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I think they're not as ubiquitous everywhere, and different areas tend to trend toward more expensive bikes for those who do ride. Bike theft in Japan happens,

by ehnto 5y ago

I think they're not as ubiquitous everywhere, and different areas tend to trend toward more expensive bikes for those who do ride. Bike theft in Japan happens, but the vast majority of people have very moderate bikes and there are millions of them, the incentive for theft is really small, and there's no real need to buy stolen bikes since bikes are already pretty cheap. Meanwhile in somewhere like say California or Melbourne, it's not uncommon for a bike to be $1000+, sometimes much more, making them a pretty attractive target, and a market for stolen bikes exists because of that higher price, people are often looking for a deal on second-hand bikes, they may not even realize it's stolen.

loeg 5y ago
To be clear there’s also a lot of theft of bikes under $1000, in pretty much any major metro in the US.
rtpg 5y ago
I've had my extremely shitty bike stolen in Japan! It was a normal mama-chari, and I called all the usual suspects to confirm it hadn't been towed. The main thing was that it was parked in a place it shouldn't be parked, for enough time. Meanwhile my much nicer replacement bike is parked like 50cm away, but inside actual bike parking, and is just there. My neighbor has an even nicer bike, with a fancy GPS thingy attached to the frame, there for the taking. And it's still there! The Completist's Guide mentions that cheaper bikes are more likely to get stolen, and I heard that from police here as well. Though I think the general contours of "everyone has a bike anyways" is very true. They're also harder to fence cuz bikes in Tokyo are registered (not 100% but enough). Personally, I think that just social dynamics from having real bike parking (read: not attaching to stop signs...) helps a lot as well.