Where do all of these stolen bikes go to?
Presumably not to clued up cyclists, but more likely to people who use them to get to the shops once a month?
How are they sold – word of mouth?
I ask as I had 2 stolen this week, and would like some clues as to where to look for them.
An in-law does car boots most Sundays, and doesnt think they would turn up there, he says he never sees any 'good' bikes for sale only 20 year old raleighs.
Ebay would be a contender, but having set up a search, it seems bikes of this quality are all sold by genuine owners.
Any other ideas?
They do pop up on eBay, in Cash Converters, on Trade It and in thieves' basements. I wrote some advice on how to go about tracking down a stolen bike here, which was based partly on my own experiences and those of the other bike theft victims in Bristol:
http://www.stolenbristolbikes.com/2009/07/recovering-stolen-bike.html
Basically set up eBay and Google alerts (Google Alert seems to be getting much better recently), make up paper flyers and hand them round the local bike shops and pawn shops, register in Immobilise.com if you have the serial number, and just make sure that as many people know about it as possible on local and national bike forums.
If you do spot it, contact the police and keep badgering the officer they assign it to – if they're not interested in bike theft they should be, as it's often an easy collar for them.
Ton, sorry to hear about your loss, but I hope you took the time to report it to the police after going riding – they can't do anything about bike theft if they don't know about it. 😕
