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> Any bike thief worth his shim knows you’ve got to liquidate the rolling booty via parts When I lived in New York in the mid-2000's it was pretty common to fi

> Any bike thief worth his shim knows you’ve got to liquidate the rolling booty via parts When I lived in New York in the mid-2000's it was pretty common to find folks trying to sell stolen bikes for $20 in public parks. Being younger with less sense and having lost a couple of bikes myself, I would sometimes get in their faces. That was a dumb idea, cf. the screwdriver anecdote in the article. It was also an open secret that local restaurants bought stolen bikes for delivery workers and just covered them up in duct tape. I'm sure this doesn't explain 100% of bike thefts. Maybe in Seattle chop shops are necessary, but in New York the problem seems so overwhelming that that just strikes me as a lot of unnecessary effort. The police generally could not care less.

spydum 12y ago
i mean i get it, law enforcement have to prioritize their time just like everybody else.. and a stolen huffy is not going to trump the domestic violence call, or the hit and run.. but it still sucks. come to think of it, stolen cars work effectively the same way. the only difference is they are tracked by so many other mechanisms (registration, plates, cameras, they are physically large enough to be difficult to hide). thieves suck.
Symbiote 12y ago
My bike was stolen in London in 2009, the day before I went on holiday. I found it on Gumtree (like Craigslist) the next day. I stuck the phone number in Google, and a load of other Gumtree adverts popped up -- "Call Dave" "Call Pete" "Call Andy". I sent this to the police. An officer phoned a few days later, and was really pleased and surprised at what I'd been able to do. She said she'd pass it on to the "intelligence team". Nothing seems to have changed since then: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=07796163182 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=07796163182 (I picked one advert at random.)
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Heh, similar experience here. In fact I'm part of a facebook group for 2nd hand stuff, one dude always posts bikes for sale there, like 2-3 a week, but from like 50 different accounts. (hey it takes 1 minute and the bike sells for ~$100) Problem? He makes the pictures in his garden with a very particular fence I always recognize. I wasn't quite sure if he was just a repair guy with a small business, someone buying cheap broken bikes and fixing them up, using FB as a sales channel, or a proper thief. Until one day I saw someone comment on one of his bikes on facebook saying he went to buy a bike and that the guy had an elaborate camera and a television screen to see if the police rang the bell or just a regular buyer as well as some other negative comments. Police didn't seem to pick up the case though, he's still at it. But yeah I always put the phone number in google, if I get a load of different names I just move on. It doesn't happen that often, but when something is too good to be true it happens like 9/10 times.

spydum 12y ago

i mean i get it, law enforcement have to prioritize their time just like everybody else.. and a stolen huffy is not going to trump the domestic violence call, or the hit and run.. but it still sucks. come to think of it, stolen cars work effectively the same way. the only difference is they are tracked by so many other mechanisms (registration, plates, cameras, they are physically large enough to be difficult to hide). thieves suck.

Symbiote 12y ago

My bike was stolen in London in 2009, the day before I went on holiday. I found it on Gumtree (like Craigslist) the next day. I stuck the phone number in Google, and a load of other Gumtree adverts popped up -- "Call Dave" "Call Pete" "Call Andy". I sent this to the police. An officer phoned a few days later, and was really pleased and surprised at what I'd been able to do. She said she'd pass it on to the "intelligence team". Nothing seems to have changed since then: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=07796163182 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=07796163182 (I picked one advert at random.)

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Heh, similar experience here. In fact I'm part of a facebook group for 2nd hand stuff, one dude always posts bikes for sale there, like 2-3 a week, but from like 50 different accounts. (hey it takes 1 minute and the bike sells for ~$100) Problem? He makes the pictures in his garden with a very particular fence I always recognize. I wasn't quite sure if he was just a repair guy with a small business, someone buying cheap broken bikes and fixing them up, using FB as a sales channel, or a proper thief. Until one day I saw someone comment on one of his bikes on facebook saying he went to buy a bike and that the guy had an elaborate camera and a television screen to see if the police rang the bell or just a regular buyer as well as some other negative comments. Police didn't seem to pick up the case though, he's still at it. But yeah I always put the phone number in google, if I get a load of different names I just move on. It doesn't happen that often, but when something is too good to be true it happens like 9/10 times.