[Closed] bikes stolen - bristol

Hope the fuzz recover your bikes. Given the number of "Bristol bike nicked" posts on here you dont have to be a rocket scientist to realise there's someone targetting "nice to have" mtb's in Bristol. Surely there must be a glut of nicked bikes somewhere! You'd think there would be loads of chavs riding around on nice bikes but I guess a lot must get stripped down and the parts sold off, nice little earner if you have no morals and are stupid enough to risk a head-stamping from disgruntled owners. The only time my bike's anywhere near Bristol is when I'm driving to Wales thank ****!

North Bristol by any chance?

Now you guys are starting to worry me with all these "North Bristol". Hope it's not in a town where I live, otherwise I'm sleeping with my bike!

Also a lot of farm burglaries around here.

I know the police found a Kona Coiler, and are looking for the owner, so at least they are active in the recovery of bikes.

I'm convinced that people are being followed home from the suspension bridge - it's such an easy point to spot riders coming home.

This doesn't seem to be happening so much with either road riders or with people who live in South Bristol and don't ride home over the bridge.

The Clevedon area has seen a number of high profile thefts also. A friend has had his garage broken into 3 times! The last time they took everything except the frame!!

Someome knows what to look for. We've taken to putting the bikes in the car when possible as a nice shiny bike on a roof rack is a big advert really.

My brother in law lives just outside Bristol and had his garage ramraided at 3am - and his garage part of his house! The thieves must have been mis-informed - his bike was fairly cheap and they chucked it in a bush down the road.

So what can you get away with in terms of booby traps in garages?

Incidentally - where's best to look for stolen bikes - ebay?, anywhere else?

Do local bike shops (I'm thinking of Bristol Bike Workshop) take up 'offers' of old bikes to sell?

cheers

PS - yes, North Bristol!!

I've been on the lookout for a cheap road bike on ebay. It's quite apparent from many of the descriptions that the sellers know very little about the bikes they are selling...

What sort of security did you have? As a North Bristoller it would be interesting to know. My bikes are currently in the spare room but I'm building a garage soon.

Bristol Bike Workshop do buy bikes, and they do get offered stolen ones. They're pretty savvy though, and they don't just take everything that comes through the door. If you make up a flyer with a pic of your bike and drop it off they will keep an eye out for it. It's worth doing this with a few shops, even ones that don't sell second hand, in case someone takes it in for a service.

Incidentally - where's best to look for stolen bikes - ebay?, anywhere else?

Do local bike shops (I'm thinking of Bristol Bike Workshop) take up 'offers' of old bikes to sell?

cheers

PS - yes, North Bristol!!

As I thought, I've had at least 5 attempts in the last 8 weeks on my garage, on one occasion they got in but security measures in place stopped them from stealing anything, they have been back a couple of times since then, but I've stepped up security to quite a high level so they haven't gained access.

What sort of security are you talking king-tut? interested as I'm north bristol, and getting worried!

He's downgraded all his XTR stuff to XT. No self-respecting thief would be seen dead with them now. 😉

What sort of security are you talking king-tut? interested as I'm north bristol, and getting worried!

Rather not say on a public forum.

fair enough, didn't think of it like that! apologies for stupid question!

Jebus. I'll keep an eye out trickpsyclist, though at this rate I'll need a yellow pages-thick tome stapped to my bars full of descriptions of nicked bikes ...

Anyone using Rape alarms on the stored bikes? Thats what we use, The theory being that the thieves will be working pretty quickly and may not notice it until they move the bikes.

Luckily we live somewhere thats pretty difficult to observe discreetly, has neighbours in all day on both sides. Our neighbours were broken into last year (in the middle of the day) and it looks like they may have snooped around ours (a gate was left open thats always closed). They probably saw the dog toys in the garden and thought better of it!

FuzzyWuzzy - Member
So what can you get away with in terms of booby traps in garages?

Mike - 5 attempts!!

5 attempts in 8 weeks, I'd be tempted to lay in wait for the ****s 😈

TiBoy, one of the best pieces of advice I've heard is just to make it bloody awkward for them. There's no one security measure that's going to deter every thief, but if you have it somewhere secure, with an alarm, locked up inside, behind a difficult to climb gate or a thorny hedge, you probably stand a better chance. Also, if you've got room for more than one bike, get a cheapo hack or a winter singlespeed. Very unlikely that the thieves will bother following you home if you're riding something rigid or with drop bars.

I'd be tempted to lay in wait for the ****s

Even better than that, he's had the wife seeing them off with a rolling pin ...

You can get shed alarms from Maplin and other places for £15-20. Clubber, what's a "sound bomb"? I'd be wary of installing anything that might injure someone, be they a thief, a parcel delivery bloke or yourself...

Just a really loud siren Mr A, that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to be in an enclosed space with it.

we have had problems with people jumping are fence to get into the garden where the garage is, are new deterent is carpet gripper rod nailed onto the top of the fence. any hands going to grab a firm hand position onto that gate to jump the fence will have some intresting hand injuries. hehehe

[i]Mike - 5 attempts!! [/i]

Yep.

[i]5 attempts in 8 weeks, I'd be tempted to lay in wait for the ****s [:twisted:] [/i]

I have, but they never showed unfortunately.

This is when they gained access.

[img] http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=ywhfqu&outx=600&quality=70 [/img]

It took four of them to do it.

****

Roller garage door is the only answer to that. I can confirm you'll strugglr to get into one of those. (I'm an owner, not a thief!)

Roller garage door is the only answer to that. I can confirm you'll strugglr to get into one of those. (I'm an owner, not a thief!)

The chap who installed my new door advised heavily against a roller door, like breaking into a venetian blind he said.

A builder local to my office has just had his roller door broken into for the second time.

This looks cheaper :p http://www.klamp-it.co.uk/Pages/garage.htm

This looks cheaper :p http://www.klamp-it.co.uk/Pages/garage.htm

I had £4000 worth of bikes nicked from Horfield earlier this month. The police told me it was almost certainly an opportunity thief / junkie after £50 for a fix.

Sorry, but bllx was it! It was a planned operation.

They used a whole range of tools to remove an Oxford bracket from the wall and took 2 bikes still chained together, so there was almost certainly a van waiting outside.

Now I'm reinforcing the concrete "shed", adding a solid oak door with locks top and bottom and hinge bolts. I've set 2 ground anchors in the concrete floor, over 6" deep and will add an extension to the house burglar alarm.

I know none of this will prevent a really determined thief, but it's all a deterent (coz I know they'll be back in the next month or so).

God knows where all these Bristol bikes end up, but it must be a fairly big operation. The police obviously dont consider it a priority, but I cant really blame them. But, we are now the first "Cycling City" so a bigger effort wouldnt go amiss.

Do people think that bigger use of GPS Trackers might help catch the people responsible for this?

A sad fact is that our stolen gear is ending up being bought by fellow mountain bikers, whether they are honest or not. I know the occassional pimp bike is seen around Southmead etc, but if that's where they all ended up then more would be recovered.

I'm with Clubber, I reckon the scum hang out around AC / Leigh Woods and follow folk home. Either that, or I've got some dodgy neighbours.

Good luck finding them, or hopefully you were insured (I was, but I'll struggle to get cover next year)

I'll see your garage door, MikeT and raise you a ram raid!
This is my garage door one morning in june - no losses fortunately!
[IMG] [/IMG]

+1 for the carpet gripper - ideally you want panels that have a triangle top then place the gripper on the blind side facing away - then when the thieving gits put there hands on it they rip them even more trying to pull away 😆

Glad i dont live in a city anymore.....
Sorry for your losses.

Following the previous Bristol theft thread on here I sent an enquiry to the local police station (Filton) linking various threads from this site and others outlining the extent of the problem in North Bristol, explaining that the threads clearly show the extent of the current problem where a huge value of bikes (over £20ks in recent months) have been stolen.

In the e-mail I requested that they outlined their current stratagy to get the matter resolved. Explaining that as Bristol is the country's first "bike city" yet it is one where riders have to continuously worry about their personal safety and the safety of their bikes and homes.

I was also going to copy this e-mail to the local MP and the leader of the council just to try and get a response, unfortunately I lost the e-mail before I was able to copy and paste it.

The form on the Police website says that I will recieve a response in 24 hours, I sent the e-mail ten days ago.

obviously priorities elsewhere.......

This would p*ss off any thief, (but still prefer the carpet gripper idea)

[url= http://www.gx-security.co.uk/klaxon-pseries-inferno-powerful-internal-security-sounder-p-1183.html ]Klaxon[/url]

@HarryToo - I suggest you find out who the Sector Inspector of whichever Police Station covers the area you live in and send them an email, rather than just to some general email enquiries address. It would also be worthwhile copying these to your local councillors, MP etc.

harry too

id definately contact your mp and whatever website u can find about the first bike city

Harry Too,

I went along to a steering group meeting for cycle city (with the idea of trying to blag some money for the trail maintenance group I run). A chap there asked quite a sensible question about security, and whether any of the cycling city money was going to be used for it, but sadly he got the brush-off. I think the police did have a specific officer working on the cycle theft issue a while back, but sadly I've forgotten his name.

Will keep a look out when on my travels.

Burglary in general in Bristol is a massive issue. Stolen bikes are part of it. Catching them is one thing, but getting the courts to lock them up is anyother. 20% of offenders commit 80% of the crime.

Sorry to hear of yet another Bristol bike theft.
Just to clear up one thing though - Bristol Bike Workshop doesn't buy second hand bikes unless a receipt from the original place of purchase can be produced. They will also keep a look out for stolen stuff if you take in a description.

KINGTUT - Member

Mike - 5 attempts!!

Yep.

5 attempts in 8 weeks, I'd be tempted to lay in wait for the ****s [:twisted:]

Make that 6 attempts now, they came back on Friday night, popped one of the latches and tried to bend the door, but again thanks to my security measures they failed.

Losers.