A-fucking-gain

[juliet]

My bike got nicked again last night. That's, what, the third time in 9 months? Something like that. From the front lobby of St P, this time. GrrRRRRR.

Islington police are crap & don't answer their phone; but the Halifax have accepted the claim happily anyway (will phone the police again this evening). Since I am still in disagreement with the Halifax over the *last* claim[0], this time I am borrowing Pete's bike until the Halifax's bike-sorting-out company get a replacement to me. Still have the excess, though. Bah.

In happier news: now have Pixies tickets for the 4th June, hurrah. And Amazon delivered my exciting knitting books today. Which is nice.

[0] A matter of their not telling me that getting a cash settlement would mean that I wound up £45 out of pocket, due to the cash settlement being for the cost of replacing the thing through their supplier, & the cost of the new bike to me being through a regular bike shop & therefore more.

Comments

[missfairchild.livejournal.com]

Boo! That's so rotten. Commiserations, and here's hoping the claim process is easier this time.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

That sucks big time.

Sometimes I wish that we could have the sort of anti-theft stuff shown in the adverts in RoboCop II - guy jumps in car to steal it, guy gets electrocuted. Somehow I think the police wouldn't be happy if we wired up our bikes so that the rider got an electric shock 2 minutes after starting to cycle if something wasn't disabled.

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[missfairchild.livejournal.com]

There's a lovely scene in The Wizard of Speed and Time where Mike Jittlov rigs up his bicycle to do something very similar. I wish I had the technical know-how to replicate it, if only for the ensuing sight gag :o)

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[vampwillow]

yeah ... quite like that film

:: wonders whether to get the tape out and watch it later::

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[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Flechette grenades, every 7.5 feet or fraction thereof of length on each facing of the vehicle.</car wars>

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[juliet]

I'm telling you, right at the moment it's a *damn* tempting thought. [sigh]

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[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Everyone knows that my views on crime are so right-wing I wouldn't be allowed to write for the Daily Mail, but anyway, I think we should all leave clapped-out badly secured bikes with dodgy brakes on the tops of hills. Fighting crime through Darwinism, that's my motto.

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[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

They won't steal clapped out bikes. The reason Juliet's keeps getting nicked is that it's a decent bike. Yes, there are bike thieves who are just opportunists, but I suspect that London, like Cambridge, has pretty organised gangs who know a good bike when they see one, and have the tools to get through bike locks.

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[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I've had clapped out bikes stolen.

Spraypainting them brown apparently works wonders, though.

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[juliet]

I really think it's been opportunists all 3 times. Admittedly, the last twice it's been a decent bike that's gone, but the first one was an elderly, rusting, road racer (about 15 yrs old), with dodgy gears & a knackered saddle. It was chained to a metal fence, even, & it *still* went (that was from out the front of our house). This is why I don't really buy the "rust-coloured paint" idea, because that was *genuine* rust & it *still* didn't put the buggers off!

Last time was from our back garden; talking to the neighbours has revealed that we're fairly certain it's local kids, who climb into the alleyway belonging to the college that's out back of our back gardens. They've also been known to break into sheds & nick things like lawnmowers. The general consensus is that they're just going for whatever they can find in any given back garden. Hence why the bikes now live in the living-room, which is a pain in the arse.

This time, given that it was inside the lobby, again it seems more likely that it was opportunism from the kids who hang around outside the front door. It was an OK bike, but it wasn't the sort you look out for to try to nick, if you see what I mean. Only just off the bottom of the range, really.

Unfortunately, bike locks are almost intrinsically not that sturdy, because you have to carry the buggers round with you on the bike! And bolt-cutters aren't terribly expensive (nick a couple of bikes & you'd cover it), so you don't have to be terribly organised in the opportunistic theft line to have acquired a pair.

[sigh] lots. I may say something to CJ about your other suggestion (cheers; hadn't thought of that), but tbh I think I'll be inclined to just go through the hassle of carrying the damn thing up 2 flights of stairs. GrrRRRR.

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[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

The other thing is to leave the rusty-looking bike around lots of better-looking bikes. It doesn't put off thieves who are looking for anything to finance their next buy of heroin, but it will encourage casual thieves to steal the shiny looking one next to it instead.

Sticking lots of bits that look like bad repairs to it is very effective. Mine has a load of rubber bands wound around the handlebar, bits of algae-covered string hanging off it, gaffer tape all over the place, etc and has been missed out in every bike raid it's seen and it has seen a lot. Mechanism worked perfectly well except for being a little old, until the gears died when they got iced up a year ago, but that's okay where there aren't hills.

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[juliet]

Yeah - I think the dilapidation trick works better when there's lots of other bikes around (because they'd rather take the shiny one(s)). My bike-thefts have only ever occurred from places where mine has been the only bike there (& finding others to act as decoys isn't really an option, cos it's just places where there *aren't* other bikes in the vicinity!). Might try the string/rubber bands/etc-thing, though, when I get the replacement...

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

It's probably worth telling the Bermondsey Community Wardens about the previous incidents (I've got the number somewhere) --- they're more in tune with the local-kids-related crime and generally more user-friendly than the police. Why I know this I'll leave for a face-to-face discussion...

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[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Attach some kind of power source to a capacitor via a diode so the charge doesn't all flow back the other way and try to turn your wheel when you're stopped at traffic lights, and expose a connector on the handlebar when you get off the bike. Am tempted to say dynamo, but don't know how much charge you'd store up. Might be enough for a proper shock. Then discharge it using handily placed screwdriver before you ride off yourself. Of course the saddle would be a more entertaining place to put it, but you don't see many bike thieves with bare arses and most just lift up and carry anyway.

The police probably wouldn't care if it wasn't fatal or permanently damaging - nobody is going to walk into a police station and say "I'd like to place a charge of GBH because of this small burn on my hand, you see, I was trying to steal this bike when..."

Also I've said it before and I'll say it again - rust coloured paint, and a bit of gaffa tape on the saddle.

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[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Could also write 'Property of Tony Martin' on it with white paint. *mutter mutter hanging too good for them mutter mutter public flogging mutter mutter*.

[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell. That's silly.

So, was it was *inside* that locked front lobby bit? That's a worry..

What sort of locks do you use? What sort of method are they removed via?

(I'm curious for my own reasons - my bike is left all over the place with nothing but a bunch of locks attached to it, so am curious to see what methods have got thru yours, and thus might be applied to mine.)

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[juliet]

Behind the big front door, but not behind the second glass door (because kitty_goth & bootpunk's neighbours apparently object to bikes inside the inner lobby. We're assuming that someone left the front door open & the kids who hang around by the door got in. Kitty reckoned they might have climbed the wall, but I think that's less likely. Once I get another bike, I shall be carting it up the stairs & leaving it in the damn flat in future (as I currently do at home, except with fewer stairs).

Locks: 30quid D-lock, by Abus Plus. I could fork out another 30 quid for a stronger one, but ultimately you can't get anything that a nice solid pair of bolt-cutters won't go through (& it should take a nice solid pair of bolt-cutters to go through the one I have). On this occasion it was only locked to itself (owing as how it was *inside a locked front door*), so I assume they carried it off elsewhere to apply the lock-breaking equipment. Didn't see any bits of lock or similar lying around (nor did we when it got nicked from the back garden).

I think bikes are probably more susceptible to theft than motorbikes: it's possible to carry them off to work on the lock elsewhere, you don't have the ignition thing to worry about, & they're much less identifiable once you've got them away.

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[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

Ahh, yeah, bikes really do need to be locked to something, kind of like scooters. (As you said, because you can just carry them off or chuck them in the back of a van, and then use heavy power tools to remove the lock at your leisure later)

Bit late now, but would it be possible to get a hefty chain, and attach that to something, so you can attach the bike to something unmoveable?
(I'm assuming there's no posts for a D-lock, or you would have used it anyway)

I need to alter my insurance for my bike, because I moved house. But I'm scared it's going to cost a lot, because before I had my bike parked off road in the back yard, but now its on the street. :/

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[juliet]

Normally I would never leave it just locked to itself (if I was leaving it on the street or whatever); I'd always find some nice railings/lamppost/whatever. But I foolishly thought that a locked door would do the trick :-/

I thought about the chain option a couple of months ago (since the bike visits St P on a weekly basis :-) ), but there's nothing really to attach it to. And also, you can't actually get any terribly heavy chain at DIY stores etc (to be able to buy it, you have to be able to cut a bit off, so...). Or not that I saw when I looked, anyway. Carrying it up the stairs it is...

Do they ask about where you keep it? Pedal cycle insurance works rather differently, I think - mine's insured wherever I leave it (it's even insured, as far as I can see, if it's not locked. Blimey).

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[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

It might be something for bootpunk to bring up at a residents' association meeting? If the other residents are so dead against bikes being put in the inner lobby, perhaps they'd be prepared to chip in for a bike-rack or lockable store? They're not that expensive.

[dwagon.livejournal.com]

unfortunately it happens - my uncle had so many bikes stolen he couldn't get insurance on them anymore...comiserations though *hugs*

[karen2205]

Not sure how much of this you'll have seen before.....

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs/ypgcp10.html (about two thirds of the way down)
http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news/latest_news_2/story2.htm
http://www.soldsecure.com/Leisure.htm (list of supposedly good locks)

But three times in a *year* is horrendous.

I'd quite like the idea of fitting a dye cartridge to the bike which bursts if it's tampered with, so that the thief gets covered in it and is quite hard to miss - but I'd imagine that's illegal (damage to property/possible health risks if the dye is accidentally swallowed).

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[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I had the first bike I got nicked postcoded, and it was no good at all. I found the frame three weeks later outside a shopping mall - it was the same one, that model in that colour was pretty rare because it was a hideous orange, and it had the same scratches in the same places - but with not only the postcode but the frame number lopped off with a chisel. I called the local police station and stood there in the snow until they sent a couple of beat police round, and they couldn't do anything even though I was obviously not lying and by this point in tears, because it had no frame number. Sucked to be me that day.

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[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Yes, but when alixandrea had hers stolen earlier this year, which she had registered with the police iirc, she did get it back.

Basically, it costs nothing in money and little in time to do it, so even if it only very slightly increases the chances of getting your bike back, it's probably worth it.

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[karen2205]

*nods* - that sounds pretty unpleasant, but I think this is a good use for digital cameras.....if you have photographs of everything you own, then it's much easier to prove that something's yours (but then, who has time/inclination to go round photographing everything?)

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[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I had a form with every detail of the bike recorded on it, and they wouldn't accept that it was mine without a frame number. I asked them if a photograph would have helped and they said no, only a frame number would. I think some of Cambridge police need to talk to the rest of Cambridge police now and again.

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[juliet]

The locks I've had before are all ABUS, decent quality, feature on that database. It boils down to: if I want the gold-rated one, the lock alone costs something like £80 (& bear in mind that if it *does* get nicked, I have to buy a new lock as well, & the insurance isn't clear about whether the lock is covered), it noticably increases the weight of the bike, & it doesn't *actually* stop anyone from nicking it, just means that it takes 'em longer to get through it.

Having said that, I am going to clarify slowly-&-clearly with the Insurance Bike Man this time about whether the lock is covered by the insurance. If it *is*, I may see if he can get me a better one & I pay the difference, or something. Suspect the weight of the really tough ones is just too much, though.

if the dye is accidentally swallowed

[ewx.livejournal.com]

They're hardly going to be tampering with your bike with their mouth!

[the23.livejournal.com]

this incessant thievery is one of the factors that makes me wonder whther returneing to the uk is a wise option. in a country where the public is (at least potentially) as tooled up as the thieves fewer things get nicked. i think the incresased police presence is a big factor too. (that has an obvious downside.)

hope the pixies put on a more enthralling (and shorter) live show than frank black does when he is playing solo.