Advice to a Friend Regarding a Stolen Bike

I got a note from a friend today, and thought since I responded with a short novel, I might as well post it for posterity's sake. Just to give you some background, my and my wife's bikes were stolen off our back porch in June 2008--our suburban back porch, no less. We had relatively dingy mountain bikes, each was at least 10 years old and neither cost more than $400 at the time of their original purchase. Mine was a low end Giant, hers was a medium end Pacific.

This didn't deter the thief or thieves who cleanly snipped the cable lock we were using and--laughing maniacally, I presume--rode away into the sunset. My friend is aware of this, and so sent me a note on the occasion of his bike being stolen.

Hi Adam,

My bike got stolen today. Your bike shop friends wouldn't have any good ideas about recovering a bike in the streets of Baltimore would they?

Yikes. I feel your pain, brother.

I don't really have any bike shop friends (everyone I've met at bike shops just wants me for my money ;), but in my experience, the best you can do is report it as stolen with the local police department and claim it on your renter's insurance if you've got it (after covering the deductible we got $150).

If you google a bit on "stolen bikes" you'll see that it's pretty much an huge unpunished crime industry. Chances of getting it back are slim to none since when the police pick them up they just toss them in the found property bin and the only time they pick them up is when they've been completely abandoned. What they told us was to call back every now and then to see if anything fitting our bikes' descriptions was returned. The way the system works is stacked against the owners. Police aren't going to "waste time" looking for your bike, and they aren't going to call you if it's found. Thieves know this, so as long as they're discreet it's a low-risk, high-reward crime.

If you're looking to replace, I'd suggest you check out Velocipede Bike Project (http://velocipedebikeproject.org/). It's pretty close to you all and you might be able to find a ride-able bike for under $50. When we visited there wasn't anything for me, but the way they work is fixing up found and donated bikes and selling them, so eventually something will come up. At the time I went, we lived about 30min away, so it was hard to be persistent. Bonus: a $50 bike is much less of a bummer when it gets stolen.

My other piece of advice is to invest in a heavy duty chain (at least 10mm, square cross section links) or a solid, reputable ULock. We bought chains and heavy cables, chain to lock to an object and cable to lock the other wheel (chain: http://is.gd/4kIZ, cable: http://is.gd/4kJ2). The combo means it'd be too much work to even get the wheel so most thieves will leave it alone. Also, make sure your primary lock has an anti-theft money back guarantee. Ours will supposedly cover $501 of bike value. If the company has no guarantee, they don't trust it and neither should you. Our setup--two chains, two cables--set us back about $75, but the increased peace of mind is worth it. If you're going to be parking it in the city, you may also want to look into seat post restraints. Maybe another lightweight cable lock (http://is.gd/4kJM) or unremoveable nut and bolt kit (http://is.gd/4kNU $60, http://is.gd/4kNX $107) for your wheels and seat.

Ultimately, you can only deter thieves. At least a good money back guarantee means you get some cash when (if you live in a city, it's *when* unless you don't ride) your bike gets lifted.

I know this won't give you warm fuzzies, but I do hope you're not afraid to keep riding. With gas at $4.00 and fuel efficiency around 20 mpg, I save $20 every 100 miles I ride. I've put around 440 on my new bike since June, so that's about 1/3 of my bike paid for. Note, this number doesn't account for the fact that my bikeable routes are more efficient than my vehicular routes. For example, my ride to work at Black and Decker is about 16 mi round trip, but my drive is about 35 mi round trip. That's nearly $6 a day. Non-trivial amounts of cash remain in my pocket and I get progressively thinner: win-win.