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

[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.

[skhill]

I often wonder where some of the bikes in my neighborhood came from...

I live at the slums edge; a lot of folks around here are car-free not by choice but by poverty. Having a bike means having access to a decent grocery store, and better job options. And so there are a whole lot of bikes around, and most of them are crap... But every now and then, I see someone on a pretty nice bike (we're not talking high-end roadies here, but something a big step up from beat up big-box brands). And I wonder. I've never actually asked any questions, but I wonder.... 'Cause there's no way "Bicycle Betty" (that's her official nick-name!) could afford that apparently new Townie...

I wonder, and I stable my bikes in my living room...

[beancounterbeth]

The other day I saw a guy that I thought "hmmmm, I wonder if he just stole that bike" but found out later that people see him on it all the time and so it must be his.

Story:

Riding on the trail in Tulsa Oklahoma in the mid August heat (HOT & HUMID) I see a guy riding down the trail on a mountain bike and he is wearing a flanel button up and full denim overalls. He has rolled up the right pant leg so that it doesn't get caught in the chain. He is sweating like crazy and I had to wonder how he was riding in all those heavy winter clothes in the middle of summer on a bike. I thought "he couldn't have come out here to ride like that intentionally so he must have just grabbed that bike and is taking off with it". Found out later when I was telling someone else that story that they said they see him out on the trails riding like that all the time. Go figure.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

It's not right to make negative presumptions based on someone's appearance.
I'm sure we all do it, but we shouldn't.

[lauraelmore1033]

My local club recently reported two seperate incidents of bike theft--high end bikes like a Madone and a Lemond--where the thief cut the lock and rode the bike straight to the pawn shop for about $80. Making judgements about personal appearance aside, y'ad think SOMETHING would look fishy about this situation...

[kenyonchris]

Sorry for the hijack, smilingcat, but a quick question to chris about running serial # of bikes. Is there a national police databank of stolen bike serial #s?

There is a crimes database of serial numbers of stolen things....bikes included. If your bike is stolen and you have the serial number and it is included in the theft report, it will be crossmatched in the database. If it is recovered (ditched or seized), or entered by a reputable pawn shop, or a detective runs across a suspicious looking item in a pawn shop, or an attentive police officer has reasonable suspicion that a bike may be stolen, they can cross reference it and check.
Sadly very, very few people have the serial numbers of their stuff. Therefore, not much of it is recovered.

[Tuckervill]

The other day I saw a guy that I thought "hmmmm, I wonder if he just stole that bike" but found out later that people see him on it all the time and so it must be his.

Story:

Riding on the trail in Tulsa Oklahoma in the mid August heat (HOT & HUMID) I see a guy riding down the trail on a mountain bike and he is wearing a flanel button up and full denim overalls. He has rolled up the right pant leg so that it doesn't get caught in the chain. He is sweating like crazy and I had to wonder how he was riding in all those heavy winter clothes in the middle of summer on a bike. I thought "he couldn't have come out here to ride like that intentionally so he must have just grabbed that bike and is taking off with it". Found out later when I was telling someone else that story that they said they see him out on the trails riding like that all the time. Go figure.

I live near Tulsa in Arkansas and we go to the Zoo sometimes. On one of our trips we happened upon a Senior Olympics time trial or something like it (definitely Senior Olympics, but I don't know what the event was because I was ignorant of racing at that time). THAT GUY was riding in the time trial, dressed just like you said!

Karen

[Tuckervill]

There is a crimes database of serial numbers of stolen things....bikes included. If your bike is stolen and you have the serial number and it is included in the theft report, it will be crossmatched in the database. If it is recovered (ditched or seized), or entered by a reputable pawn shop, or a detective runs across a suspicious looking item in a pawn shop, or an attentive police officer has reasonable suspicion that a bike may be stolen, they can cross reference it and check.
Sadly very, very few people have the serial numbers of their stuff. Therefore, not much of it is recovered.

I'll bet with my experience of state government that this program is voluntary and it costs "someone" money to join it and if you live in a poorer state that your state does not participate and your stolen stuff is not on that registry.

Karen

[out_spokin']

I’m a bit sad reading this thread, particularly the link to the Bicycling article and implication therein. I thought the article was a great and sympathetic portrait of hardworking and hard BIKING day laborers – by taking just the small part where a few guys buy stolen bikes it seems to me that there’s an unfortunate equation being made, and overlooking the main thrust of the article. Which to me is summed up in the article by "What's surprising is how committed these riders are to the activity of cycling--even more, it's hard to admit, than those of us who love the sport."

In the article, and in my experience, the vast majority of bike-riding day laborers, and other lower-income folks, wouldn’t dare put their livelihoods and families at risk by stealing bikes. And pretty much none would have an interest in the kind of bikes the OP describes. Why would someone who puts more miles in a week on a bike than some of us do in a month or even a season, and in the worst conditions (and who have a fierce incentive to not have their only transportation stolen) mess around with carbon fiber and low –spoke-count wheels? Yes, they may want and save for an upgrade from Wally World bikes, but you can bet they’d go for a basic decent mountain bike over anything like the “mismatched” road bikes mentioned here.

We had a rash of high end bikes stolen locally, too. Ones that were locked up and/or garaged, and clearly targeted for their value. Turns out a well-organized theft ring, likely meth related, was broken up because someone not only reported their bike was missing, but had their serial # and gave it to police. So like the others say above, make sure you have that info in a useful place, keep your bikes close, and don’t buy suspicious-sounding stuff off craigslist, ebay, etc…but maybe we can check our assumptions, eh?