17 ms·

VanMoof’s team of ‘bike hunters’ appears to succeed where the city doesn’t

177 points by kaycebasques 4y ago

rektide 4y ago
Wow, I had no idea; this is wild. > Appears to Succeed Where the City Doesn’t Pretty aggressive framing given that bikes generally havent had gps trackers builtin before. Police wouldnt have any experience trying to get such things back, yet, given the new-ness, but these people have both time & some experience.
- SilasX 4y ago
  Police definitely have done bike stings in SF, and so definitely have the know-how to track at least some bike thieves this way. Example from googling: https://www.kron4.com/news/video-san-francisco-police-set-up-undercover-bait-bike-sting/ https://www.kron4.com/news/video-san-francisco-police-set-up...
  - more_corn 4y ago
    Have you actually spent any time in SF? Bike chop shops every fifth block. Rampant blatant theft. It’s an apocalyptic hell scape.
    - gamegoblin 4y ago
      I think the point parent commenter was making is that the police do have the knowledge and ability to tackle bike theft. Your comment implies that they are choosing (or being instructed) not to, which is a different thing. That said, my experience echos yours -- I'm a bike commuter in Seattle and ride by 3 open-air bike chop shops on my way to the office, all literally adjacent to bike paths. Pretty uncomfortable.
      - decafninja 4y ago
        I would not keep bike I cared about outside in any major city. Doesn't matter if it's locked.
      - asdff 4y ago
        The open air bike chop shop phenomenon is bewildering to me. It's like police on the west coast aren't allowed to use probable cause. Don't cops get promotions for busting crimes? So much low hanging fruit exists driving around a west coast city looking for infractions, from the obvious hard drug use and chop shops and street takeovers, but also stuff like the fact that chances are any gas leaf blower operating near an apartment building is probably illegal yet never enforced despite widely done. I feel like there is a cultural issue going on with west coast law enforcement where its like they don't want to deal with the paperwork or the effort of actually doing their job. It was telling when some LAPD got in trouble recently for playing pokemon go and ignoring dispatch calls to go after a snorelax (1). But just anecdotally I see general terrible work ethic from the cops. I see them abuse signal preemption all the time for nothing. When they are out directing traffic in downtown LA for some random construction road pattern they usually have an airpod in one ear, which I'm positive they aren't allowed to do. You call about a petty crime and the reaction is almost like "Did someone die? No? What do you want me to do then?" 1. https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q593/lapd-officers-ignore-robbery-in-progress-to-catch-snorlax-in-pokemon-go https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q593/lapd-officers-ignore-...
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  I don't think the GPS tracking is the issue. It's not uncommon to hear about people losing something like a smartphone to a thief, know where it is due to GPS tracking, and police just won't do anything with that information.
  - praxulus 4y ago
    Well, it's not the only issue. Without GPS tracking or bike registries bike theft is legitimately a very hard problem for police to deal with, so they're used to relying entirely on getting cyclists to use better locks. The situation has changed though, and they certainly deserve criticism for failing to change their attitude.
more_corn 4y ago
Sf police don’t give a shit about stolen bikes. I saw a homeless guy pick up a bike (wheel locked to frame) prop it on a shopping cart and run away. Called the cops. They didn’t give a shit, belittled me and refused to come. You’ll note in the article that it’s impossible to get the police to show up even when there’s known stolen property inside and clear gps evidence. sfpd doesn’t do anything about anything. Check out that great video of the cops rolling up on a burglary in progress. Perp comes out the door, gets in car and drives off. Cops do nothing. When vigilantism is the only justice available you’re living in a failed state.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Then you've been living in a failed state all of your life. The cops would only have ever gone out for that call in a sleepy wealthy suburb, and even then only if the cops personally knew the person who called in.
- exabrial 4y ago
  > vigilantism Cops and the city council WILL retaliate against you though for embarrassing them.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    Depending on the type of vigilantism, that could be the most reasonable move.
- corrral 4y ago
  Not just SF, and not just bikes. My experience is that cops don't give a shit about any theft unless it happens right in front of them. No amount of evidence you can hand them will convince them to spend so much as a minute investigating.
- edm0nd 4y ago
- anewpersonality 4y ago
  SF police don't care period. It's a corrupt organization that simply exists to steal funds from the state. It needs to be burnt to the ground and re-created. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/t2u3fq/guy_in_the_red_trading_a_bike_for_fentanyl_sorry/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/t2u3fq/guy_in...
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
If only disabling the GPS, also disabled the bike. Make it too much trouble to steal.
- googlryas 4y ago
  What happens if you take it into a parking garage with no service? Do you need to carry the bike out now?
  - randyrand 4y ago
    I think they mean something like this: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0b/fc/d6/0bfcd63b9e49a7da0ba1f93333bd0a0d--folding-bicycle-bike-design.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0b/fc/d6/0bfcd63b9e49a7da0ba1f9333... The lock itself / the GPS cartridge itself is structurally integral to the bike.
  - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
    Do they disable it by removing the antennae? Then sure that doesnt work so well. If by destroying it, perhaps the bottom bracket could get a pin released to freeze it when the circuit quits responding.
dieselgate 4y ago
Interesting article for me, from a couple angles. I had a bike stolen about a week ago and dang, it sucks. Cool there is a customer facing tool to help with retrieval! It’s always weird when thinking about “encountering” the person selling a stolen bike, kind of scary to think of potential outcomes. Does this service provide any “tools” for that? [edit: article says asking for it back is usually sufficient but I’m still skeptical] On a separate note I went to middle/high school with Ryan Eastman - seem to remember he kind of disappeared from school because of pursuing professional cycling. Remember looking up his race times at one point and have always been kind of curious what became of him. Sorry to hear about his crash from this article(!) but also very glad he found something cycling related to work in. Good luck to all involved. Edit: because this is HN I was initially thinking VanMoof also had a service one could attach to any bike. Seems it’s proprietary offering for their bikes. Original text left unedited above
- notagoodidea 4y ago
  > article says asking for it back is usually sufficient but I’m still skeptical Personnal and friends experience tends to agree with the article advice. The intensity of the ask vary from "It's my bike" to "It's my bike and we don't want to call the cops about it, right?". Most of the time, they may try to sell it back to you though.
  - clairity 4y ago
    a few weeks ago, i came out of a neighborhood cafe to find my bike gone. on a hunch, i walked over to a nearby homeless encampment and saw my bike sitting there. i walked up to it, grabbed it, said "that's my bike", cursed the dudes out, and rode off. it felt a little crazy at the time, but it worked. the thief(s) didn't seem too fazed by it.
    - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
      >nearby homeless encampment I’m afraid to ask, but which country was this?
chaostheory 4y ago
This alongside with Citizen’s gig security signals the decline of local government police forces. I would argue that the prevalence of Ring is signaling the same thing.
- michaelt 4y ago
  Was there a glorious past when bike thefts were taken seriously? Or is there also an element of a widening gap between rich and poor here, where the rich will be further insulated from the impact of failing public services?
  - Eric_WVGG 4y ago
    this line rankled me: "baffled city leaders for years" as if city leaders have ever considered cyclists anything more than an annoyance
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Never. It's even odd when burglaries were taken seriously. I don't know the mythical past that reactionaries reminisce about, although my age says that I lived through it. The past I remember had years old stacks of unprocessed rape kits.
    - KennyBlanken 4y ago
      Rape kits go unprocessed for many reasons. The accused confesses, for example, or dies. Or the victim's story/claims are directly contradicted by hard evidence, like cell phone/financial records or numerous witnesses placing the accused somewhere else. Many victims recant their stories, for varied reasons, many of them unfortunate - but that still make the case non-prosecutable. It's not just a matter of funding; there's only so much lab capacity. Rape is a tiny fraction of violent crime - barely a few percent - and spending millions processing rape kits unnecessarily is virtue signaling that does nothing to reduce the bulk of violent crime. The only reason it's getting so much attention is because it benefits a politically privileged class.
chrisin2d 4y ago
I have a VanMoof bike with both a GPS and a Find My tracker. The first time it got stolen in Berkeley, I recovered it. It hadn't gone far, so the police were able to locate it and the thief. The second time it got stolen, I couldn't recover it. But I had already bought the Peace of Mind coverage plan, so VanMoof replaced it — and lent me a bike of the same model in the 2 weeks it took to deliver.
- glhaynes 4y ago
  Do you know how they were able to steal it without the alarm going off?
  - chrisin2d 4y ago
    The alarm bell and lights were set off. When the police recovered the bike, they found that the thief had duct taped over the lights and speakers. Interestingly, both incidents happened in busy areas in the SF Bay Area. I guess that the bystander effect was strong.
- wferrell 4y ago
  Are you able to keep using the Peace of Mind coverage plan once replaced? Or did you have to buy a 2nd plan? Asking out of genuine interest. It seems to be some of the value of the plan is that you get to worry less about the stress/fear of your bike being stolen -- but if you are off the plan once it has been stolen once...seems like a loss of value.
  - minhazm 4y ago
    > We’ll recover or replace up to three times within your three-year coverage. If by some freakish bad luck your bike is stolen a fourth time, we won’t be able to recover or replace your bike, but we will provide you with full tracking information so you can hunt it yourself. From: https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/peace-of-mind https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/peace-of-mind
    - 4y ago
awinter-py 4y ago
> The two-person team did a quick U-turn and pulled aside the person to find that the bike’s GPS system was disabled, indicating that it had been stolen the google bus did a quick U turn and did an illegal terry stop to find that the pixel 6's third party cookies had been disabled, indicated that it had been stolen
donclark 4y ago
I thought these guys did a pretty good job of deterring bike thieves in the area temporarily... Rope bike prank (2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-OwjoP96Rc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-OwjoP96Rc
- mc32 4y ago
  Those looks like set-ups? Are they actual thieves trying to steal bikes? Wouldn't a thief notice the tether? I can see trying to pretend you're just getting on YOUR bike and taking off... Anyway, there is a difference in an insured bike recovery system that has the right incentives and SFPD which does not have the benefit of GPS tracking and profit incentive. Of course their success rate will be dire in comparison.
  - evan_ 4y ago
    > Those looks like set-ups? it's certainly very lucky that the thief always went directly towards the guy hiding behind a tree with a pie. Helpful also that they stayed in the sightline of the camera, even though several of them did have to look directly at it to be sure.
    - mc32 4y ago
      One other thing that would point to those being staged is the injury liability they could incur (the endos) --of course they would have to know who tethered the bikes like that. But the person running after the "thief" would be a good candidate.
leke 4y ago
As bikes go electric, it would be good to have them all required to have transponders. We just have to make it a requirement to have them on all the time, then we won't be plagued with this bike theft.
- thinkling 4y ago
  As bikes go electric, you can make it so the motor blocks when your phone is not in range.
  - lief79 4y ago
    So you can end up with a dead phone and a nonfunctional bike?
    - praxulus 4y ago
      If you have a charged ebike, it ought to be easy to charge your phone. There are still other problems with that approach. VanMoof currently lets you unlock your phone with your bike, rather than requiring a constant connection, which seems like the right balance.
      - aetherspawn 4y ago
        > VanMoof currently lets you unlock your phone with your bike Unlock your bike with your phone?
        praxulus 4y ago
        ...yes.
farnsworth 4y ago
After having two bikes stolen at once, I bought Tile trackers for a bunch of my possessions and hid one on my new bike. The tracking in Seattle is good in places with a lot of people around, pretty coarse in other areas, but I'm hoping that it will at least give me a direction to head in if this bike is ever stolen. I'm wondering whether anyone has a recommendation for a bike GPS tracker though. The ones I see generally look too obvious, have expensive subscriptions, need charging every day, etc.
- thinkling 4y ago
  There are covers for the Apple AirTags that look like regular seatpost-mounted reflectors. I haven't looked to see if they exist for other trackers, but that's the route I would go.
  - kevinmchugh 4y ago
    Don't the anti-stalking features of AirTags make them poorly suited to anti-theft uses? If I were a professional bike thief I'd have an iphone just to get notified when I've stolen a bike with an airtag on it
    - ray__ 4y ago
      If the AirTag is well hidden enough, I wonder how many bike thiefs would just cut their losses and leave the bike behind at this point.
      - jdminhbg 4y ago
        The AirTag will beep if it's been separated from its owner for long enough, so presumably the thief would be able to find it relatively quickly once that happens.
        wferrell 4y ago
        It is easy to disable the beep. I did it to one in about 5 minutes with basically an exacto knife.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
A pattern you see with these bikes is that people mostly don't bother to mess with them after they learn about the counter measures. Basically, there are several levels of protection. 1) if it is locked, it will make some noise when people mess with it. 2) When they don't stop, it will make a lot of noise. And it escalates quickly to ear piercing levels. There is no way you can pick this up and just walk way with it unnoticed unless you can unlock the bike or dismantle it without setting off the alarm. A light touch will do that. 3) if by any chance you do succeed in stealing it while not drawing the attention of the entire neighborhood, it has a tracker. 4) if you manage to disable all of that, you basically have a product that is relatively hard to sell because world + dog knows they might have to hand it over in the likely case that they are caught by the bike hunters. Because so few thefts escalate to that, VanMoof can afford to spare no expenses on trying to track thieves down and keeping victims pacified with a replacement bike. It's a simple insurance that works and actually lowers their risk. It's not impossible to steal one of course but it adds up to a lot of trouble and risk for not a lot of payoff. Most bike thieves would prioritize easier, less risky, and more valuable targets. I use Swapfiets, which is a Dutch bike leasing startup. I just pay a monthly fee and don't worry about theft, repairs, etc. There are many thousands of them across Berlin; hundreds of thousands across many European cities. Nobody ever messes with these bikes. They are so recognizable that there's no point in stealing one. No bike hunters required for this. It has no tracker or alarm. I've had one for two years in Berlin and nobody ever messes with it. And it's a decent bike too. I park it wherever I want including some places where I would never park any bike I own like the train station, rough neighborhoods, etc. It's great. I can go anywhere I like in the city, leave the bike on the street for a few hours and it will still be there when I come back. I do this every day. They have electrical ones too. They are very popular with delivery services.
- PcChip 4y ago
  >They are so recognizable that there's no point in stealing one What does this mean? why don't they get stolen?
  - tomklein 4y ago
    Swapfiets builds their own bikes and does not - never ever - sell them. If one gets stolen, it can‘t be resold without one noticing it’s stolen, as these are not in circulation in the first place and still owned by the company that built them
amelius 4y ago
Sounds borderline illegal. What if the person riding the bike bought it secondhand?
- bink 4y ago
  They aren't forcing anyone to surrender the bike. They're just asking them if it's stolen and if they'll give it back. In any case, buying stolen property doesn't entitle you to the property.
- wl 4y ago
  If its stolen property, the original owner still has superior title to the person who bought it after it was stolen. Might need to be hashed out in court if the second-hand buyer won't relinquish it, but it's not illegal to ask.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  There's two possibilities to your question: That the person riding it bought it secondhand from someone who stole it, and that the person buying it bought it from the (first) owner, who then calls in Vanmoof to steal the bike back for them. 1) Receiving stolen property is illegal, and the bike is still property of the original owner and they can take it back anytime. The person riding it is culpable to the extent that they knew it was a shady deal, which can range from "Not at all, but stuck holding the bag of having to sue the thief for fraud for selling them a stolen bike" to "Charged in conspiracy". There's a big range there, but as it's incredibly hard to prove if they were found riding it around, they probably just lose the bike. If they are found with it in a chop shop... that's a different story. 2) Selling someone something with the intent to steal it back is fraud. If you have a receipt from the seller, you can tell VanMoof to fuck off, or surrender the bike to them and sue in small claims court. VanMoof doesn't want to deal with that and will roll over fairly quickly. The (fraudulent) first owner will be very easy to find because they have a contract with VanMoof. They can probably pull this scam once without repercussions, but VanMoof will, presumably, quickly turn over evidence to your police report of the scam to avoid ruining their reputation.
londgine 4y ago
https://www.vanmoof.com/shop/en_nl/bikehunters https://www.vanmoof.com/shop/en_nl/bikehunters their website says they even go flying around the world to places like war torn Ukraine and Casablanca gangs to retrieve the bike. That sounds very dangerous.
antihero 4y ago
Just buying a bike here in the U.K. on a cycle-to-work scheme. Are there things I can do or buy that are better than a fairly sturdy lock, not leaving it unattended in stupid places, or perhaps gaffer tapping an airtag somewhere not too obvious? Also not too sure which insurance is good value.
- abawany 4y ago
  One minor meta-recommendation on the sturdy-lock front is to look for content from the "Lock Picking Lawyer" and find out if there are any bike locks that he recommends. He tends to make short work of most locks but there are some that gain his grudging recommendation; the number of severe vulnerabilities in many "high security" locks is eye opening. Edit0: added "front" after sturdy-lock.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Are locks ever actually picked? I have only ever seen brute force approaches. If you have the inclination, a proper, heavy chain is better than a D-lock - both should be impervious to bolt-cutters, but a D-lock can be forced open/broken with a jack and a chain usually cannot. Also a chain is more difficult to cut with an angle grinder as it moves about and might break the cutting disk.
    - riscy 4y ago
      Yep spot-on, I'll add: From a weight perspective, a well-sized D-lock used correctly should not have enough space to permit an attack with a jack, so don't get one that's too big. Also, one mistake chain-users might make is allowing enough slack that a link is close to the ground, which can be used as leverage with a bolt cutter, etc.
    - aidenn0 4y ago
      Downside to chain is weight; a robust chain is about 2x the weight of the equivalently robust d-lock; if you are allowed to leave the chain at work, it's definitely worth it though.
    - 4y ago
bushbaba 4y ago
Had a VanMoof. The 'bike hunters' was worthless. The "GPS" is actually A-GPS which uses cell towers to triangulate the bike to within .5 miles...not too useful. When or if you do find the bike on a facebook marketplace listing, the Cops and VanMoof do nothing. As they can't attempt to purchase the bike, and can only be engaged if they see the stolen bike's serial number in the public space. The benefit was the insurance, where they simply replace the bike with a deductible of ~$100
- jbm 4y ago
  If the police are actually as bad as portrayed here, it seems like VanMoof is actually offering 4 for the price of 1 plus 300 dollars, plus the cost of insurance. Just have an accomplice keep the stolen bike in an enclosed area where there is no GPS access. Disable the AGPS for bonus points (apparently that is possible)
  - tschwimmer 4y ago
    You have independently invented insurance fraud.
    - jbm 4y ago
      It's only fraud if you have a functional legal system for the item in question; I think some comments made demonstrate that there is a distinct group of people who unironically feel that is not the case.
- WelcomeShorty 4y ago
  A-GPS == Assisted GPS (A-GPS) is used to speed up start-up times of GPS-based positioning systems. Basically it uses an internet connection to find the satellites positions and not having to calculate them their selfs.
- VectorLock 4y ago
  Based on some of these videos it looks like they also have some radio direction finding or proximity tracker in addition to the GPS. GPS gets them into a circular area then they have to run around to pinpoint it.
jackvalentine 4y ago
Reducing bike theft significantly is pretty easy actually: 1) Bike registry 2) Visual plaque stating bike is registered These two things make a bike less attractive to steal, and give the city the tools to actually prosecute stolen property cases and reunite owners with their goods. Nothing is perfect but this is a gain for bike riders. https://project529.com/garage/law_enforcement https://project529.com/garage/law_enforcement
- aidenn0 4y ago
  Every bike I had stolen was registered; none of them were ever returned to me.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
anonymousiam 4y ago
I recently bought an ebike that doesn't include GPS tracking. I was thinking of hiding an Apple AirTag under the seat, but then I read this: "AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking. If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s traveling with you and send you an alert. After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there. Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with AirTag, don’t worry. These alerts are triggered only when an AirTag is separated from its owner." (https://www.apple.com/airtag/ https://www.apple.com/airtag/) So in an effort to prevent stalkers from tagging victims, the AirTag beeps to give away the fact that it's tracking something "separated from its owner." This makes it useless for my use case because if my bike is stolen, it will be "separated from its owner."
- gruez 4y ago
  It's super easy to disable the speaker though.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    It won't disable the alert on the thief's phone (if they use an iPhone or an Android with the tracker app), however it doesn't really need to as the alert could actually be beneficial in convincing the thief to simply abandon the bike then take time to find & disable the tracker all while they are being tracked and the owner (or ideally the police - though in practice they are useless) can show up at any moment. Even better if they get the alert once they've already brought it home as they're definitely better off moving the bike away from there rather than having the trail stop at their place.
    - asdff 4y ago
      A lot of thieves just part the stolen bike out too and sell what they can for scrap value. They'd probably find the tracker and throw it aside.
- woleium 4y ago
pklausler 4y ago
As a happy longtime Brompton owner, I really like being able to dodge the whole theft problem with bicycle parking by just folding the bike up and using it as a shopping cart or unobtrusive bit of wheeled luggage. I don't even own a bicycle lock.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  The only drawback is looking like a dork when riding it.
  - pklausler 4y ago
    It's hardly the most glaring feature of my dorkiness, and it has the upside of being a great conversation starter whenever I fold it up or unfold it.
screye 4y ago
The biggest problem with Bike Theft is that it simply isn't prosecuted. They are easy to steal, easy to pawn off and easy to not be held liable for. Shifter has a great video bike crime - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el1Xznv5ge4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el1Xznv5ge4 But a few things come to mind: (especially for e-bikes) 1. Bike registration. Most e-bikes / high-end bikes cost as much as a beat up car. having them all come with basic registration makes it very hard to sell a stolen bike. 2. Bike tracking. Ebikes should come with airtag-like functionality standard. It is a $10 maximum overhead. 3. Bike alarms. If you have a tracker, it should have an alarm. The bike already has a bell. just put a put servo in there. 4. Last but most importantly - prosecution. Treat ebike theft like car theft. That's $1-10k value of stolen property. No reason to allow it willy-nilly.
- akomtu 4y ago
  1. Sell parts. It's even more profitable. 2. Tracking and surveillance in e-bikes is the last thing I want. 3. So you get an alarm that the frame of your hike showed up in a remote warehouse, 80 miles from city. Police won't bother and you'll be wise to not go there by yourself. 4. More funding to police, in other words? Theft won't investigate itself.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    >>4. More funding to police, in other words? Theft won't investigate itself. Yes, and more funding for prosecutors and correctional officers. But it doesn't take much enforcement and prosecution to establish deterrence.
    - ehnto 4y ago
      What's enforcement for bike theft look like in your mind?
      - dylan604 4y ago
        If it's my bike? Life without parole. If it's your bike? Sorry for your loss dude!
bckygldstn 4y ago
The VanMoof youtube channel releases a ~monthly video of the hunters in action. Sure it's marketing, but is an interesting watch. There's a few videos from SF, and one where they track a bike from Europe to Northern Africa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1oBcbRSK48&list=PLWwEynoexJikPNEl0P42Ae-niL37FJEsi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1oBcbRSK48&list=PLWwEynoexJ...
analog31 4y ago
It's interesting that the VanMoof bikes are visually distinctive, meaning that the bike hunting team only has to look for one kind of bike. And the bikes have a radio collar of some sort. A general purpose bike hunting service, or the police, would have a much harder time with the huge variety of bikes out there, most lacking the electronic beacon.
brian_cunnie 4y ago
This article focuses on thievery at the expense of vandalism. I leave my bike locked up outside overnight in San Francisco [0], and with three sturdy locks I'm not worried about thieves, but the vandals are another story. Ten days ago I came outside to discover they had set my bike seat on fire, which also ruined the rear tire and tube, along with some cosmetic damage. Total cost to repair: $283. My bike is vandalized typically every 90 days or so. [0] https://briancunnie.medium.com/how-to-lock-your-bike-overnight-in-san-francisco-c2b7da2260ba https://briancunnie.medium.com/how-to-lock-your-bike-overnig...
mherdeg 4y ago
I'm interested in this anecdote: > The Standard accompanied VanMoof employees Adrien Yeung and Bret Carmody on a “hunt” in early July, about 40 minutes into which the two happened to see someone riding one of the company’s bikes. The two-person team did a quick U-turn and pulled aside the person to find that the bike’s GPS system was disabled, indicating that it had been stolen. > The man riding the bike gave it back without a fuss, claiming that he had bought it at a local street market. What were some of the characteristics of that man that led Yeung and Carmody to guess that he was riding a stolen bike and not one he owned?
- walrus01 4y ago
  If you live in a city like Seattle, Vancouver or San Francisco and get around the urban core a lot as a pedestrian, you quickly learn to recognize what a crack, meth, heroin addict looks like. Is this a serious question?
Hamuko 4y ago
I think the worst part of attempting to transition away from driving to biking has been the fact that I can't really trust having my bike parked somewhere. If I drive a car somewhere, park it in a parking space and lock the doors, I have very high confidence that my car will be there when I get back. Probably won't get vandalised or damaged either. I could even leave something in the car and it probably won't be smashed and grabbed as long as it's not in plain sight. If I ride my bike somewhere, lock the frame to a bike stand with a sturdy U-lock and leave it there for an extended period of time, I don't feel confident that it will be there, or that it won't be somehow fiddled with. Even if they don't get the whole bike, they might run off with the tyres, or the battery if they manage to dislodge that. I could easily ride my bike to the nearest commuter train station, park it there and continue my way downtown. Would be a lot faster than taking the bus there. However, if I'm gone for a couple of hours, I don't feel safe parking the bike at the station. I wouldn't feel this way with a car. Same comes to parking at home. I feel absolutely nothing about parking my car outside my apartment, but I'm not confident in having the bike parked outside for more than 10 minutes. And I feel like this way even though I've never had my bike stolen and I don't live anywhere particularly dodgy. Just having people around me having had their bikes stolen make me feel this way.

177 points by kaycebasques 4y ago

Wow, I had no idea; this is wild. > Appears to Succeed Where the City Doesn’t Pretty aggressive framing given that bikes generally havent had gps trackers builtin before. Police wouldnt have any experience trying to get such things back, yet, given the new-ness, but these people have both time & some experience.

SilasX 4y ago
Police definitely have done bike stings in SF, and so definitely have the know-how to track at least some bike thieves this way. Example from googling: https://www.kron4.com/news/video-san-francisco-police-set-up-undercover-bait-bike-sting/ https://www.kron4.com/news/video-san-francisco-police-set-up...
- more_corn 4y ago
  Have you actually spent any time in SF? Bike chop shops every fifth block. Rampant blatant theft. It’s an apocalyptic hell scape.
  - gamegoblin 4y ago
    I think the point parent commenter was making is that the police do have the knowledge and ability to tackle bike theft. Your comment implies that they are choosing (or being instructed) not to, which is a different thing. That said, my experience echos yours -- I'm a bike commuter in Seattle and ride by 3 open-air bike chop shops on my way to the office, all literally adjacent to bike paths. Pretty uncomfortable.
    - decafninja 4y ago
      I would not keep bike I cared about outside in any major city. Doesn't matter if it's locked.
    - asdff 4y ago
      The open air bike chop shop phenomenon is bewildering to me. It's like police on the west coast aren't allowed to use probable cause. Don't cops get promotions for busting crimes? So much low hanging fruit exists driving around a west coast city looking for infractions, from the obvious hard drug use and chop shops and street takeovers, but also stuff like the fact that chances are any gas leaf blower operating near an apartment building is probably illegal yet never enforced despite widely done. I feel like there is a cultural issue going on with west coast law enforcement where its like they don't want to deal with the paperwork or the effort of actually doing their job. It was telling when some LAPD got in trouble recently for playing pokemon go and ignoring dispatch calls to go after a snorelax (1). But just anecdotally I see general terrible work ethic from the cops. I see them abuse signal preemption all the time for nothing. When they are out directing traffic in downtown LA for some random construction road pattern they usually have an airpod in one ear, which I'm positive they aren't allowed to do. You call about a petty crime and the reaction is almost like "Did someone die? No? What do you want me to do then?" 1. https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q593/lapd-officers-ignore-robbery-in-progress-to-catch-snorlax-in-pokemon-go https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q593/lapd-officers-ignore-...
TulliusCicero 4y ago
I don't think the GPS tracking is the issue. It's not uncommon to hear about people losing something like a smartphone to a thief, know where it is due to GPS tracking, and police just won't do anything with that information.
- praxulus 4y ago
  Well, it's not the only issue. Without GPS tracking or bike registries bike theft is legitimately a very hard problem for police to deal with, so they're used to relying entirely on getting cyclists to use better locks. The situation has changed though, and they certainly deserve criticism for failing to change their attitude.

more_corn 4y ago

Sf police don’t give a shit about stolen bikes. I saw a homeless guy pick up a bike (wheel locked to frame) prop it on a shopping cart and run away. Called the cops. They didn’t give a shit, belittled me and refused to come. You’ll note in the article that it’s impossible to get the police to show up even when there’s known stolen property inside and clear gps evidence. sfpd doesn’t do anything about anything. Check out that great video of the cops rolling up on a burglary in progress. Perp comes out the door, gets in car and drives off. Cops do nothing. When vigilantism is the only justice available you’re living in a failed state.

pessimizer 4y ago
Then you've been living in a failed state all of your life. The cops would only have ever gone out for that call in a sleepy wealthy suburb, and even then only if the cops personally knew the person who called in.
exabrial 4y ago
> vigilantism Cops and the city council WILL retaliate against you though for embarrassing them.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Depending on the type of vigilantism, that could be the most reasonable move.
corrral 4y ago
Not just SF, and not just bikes. My experience is that cops don't give a shit about any theft unless it happens right in front of them. No amount of evidence you can hand them will convince them to spend so much as a minute investigating.
edm0nd 4y ago
anewpersonality 4y ago
SF police don't care period. It's a corrupt organization that simply exists to steal funds from the state. It needs to be burnt to the ground and re-created. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/t2u3fq/guy_in_the_red_trading_a_bike_for_fentanyl_sorry/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/t2u3fq/guy_in...

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

If only disabling the GPS, also disabled the bike. Make it too much trouble to steal.

googlryas 4y ago
What happens if you take it into a parking garage with no service? Do you need to carry the bike out now?
- randyrand 4y ago
  I think they mean something like this: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0b/fc/d6/0bfcd63b9e49a7da0ba1f93333bd0a0d--folding-bicycle-bike-design.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0b/fc/d6/0bfcd63b9e49a7da0ba1f9333... The lock itself / the GPS cartridge itself is structurally integral to the bike.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Do they disable it by removing the antennae? Then sure that doesnt work so well. If by destroying it, perhaps the bottom bracket could get a pin released to freeze it when the circuit quits responding.

dieselgate 4y ago

Interesting article for me, from a couple angles. I had a bike stolen about a week ago and dang, it sucks. Cool there is a customer facing tool to help with retrieval! It’s always weird when thinking about “encountering” the person selling a stolen bike, kind of scary to think of potential outcomes. Does this service provide any “tools” for that? [edit: article says asking for it back is usually sufficient but I’m still skeptical] On a separate note I went to middle/high school with Ryan Eastman - seem to remember he kind of disappeared from school because of pursuing professional cycling. Remember looking up his race times at one point and have always been kind of curious what became of him. Sorry to hear about his crash from this article(!) but also very glad he found something cycling related to work in. Good luck to all involved. Edit: because this is HN I was initially thinking VanMoof also had a service one could attach to any bike. Seems it’s proprietary offering for their bikes. Original text left unedited above

notagoodidea 4y ago
> article says asking for it back is usually sufficient but I’m still skeptical Personnal and friends experience tends to agree with the article advice. The intensity of the ask vary from "It's my bike" to "It's my bike and we don't want to call the cops about it, right?". Most of the time, they may try to sell it back to you though.
- clairity 4y ago
  a few weeks ago, i came out of a neighborhood cafe to find my bike gone. on a hunch, i walked over to a nearby homeless encampment and saw my bike sitting there. i walked up to it, grabbed it, said "that's my bike", cursed the dudes out, and rode off. it felt a little crazy at the time, but it worked. the thief(s) didn't seem too fazed by it.
  - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
    >nearby homeless encampment I’m afraid to ask, but which country was this?

chaostheory 4y ago

This alongside with Citizen’s gig security signals the decline of local government police forces. I would argue that the prevalence of Ring is signaling the same thing.

michaelt 4y ago
Was there a glorious past when bike thefts were taken seriously? Or is there also an element of a widening gap between rich and poor here, where the rich will be further insulated from the impact of failing public services?
- Eric_WVGG 4y ago
  this line rankled me: "baffled city leaders for years" as if city leaders have ever considered cyclists anything more than an annoyance
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Never. It's even odd when burglaries were taken seriously. I don't know the mythical past that reactionaries reminisce about, although my age says that I lived through it. The past I remember had years old stacks of unprocessed rape kits.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    Rape kits go unprocessed for many reasons. The accused confesses, for example, or dies. Or the victim's story/claims are directly contradicted by hard evidence, like cell phone/financial records or numerous witnesses placing the accused somewhere else. Many victims recant their stories, for varied reasons, many of them unfortunate - but that still make the case non-prosecutable. It's not just a matter of funding; there's only so much lab capacity. Rape is a tiny fraction of violent crime - barely a few percent - and spending millions processing rape kits unnecessarily is virtue signaling that does nothing to reduce the bulk of violent crime. The only reason it's getting so much attention is because it benefits a politically privileged class.

chrisin2d 4y ago

I have a VanMoof bike with both a GPS and a Find My tracker. The first time it got stolen in Berkeley, I recovered it. It hadn't gone far, so the police were able to locate it and the thief. The second time it got stolen, I couldn't recover it. But I had already bought the Peace of Mind coverage plan, so VanMoof replaced it — and lent me a bike of the same model in the 2 weeks it took to deliver.

glhaynes 4y ago
Do you know how they were able to steal it without the alarm going off?
- chrisin2d 4y ago
  The alarm bell and lights were set off. When the police recovered the bike, they found that the thief had duct taped over the lights and speakers. Interestingly, both incidents happened in busy areas in the SF Bay Area. I guess that the bystander effect was strong.
wferrell 4y ago
Are you able to keep using the Peace of Mind coverage plan once replaced? Or did you have to buy a 2nd plan? Asking out of genuine interest. It seems to be some of the value of the plan is that you get to worry less about the stress/fear of your bike being stolen -- but if you are off the plan once it has been stolen once...seems like a loss of value.
- minhazm 4y ago
  > We’ll recover or replace up to three times within your three-year coverage. If by some freakish bad luck your bike is stolen a fourth time, we won’t be able to recover or replace your bike, but we will provide you with full tracking information so you can hunt it yourself. From: https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/peace-of-mind https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/peace-of-mind
  - 4y ago

awinter-py 4y ago

> The two-person team did a quick U-turn and pulled aside the person to find that the bike’s GPS system was disabled, indicating that it had been stolen the google bus did a quick U turn and did an illegal terry stop to find that the pixel 6's third party cookies had been disabled, indicated that it had been stolen

donclark 4y ago

I thought these guys did a pretty good job of deterring bike thieves in the area temporarily... Rope bike prank (2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-OwjoP96Rc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-OwjoP96Rc

mc32 4y ago
Those looks like set-ups? Are they actual thieves trying to steal bikes? Wouldn't a thief notice the tether? I can see trying to pretend you're just getting on YOUR bike and taking off... Anyway, there is a difference in an insured bike recovery system that has the right incentives and SFPD which does not have the benefit of GPS tracking and profit incentive. Of course their success rate will be dire in comparison.
- evan_ 4y ago
  > Those looks like set-ups? it's certainly very lucky that the thief always went directly towards the guy hiding behind a tree with a pie. Helpful also that they stayed in the sightline of the camera, even though several of them did have to look directly at it to be sure.
  - mc32 4y ago
    One other thing that would point to those being staged is the injury liability they could incur (the endos) --of course they would have to know who tethered the bikes like that. But the person running after the "thief" would be a good candidate.

leke 4y ago

As bikes go electric, it would be good to have them all required to have transponders. We just have to make it a requirement to have them on all the time, then we won't be plagued with this bike theft.

thinkling 4y ago
As bikes go electric, you can make it so the motor blocks when your phone is not in range.
- lief79 4y ago
  So you can end up with a dead phone and a nonfunctional bike?
  - praxulus 4y ago
    If you have a charged ebike, it ought to be easy to charge your phone. There are still other problems with that approach. VanMoof currently lets you unlock your phone with your bike, rather than requiring a constant connection, which seems like the right balance.
    - aetherspawn 4y ago
      > VanMoof currently lets you unlock your phone with your bike Unlock your bike with your phone?
      - praxulus 4y ago
        ...yes.

farnsworth 4y ago

After having two bikes stolen at once, I bought Tile trackers for a bunch of my possessions and hid one on my new bike. The tracking in Seattle is good in places with a lot of people around, pretty coarse in other areas, but I'm hoping that it will at least give me a direction to head in if this bike is ever stolen. I'm wondering whether anyone has a recommendation for a bike GPS tracker though. The ones I see generally look too obvious, have expensive subscriptions, need charging every day, etc.

thinkling 4y ago
There are covers for the Apple AirTags that look like regular seatpost-mounted reflectors. I haven't looked to see if they exist for other trackers, but that's the route I would go.
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
  Don't the anti-stalking features of AirTags make them poorly suited to anti-theft uses? If I were a professional bike thief I'd have an iphone just to get notified when I've stolen a bike with an airtag on it
  - ray__ 4y ago
    If the AirTag is well hidden enough, I wonder how many bike thiefs would just cut their losses and leave the bike behind at this point.
    - jdminhbg 4y ago
      The AirTag will beep if it's been separated from its owner for long enough, so presumably the thief would be able to find it relatively quickly once that happens.
      - wferrell 4y ago
        It is easy to disable the beep. I did it to one in about 5 minutes with basically an exacto knife.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

A pattern you see with these bikes is that people mostly don't bother to mess with them after they learn about the counter measures. Basically, there are several levels of protection. 1) if it is locked, it will make some noise when people mess with it. 2) When they don't stop, it will make a lot of noise. And it escalates quickly to ear piercing levels. There is no way you can pick this up and just walk way with it unnoticed unless you can unlock the bike or dismantle it without setting off the alarm. A light touch will do that. 3) if by any chance you do succeed in stealing it while not drawing the attention of the entire neighborhood, it has a tracker. 4) if you manage to disable all of that, you basically have a product that is relatively hard to sell because world + dog knows they might have to hand it over in the likely case that they are caught by the bike hunters. Because so few thefts escalate to that, VanMoof can afford to spare no expenses on trying to track thieves down and keeping victims pacified with a replacement bike. It's a simple insurance that works and actually lowers their risk. It's not impossible to steal one of course but it adds up to a lot of trouble and risk for not a lot of payoff. Most bike thieves would prioritize easier, less risky, and more valuable targets. I use Swapfiets, which is a Dutch bike leasing startup. I just pay a monthly fee and don't worry about theft, repairs, etc. There are many thousands of them across Berlin; hundreds of thousands across many European cities. Nobody ever messes with these bikes. They are so recognizable that there's no point in stealing one. No bike hunters required for this. It has no tracker or alarm. I've had one for two years in Berlin and nobody ever messes with it. And it's a decent bike too. I park it wherever I want including some places where I would never park any bike I own like the train station, rough neighborhoods, etc. It's great. I can go anywhere I like in the city, leave the bike on the street for a few hours and it will still be there when I come back. I do this every day. They have electrical ones too. They are very popular with delivery services.

PcChip 4y ago
>They are so recognizable that there's no point in stealing one What does this mean? why don't they get stolen?
- tomklein 4y ago
  Swapfiets builds their own bikes and does not - never ever - sell them. If one gets stolen, it can‘t be resold without one noticing it’s stolen, as these are not in circulation in the first place and still owned by the company that built them

amelius 4y ago

Sounds borderline illegal. What if the person riding the bike bought it secondhand?

bink 4y ago
They aren't forcing anyone to surrender the bike. They're just asking them if it's stolen and if they'll give it back. In any case, buying stolen property doesn't entitle you to the property.
wl 4y ago
If its stolen property, the original owner still has superior title to the person who bought it after it was stolen. Might need to be hashed out in court if the second-hand buyer won't relinquish it, but it's not illegal to ask.
GauntletWizard 4y ago
There's two possibilities to your question: That the person riding it bought it secondhand from someone who stole it, and that the person buying it bought it from the (first) owner, who then calls in Vanmoof to steal the bike back for them. 1) Receiving stolen property is illegal, and the bike is still property of the original owner and they can take it back anytime. The person riding it is culpable to the extent that they knew it was a shady deal, which can range from "Not at all, but stuck holding the bag of having to sue the thief for fraud for selling them a stolen bike" to "Charged in conspiracy". There's a big range there, but as it's incredibly hard to prove if they were found riding it around, they probably just lose the bike. If they are found with it in a chop shop... that's a different story. 2) Selling someone something with the intent to steal it back is fraud. If you have a receipt from the seller, you can tell VanMoof to fuck off, or surrender the bike to them and sue in small claims court. VanMoof doesn't want to deal with that and will roll over fairly quickly. The (fraudulent) first owner will be very easy to find because they have a contract with VanMoof. They can probably pull this scam once without repercussions, but VanMoof will, presumably, quickly turn over evidence to your police report of the scam to avoid ruining their reputation.

londgine 4y ago

https://www.vanmoof.com/shop/en_nl/bikehunters https://www.vanmoof.com/shop/en_nl/bikehunters their website says they even go flying around the world to places like war torn Ukraine and Casablanca gangs to retrieve the bike. That sounds very dangerous.

antihero 4y ago

Just buying a bike here in the U.K. on a cycle-to-work scheme. Are there things I can do or buy that are better than a fairly sturdy lock, not leaving it unattended in stupid places, or perhaps gaffer tapping an airtag somewhere not too obvious? Also not too sure which insurance is good value.

abawany 4y ago
One minor meta-recommendation on the sturdy-lock front is to look for content from the "Lock Picking Lawyer" and find out if there are any bike locks that he recommends. He tends to make short work of most locks but there are some that gain his grudging recommendation; the number of severe vulnerabilities in many "high security" locks is eye opening. Edit0: added "front" after sturdy-lock.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Are locks ever actually picked? I have only ever seen brute force approaches. If you have the inclination, a proper, heavy chain is better than a D-lock - both should be impervious to bolt-cutters, but a D-lock can be forced open/broken with a jack and a chain usually cannot. Also a chain is more difficult to cut with an angle grinder as it moves about and might break the cutting disk.
  - riscy 4y ago
    Yep spot-on, I'll add: From a weight perspective, a well-sized D-lock used correctly should not have enough space to permit an attack with a jack, so don't get one that's too big. Also, one mistake chain-users might make is allowing enough slack that a link is close to the ground, which can be used as leverage with a bolt cutter, etc.
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    Downside to chain is weight; a robust chain is about 2x the weight of the equivalently robust d-lock; if you are allowed to leave the chain at work, it's definitely worth it though.
  - 4y ago

bushbaba 4y ago

Had a VanMoof. The 'bike hunters' was worthless. The "GPS" is actually A-GPS which uses cell towers to triangulate the bike to within .5 miles...not too useful. When or if you do find the bike on a facebook marketplace listing, the Cops and VanMoof do nothing. As they can't attempt to purchase the bike, and can only be engaged if they see the stolen bike's serial number in the public space. The benefit was the insurance, where they simply replace the bike with a deductible of ~$100

jbm 4y ago
If the police are actually as bad as portrayed here, it seems like VanMoof is actually offering 4 for the price of 1 plus 300 dollars, plus the cost of insurance. Just have an accomplice keep the stolen bike in an enclosed area where there is no GPS access. Disable the AGPS for bonus points (apparently that is possible)
- tschwimmer 4y ago
  You have independently invented insurance fraud.
  - jbm 4y ago
    It's only fraud if you have a functional legal system for the item in question; I think some comments made demonstrate that there is a distinct group of people who unironically feel that is not the case.
WelcomeShorty 4y ago
A-GPS == Assisted GPS (A-GPS) is used to speed up start-up times of GPS-based positioning systems. Basically it uses an internet connection to find the satellites positions and not having to calculate them their selfs.
VectorLock 4y ago
Based on some of these videos it looks like they also have some radio direction finding or proximity tracker in addition to the GPS. GPS gets them into a circular area then they have to run around to pinpoint it.

jackvalentine 4y ago

Reducing bike theft significantly is pretty easy actually: 1) Bike registry 2) Visual plaque stating bike is registered These two things make a bike less attractive to steal, and give the city the tools to actually prosecute stolen property cases and reunite owners with their goods. Nothing is perfect but this is a gain for bike riders. https://project529.com/garage/law_enforcement https://project529.com/garage/law_enforcement

aidenn0 4y ago
Every bike I had stolen was registered; none of them were ever returned to me.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

anonymousiam 4y ago

I recently bought an ebike that doesn't include GPS tracking. I was thinking of hiding an Apple AirTag under the seat, but then I read this: "AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking. If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s traveling with you and send you an alert. After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there. Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with AirTag, don’t worry. These alerts are triggered only when an AirTag is separated from its owner." (https://www.apple.com/airtag/ https://www.apple.com/airtag/) So in an effort to prevent stalkers from tagging victims, the AirTag beeps to give away the fact that it's tracking something "separated from its owner." This makes it useless for my use case because if my bike is stolen, it will be "separated from its owner."

gruez 4y ago
It's super easy to disable the speaker though.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  It won't disable the alert on the thief's phone (if they use an iPhone or an Android with the tracker app), however it doesn't really need to as the alert could actually be beneficial in convincing the thief to simply abandon the bike then take time to find & disable the tracker all while they are being tracked and the owner (or ideally the police - though in practice they are useless) can show up at any moment. Even better if they get the alert once they've already brought it home as they're definitely better off moving the bike away from there rather than having the trail stop at their place.
  - asdff 4y ago
    A lot of thieves just part the stolen bike out too and sell what they can for scrap value. They'd probably find the tracker and throw it aside.
woleium 4y ago

pklausler 4y ago

As a happy longtime Brompton owner, I really like being able to dodge the whole theft problem with bicycle parking by just folding the bike up and using it as a shopping cart or unobtrusive bit of wheeled luggage. I don't even own a bicycle lock.

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
The only drawback is looking like a dork when riding it.
- pklausler 4y ago
  It's hardly the most glaring feature of my dorkiness, and it has the upside of being a great conversation starter whenever I fold it up or unfold it.

screye 4y ago

The biggest problem with Bike Theft is that it simply isn't prosecuted. They are easy to steal, easy to pawn off and easy to not be held liable for. Shifter has a great video bike crime - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el1Xznv5ge4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el1Xznv5ge4 But a few things come to mind: (especially for e-bikes) 1. Bike registration. Most e-bikes / high-end bikes cost as much as a beat up car. having them all come with basic registration makes it very hard to sell a stolen bike. 2. Bike tracking. Ebikes should come with airtag-like functionality standard. It is a $10 maximum overhead. 3. Bike alarms. If you have a tracker, it should have an alarm. The bike already has a bell. just put a put servo in there. 4. Last but most importantly - prosecution. Treat ebike theft like car theft. That's $1-10k value of stolen property. No reason to allow it willy-nilly.

akomtu 4y ago
1. Sell parts. It's even more profitable. 2. Tracking and surveillance in e-bikes is the last thing I want. 3. So you get an alarm that the frame of your hike showed up in a remote warehouse, 80 miles from city. Police won't bother and you'll be wise to not go there by yourself. 4. More funding to police, in other words? Theft won't investigate itself.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  >>4. More funding to police, in other words? Theft won't investigate itself. Yes, and more funding for prosecutors and correctional officers. But it doesn't take much enforcement and prosecution to establish deterrence.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    What's enforcement for bike theft look like in your mind?
    - dylan604 4y ago
      If it's my bike? Life without parole. If it's your bike? Sorry for your loss dude!

bckygldstn 4y ago

The VanMoof youtube channel releases a ~monthly video of the hunters in action. Sure it's marketing, but is an interesting watch. There's a few videos from SF, and one where they track a bike from Europe to Northern Africa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1oBcbRSK48&list=PLWwEynoexJikPNEl0P42Ae-niL37FJEsi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1oBcbRSK48&list=PLWwEynoexJ...

analog31 4y ago

It's interesting that the VanMoof bikes are visually distinctive, meaning that the bike hunting team only has to look for one kind of bike. And the bikes have a radio collar of some sort. A general purpose bike hunting service, or the police, would have a much harder time with the huge variety of bikes out there, most lacking the electronic beacon.

brian_cunnie 4y ago

This article focuses on thievery at the expense of vandalism. I leave my bike locked up outside overnight in San Francisco [0], and with three sturdy locks I'm not worried about thieves, but the vandals are another story. Ten days ago I came outside to discover they had set my bike seat on fire, which also ruined the rear tire and tube, along with some cosmetic damage. Total cost to repair: $283. My bike is vandalized typically every 90 days or so. [0] https://briancunnie.medium.com/how-to-lock-your-bike-overnight-in-san-francisco-c2b7da2260ba https://briancunnie.medium.com/how-to-lock-your-bike-overnig...

mherdeg 4y ago

I'm interested in this anecdote: > The Standard accompanied VanMoof employees Adrien Yeung and Bret Carmody on a “hunt” in early July, about 40 minutes into which the two happened to see someone riding one of the company’s bikes. The two-person team did a quick U-turn and pulled aside the person to find that the bike’s GPS system was disabled, indicating that it had been stolen. > The man riding the bike gave it back without a fuss, claiming that he had bought it at a local street market. What were some of the characteristics of that man that led Yeung and Carmody to guess that he was riding a stolen bike and not one he owned?

walrus01 4y ago
If you live in a city like Seattle, Vancouver or San Francisco and get around the urban core a lot as a pedestrian, you quickly learn to recognize what a crack, meth, heroin addict looks like. Is this a serious question?

Hamuko 4y ago

I think the worst part of attempting to transition away from driving to biking has been the fact that I can't really trust having my bike parked somewhere. If I drive a car somewhere, park it in a parking space and lock the doors, I have very high confidence that my car will be there when I get back. Probably won't get vandalised or damaged either. I could even leave something in the car and it probably won't be smashed and grabbed as long as it's not in plain sight. If I ride my bike somewhere, lock the frame to a bike stand with a sturdy U-lock and leave it there for an extended period of time, I don't feel confident that it will be there, or that it won't be somehow fiddled with. Even if they don't get the whole bike, they might run off with the tyres, or the battery if they manage to dislodge that. I could easily ride my bike to the nearest commuter train station, park it there and continue my way downtown. Would be a lot faster than taking the bus there. However, if I'm gone for a couple of hours, I don't feel safe parking the bike at the station. I wouldn't feel this way with a car. Same comes to parking at home. I feel absolutely nothing about parking my car outside my apartment, but I'm not confident in having the bike parked outside for more than 10 minutes. And I feel like this way even though I've never had my bike stolen and I don't live anywhere particularly dodgy. Just having people around me having had their bikes stolen make me feel this way.