lock and an empty bike rack.

Wasn't really angry at the thief. Figured if he was stealing an older MTB (which, not to mention, had a flat tire) , he probably needed it more then I did. Was pissed at the hotel though.

Guess that's what you get for staying in a hotel when you could've slept in the Cali ;-)
Click to expand...
I can see why you were so mad with the hotel. You should’ve asked the hotel to store the bikes somewhere inside.
I don’t like to leave stuff on the van when I go to hotels . I’ve often put surfboards and stuff inside the van or bring bikes to my room unless it’s a fairly secure hotel carpark.
 
Amarillo said:
I always lock the outer bike to the rack and wrap a long cable around all bikes and the rack. But I guess a grinder would go through the aluminium bike rack like a hot knife through butter and the crooks would have a nice package of four bikes.
Click to expand...
While I was in Greece, staying at a well frequented beach camping spot, a Dutch couple also there lost the keys to all the chains and wires that they had wrapped round their bikes. There was also a well travelled Australian couple there and when the husband heard of the plight of the Dutch couple, he dived into his motorhome and reappeared with a rechargeable disc cutter. It took him less than five minutes to completely free the bikes. I was impressed. He told me it also came in useful for "freeing" locked height barriers and other similar obstructions.
 
chockswahay said:
Never had a bike, car, or anything stolen .................. and I know very few people who have. However we have always lived 'in the country' ..........
Click to expand...
Which country - Dubai/Singapore - both will not tolerate thefts of any kind?

Its a joke, just in case...
 
Amarillo said:
I always lock the outer bike to the rack and wrap a long cable around all bikes and the rack. But I guess a grinder would go through the aluminium bike rack like a hot knife through butter and the crooks would have a nice package of four bikes.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I lock the bikes to each other and to the bike rack. And I lock the nut on the longest bike rack arm. All to no avail that day. But at least I got to buy myself a better MTB and It spared me having to look for a bike repair shop for the flat tire, as I hadnt brought any tools/spare tires.
 
Whilst on a cycling holiday in Norway, we had both of our Specialized AWOL Touring bikes stolen from outside Bergen train station. A savvy local found mine behind a hedge and went to considerable lengths to locate my contact details via the Specialized dealer network, I was then able to fly back to retrieve it. Sarah’s bike also turned up on a Norwegian classifieds site some months later, disappointingly the Norwegian Police didn’t take any action and even advised us against flying out to confront the seller.

Additionally, during my student days I had a Raleigh Mountain Bike and a Honda NS125F stolen from my Uni digs. Even tho both were reported stolen at the time, some 15yrs later the Cops called at my Mum‘s house asking for me….. As the Honda (which was still registered in my name, to my Mum’s address) had sped through a Police checkpoint in West Belfast. Took quite a bit of explaining to get my Mother calmed down. Never heard about it again after that.
 
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