Brazen bike part thieves!

[laura*]

(No, I'm not the victim.)

Yesterday (Saturday) I took public transit "downtown" for breakfast. The bus arrived at the main transit center at 10 AM. As I started my walk to the restaurant, I passed a mountain bike locked up at the transit center. It was smartly leaned against a bike rack with a U-lock locking the rear wheel and frame to the rack, and a fancy new looking chain lock locking the front wheel and frame to the rack. "Overkill" I thought, but the "two types of locks" method allowed them to lock the frame to the rack doubly.

After consuming my breakfast and three newspapers, I walked past the transit center at Noon. Passing the bike racks I see a bike leaning over crazily. At first it looks like the owner had removed the front wheel and locked it along side the rear. "But wait! That's the same bike from earlier." Except it was now missing the suspension fork, stem, handlebars, brake levers, disc brake calipers, and brake cables.

So, in those two hours, a thief had removed the grips, loosened and slid off the shifter pods, unbolted the headset adjuster cap, loosened the stem, unbolted the rear caliper, freed the rear brake cable, released the front wheel, slid out the fork, and walked away with the parts. All that along a street with continuous pedestrian traffic, with buses entering or leaving the transit center every few minutes, and maybe a transit rent-a-cop yelling at cyclists to "Walk your bike".

Walking by again at 5 PM, I looked close enough to see that the bike was a vivid blue Kona Cinder Cone.

As my bus home departed at 6:30 PM, the bike was still there, though fallen all the way over. I can't see someone leaving such a nice bike locked up there for 8 and a half hours. The owner must have returned. I suspect it's a spoiled rich kid who just abandoned the remains - a kid who expects "daddy" to buy them an entire new replacement bike and locks.

I'll next be by the transit center on Tuesday. I'm betting the frame, wheels, and locks will still be there - but that the entire drivetrain (and saddle too) will be gone.

[OakLeaf]

Aw, that sucks.

I wouldn't be so quick to judge the owner though. Your initial reaction was that they'd overprotected their bike. It's just as likely that the remains were still there at day's end because they could find alternate transportation for themselves but not for a stripped frame. Bus, taxi, and friend with roof rack but no inside-vehicle space would all be out.

[lph]

That's amazing! Amazing bad, of course, not amazing good. I have a Kona Cinder Cone myself and I feel for the poor bike

I sometimes wonder about bike thieves and how they operate, though. I can imagine someone doing all sorts of mechanical type things to a bike, and passersby not reacting because person is not obviously stealing the bike and most people don't know diddlysquat about how to repair bikes anyway. While a person cutting or breaking open a lock is much more obviously a thief. I can't imagine the guts you'd have to have to try something like this though. It takes a lot of time after all!

[blackhillsbiker]

A friend had her road bike on the back of her hubby's Suburban while they ran into Sears after work. When they got out, someone had field stripped her bike, taking anything they could get off/unscrewed/unbolted. They were only in the store for a short time.

Deb

[Yelsel]

I've been thinking about a set of Pitlocks for leaving my bike out even just to run errands... there are now sets with a locking threadless headset as well as seatpost and front and back wheels. I now use a high-security U-lock and medium security cable (or just the medium security cable - both wheels plus frame) for errands where I am inside 5-15 minutes. I'd like to get this down to the ease of just the Pitlocks + U-lock for 5-15 minute errands, and then the added security of Pitlocks + U-lock + cable lock for grocery shopping. My front wheel has a generator hub, and will soon have studded tires, so I really want to protect the wheel / fork.

People also superglue ball-bearings into hex nuts to prevent theft (and use solvents to dissolve the superglue to unbolt), or go to torx nuts (though these are getting more popular due to disc brakes, so thieves are more likely to carry these tools).

People keep remarking how "nice" my commuter bike is, which makes me nervous... it really is just an entry level steel bike (Bianchi Castro Valley ~= Volpe frame), I just take *very* good care of it. I enjoy working on my bikes almost as much as riding them. (I actually love what a previous owner did on the Bianchi mixte hybrid I got for a fixed / single speed commuter - s/he painted in all the paint knicks white, on a red frame with white lettering. So the frame looks "crappy," is still protected, and still satisfies my desire for some sort of "order.")

[zia]

Ugh, hate stories like this. Does anyone know the market for thieves like this? E.g., are the parts sold on eBay. craigslist? As a consumer, I want to make sure I do my part to avoid contributing to this kind of problem...