have you ever wondered if the bike rider has stolen the bike?

[Geonz]

I'd hate to "profile"- but indeed, sometimes the bike and rider are a painful mismatch. Usually the purchaser of a high end bike who is doing it the standard way has this idea about becoming a higher-end rider, after all

I do remember the time I had to break a chain around a bike and put mine on it... and I didn't want to litter with the chain so I stuffed it into my backpack, not realizing that the broken part was dangling out.
I wondered why that driver behaved so oddly, honking at me in that 'excuse me, did you realizing you were losing soemthign?' way and then peeling around me and driving off... \

I'd be tempted to take a picture of a suspicious combination (if I could do so without putting myself at risk) - 'round here, our bike discussion list sometimes has posts when a bike is swiped.

[Owlie]

I've wondered the same thing. Since I'm in college, there are lots of bikes around (mostly department store bikes, but some nice ones), and there are a lot of bikes that get stolen. There are lots of people who ride bikes that are way too big or small for them, or guys riding something that is obviously a women's bike, but it's hard to tell if they were stolen or just got a used bike because it was comparatively cheap.

[abejita]

I ride my bike in street clothes and tennies if I am just running errands around the neighborhood...although the other day, I did see some guy walking down the street with a really nice front wheel in his hand

[oxysback]

Something to think about...

A good friend of mine just got her first bike. I was unavailable to ride with her so her hubby borrowed a bike from a mutual friend of ours. Definitely not a low end road bike, but somewhere middle of the line, with aero-bars. During their ride her hubby got a flat on the borrowed bike. Since they're new to biking they didn't know how presta valves work and ended up breaking the stem when they tried to pump up the tire. They felt bad and wanted to replace the tube on the borrowed bike, so they took it to our LBS here in town. I'm sure this bike was too big, and my friends hubby just had street clothes on...maybe a pair of shorts and sneakers to ride in, so the LBS owner questioned him. I think the exact words were, "Looks like a little too much bike for you, sir." (I got a giggle out of that!)

Anyway...that could explain a few 'mismatched' bikes and riders, but certainly not all of them.

[aicabsolut]

It depends.

A buddy of mine had his Ridley Excalibur stolen out of his car a few months ago. It has quite the unique setup (he built it himself from lots of random parts), but includes things like SRAM Red and tubular wheels. A couple months after it was stolen, a local bike shop sees this bike. The guy bringing it in wants to swap the Speedplay pedals for platforms. This seems odd, so the shop guys do some googling and find detailed blog entries from a friend asking people to look out for this bike. The shop tells the guy to leave and threatens to call the cops. My buddy gets his bike back with some minor scratches.

So while I see plenty of people in all kinds of attire on a wide range of road and tri bikes doing laps around a park on weeknights, sometimes there are red flags. Other times, who knows.

[ZooZoo]

My bike fits me, but I don't think it's what you'd expect a fairly newbie rider to be riding. Bought it used. I have bike shorts now and jerseries, but when I started out it was sweatpants, tee shirt and tennies. Still don't do clipless or toe clips and have no immediate plans for them (they still scare me. LOL).

[Kelly728]

I'm guilty of those kinds of judgments too. Around here though, I see the 15/16 year old kids riding either the very nice bike or the bike that is VERY obviously too small for them and likely belonged to a small child. Growing up, every single kid with a bike in my neighborhood had their bike stolen. It was sort of expected around there to eventually happen.

[KnottedYet]

I'm pretty sure I saw a stolen bike go by one evening while waiting for a bus.

Adult male wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and white tennies. (no helmet or anything) Riding a clipless Cervelo that was obviously too big for him. There's no way he could have even got his buns up on the saddle and still pedalled. He rode like a bat out of he11 away from the hospital parking area. I learned later that several bikes had been stolen from the hospital bike lot that day.