7 ms·

One thing confused me about this. In major American cities bike theft is incredibly common, to the point that the police won't help at all. I've had bikes repe

• bluescrn 7y ago
  It’s certainly a massive problem in the UK. Stealing bikes is almost decriminalized by the fact that it’s too minor a crime for the police to take seriously. And there’s a complete lack of secure bike ‘parking’ space.
• ViViDboarder 7y ago
  I’m from America, but I visited Copenhagen a few years ago and was amazed by how many bikes there were. On top of it, most bikes were parked with only a wheel lock and not chained to anything.
  • gautamdivgi 7y ago
    You need a bike friendly road network. Where I am at in suburban Illinois, I have a 45 - 55 mph lane with no shoulder and no continuous sidewalk. There is no way I'm risking life and limb to commute on that with my bike. On the other hand there are multiple trails which I can and will use now that spring/summer is here. I think the reluctance to use bikes for basic transport is more to do with lack of space on the road rather than theft.
    • touisteur 7y ago
      Theft plays a major role when you're thinking of buying an e-bike... When you're shelling 2+kEUR and you must put the fscking lock eeeeverytime you go somewhere, pause to buy bread, or whatever, and it's the same one or 2 minutes circus (first lock, then second lock, then don't forget the computer...). It gets tiring and discouraging.
    • akgerber 7y ago
      Bike trails aren't used in winter because they aren't maintained, just as roads that aren't maintained in winter aren't driven on.
  • nicof 7y ago
    Man visiting Copenhagen truly was a cultural shock, I walked past a street at midnight that may have had like 30 bikes in it without a lock. Those wouldn't last an hour without getting stolen where I'm from
  • cko 7y ago
    I was in a suburban ward in Tokyo two years ago and it didn't look like any bikes had locks on them. They were all identical bikes with large kickstands.
    • SECProto 7y ago
      They do use locks, they are just tiny things that lock the rear wheel in place. They look like the brake mechanism. For example: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/252774835823-0-1/s-l1000.jpg http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/252774835823-0-1/s-l1000.jpg side note: the ubiquitous Japanese bike style you're referring to is called "mamachari"
      • cko 7y ago
        Good to know. Here I was believing that Japanese society was so advanced they couldn't even conceive of theft. I did feel a major sense of safety in Tokyo, however.
        • SECProto 7y ago
          Yeah. I think it's more likely to stop someone accidentally taking the wrong bike. Since they aren't secured to anything and the locks aren't beefy, defeating it would be pretty trivial. I have a number of friends with anecdotes about forgetting items on a bus/train and the lengths to which individuals or companies will go to return them is pretty impressive.
• groestl 7y ago
  > no way would I spend more than a 2 or 3 hundred dollars on something that will get stolen within 3 years. I'd neither, but a friend of mine did. He got his bike insured (replacement value), for a pretty reasonable amount, considering. And AFAIK most people with expensive bikes do, which is probably also the reason police is not too keen on acting.
  • brianwawok 7y ago
    I keep my expensive bikes locked inside the dwelling part of my unit. Pros: Never had a bike stolen Cons: Can't really just ride it somewhere and let it sit all day. My use cases have been: 1) Commute to work (my work let me bring it up to my office to park it during the day) 2) Ride somewhere and back home (always parked in my dwelling) 3) Ride it to maybe a place to eat, but park it literally outside the window, locked, so I can watch it while I eat. Sucks I can't just do whatever with it, but I have a beater if I needed to do that.
  • FrojoS 7y ago
    Yes! Bike insurance is the way to go once you have a nice bike. I don't and carry a big lock. But I have friends with quality bikes (~1500 EUR) and they park at the train station with laughable locks because it's insured.
    • groestl 7y ago
      Probably depends on the insurance, but his came with certain restrictions on how to lock the bike, and where to store it at home.
    • dredmorbius 7y ago
      ... with laughable locks because it's insured. ... Morale hazard: https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-definitions/morale-hazard https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-definitions/morale-hazar...
• BurningFrog 7y ago
  When I lived in Sweden, on average one bike would get stolen per year. My experience in California is similar. Once you accept that, it's not that much money. The bad part is that you can never buy that Really Nice bike you'd really want.
  • technofiend 7y ago
    Exactly why I have a pawn shop beater with some minor upgrades for cycling to work and my well it was super cool when I bought it road bike that never gets left locked up anywhere.
  • erkken 7y ago
    I'm from Sweden and biked NY to SF a few years ago. During the two months it took I never locked my bike (didn't brought a lock at all). Just a related a anecdote ;)
    • ahoy 7y ago
      Did you pass through many major cities? In suburban and rural america, you can absolutely leave a bicycle unlocked and expect it to be there when you return.
  • Ma8ee 7y ago
    I’ve have used bicycles as my main mean of transportation most of my 43 years of life in Sweden. I’ve had exactly one bicycle stolen during all those years. But I’ve always been very careful to lock my bike to something with a good lock.
  • FrojoS 7y ago
    You seem to have incredibly bad luck. I got 2 bikes stolen in 20 years and I think its similar for my friends (all central Europe).
    • BurningFrog 7y ago
      Maybe I'm a bit bolder than others. I do lock the bike etc, but I don't worry much about bringing it wherever I go.
• input_sh 7y ago
  What I've learned while I lived in Amsterdam is that you want to invest ~30% of the value of your bike to purchase a bike lock. Basically make it not worth the effort to break the lock. Also second-hand and rusty ones are better than new ones. Some Dutch cities have a free-of-charge engraving mechanism where you basically engrave a serial number on a bike to make it easier to track down stolen bikes, as well as to know that you're not actually buying a stolen bike. Also, you'll be responsible if you're caught with a stolen bike, which is a nice deterrent to actually use a reliable source when purchasing a bike. Shops act as a middlemen between you and the person selling the bike, and they're responsible for making sure that the bike you're purchasing from them isn't stolen. On the downside, that drives the cost up a bit, but on the bright side, you usually get some months of warranty period in which they'll repair your bike free of charge in case anything happens to it.
  • Mediterraneo10 7y ago
    > What I've learned while I lived in Amsterdam is that you want to invest ~30% of the value of your bike to purchase a bike lock. That advice predates the battery-powered angle grinder, which many bike thieves in Western Europe now use. Even the toughest, most expensive U-lock can be broken in about a minute with an angle grinder.
    • abdullahkhalids 7y ago
      How much sound does it make though?
    • zachrose 7y ago
      I saw a guy outside a grocery store taking one of those to a U-lock. He said it was his own bike. Wasn’t sure what to do after that.
      • nullc 7y ago
        Take a really good picture including his face. Send picture to the local police department in case someone reports that bike stolen. Presumably if it's actually his bike, he'll be thankful.
• dkdk8283 7y ago
  Police regularly stopped and scanned bicycle serial numbers at caltrain stations in the bay area. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen this though.
• Fricken 7y ago
  I've been commuting by bike my whole adult life and I get a bike stolen once every 3 years on average. I typically spend around $1000 on my bikes, and the cost is still dick-all compared to transit or driving.
  • zwieback 7y ago
    Bummer. I've been bike commuting my entire life and never had anything stolen, depends on where you live.
• Zenst 7y ago
  Seems to be common in many countries, more so city sized area's as statistically, you will get a larger spectrum of humanity and the odds of having more bike thieves will be higher. Let alone, drunken students taking the wrong bike or the like. Which is one of the reasons I don't have one, that and the types of drivers make it more dangerous, got better from my observations, but still, I'll walk more as unlike the country - not as far to go for most things. That and if I'd endured a few thefts, I'd just end up getting angry and knocking up a bobytrapped bike and probably go too far and that's probably another reason for me to not own a bycicle. Though I did checkly suggest upon twitter once to the local police that they should have a bait bike, maybe has a spike in the seat that raises up. They liked the idea with supportive comment. But I'm sure it would not playout well legally. Besides, imagine some poor person, drunk for the first time, gets on the wrong bike by mistake. Though I'd probably build some form of electric shock into it, though again, I'd know I'd go too far. Reminds me of an initiative in Amsterdam many decades back, 90's era iirc. The city had put a a large number of bikes in town for people to use, park up, free for all to use - early bike hire, ride and drop thing without any paying - just free use bikes. Coz what happened was people stole many of them, not everybody lived in Amsterdam and with that, maybe a good initiative, but needs to be done on a large scale to work. Until then, i'd not buy anything new, second hand end-user type of affair as locks are just not that good and anything close to good would be more than the cost of a use and abuse bike.
• bobthepanda 7y ago
  Even if you spent $1-2K on a bike, a new car is easily $20K, and owning a car you have depreciation anyways, so it still pencils out.
• NicoJuicy 7y ago
  The bike-locks are enough, the bike-locks are normally integrated with the bike themselve ( normal bikes), i've noticed a lot of foreign people are suprised by this. Racing bikes don't need locks, since you stall them at your garage or a private place during the night. Bike theft is usually common in student cities, were cheap bikes have cheap locks and one "steals" from another. The more expensive ones (> 400 €) are normally not stolen, since they also have more decent locks. Also, bikes can be engraved ( eg. like a serial number). Fyi: My bike is parked at a "big" train station at night (in Bruges) and it never got stolen in 2 years.
  • michaelt 7y ago
    Here in the UK, there are bike thieves who will drive a van up to a bicycle park, load the van with as many bikes as they can get with some bolt cutters in a few minutes, then drive off. It would be surprising to see someone using a lock that allowed a bike to be carried away for this reason! Of course it's mostly a problem at universities and train stations at night, where you can find big bike racks and no-one around. Lesser locks might be fine away from crime hotspots.
• Too 7y ago
  > no way would I spend more than a 2 or 3 hundred dollars on something that will get stolen within 3 years. Are you happy spending 2 or 3 hundred dollars on burning gas within 3 months?