PS: and "because of all the thievery" is a viscous cycle phenomenon, because people who buy cheap due to thievery are the ones most likely to buy pre-owned. Leg

PS: and "because of all the thievery" is a viscous cycle phenomenon, because people who buy cheap due to thievery are the ones most likely to buy pre-owned. Legit pre-owned or not, and the cheaper the less they care. I never lived in a place like that, but I suspect that in places like Amsterdam or Copenhagen the cycle of theft is bordering on turning into something that is effectively more like a service charge, as in occasionally your bike disappears for random unscheduled refurbishing/resale and you just go to the next "refurbishment center"/fence and pay them for a freshly serviced bike, hardly more than you'd pay for service the regular way, if you brought in own bike (and you'd have no bike in the meantime). It almost sounds a bit romantic, but the huge downside is that you can't really use a higher value bike in that scenario and that severely reduces the general utility of cycling: the cheap clunkers that fit well into the "random unscheduled refurbishing" pattern might be fine on short distances, but they tend to be unbearably bad for longer rides (similar to bikeshare bikes, just not quite that bad)