Was attacked on the canals in Birmingham today for my bike, it’s my work bike, bit shaken but no injuries, police great tbh did really well but obv no luck.

I’m concerned about my garmin, can anyone else access its data to find my start points? I’ve contacted garmin but obv it’s a weekend. Anyone know?

Also it’s an Orange speedwork grey 2019 model it’s as purchased no upgrades as it was my work commuter.

That’s shit.

Can you track the Garmin to see where it is?

That’s shoot, as I’m about to be commuting on the canal into Manchester. Old 90’s MTB though. Saved Garmin rides are accessible though – works as a standard USB.

Really sorry to hear that, that’s dreadful. ‘No injuries’ is a result in the circumstances. Are you insured?

Glad you’re OK- seem to recall reports of other similar incidents on canals around Birmingham, presumably the Police will put 2 & 2 together if there’s a connection.

Good chance they slung it in the cut as it would identify your bike.

Good luck

Garmin only works gps of ride is ended and it’s uploaded via phone Bluetooth so guessing if they try that it will
Automatically go to my strava? And at least give me an idea of where it might be.

Police very quick on the scene but obv too late.

Garmin only works gps of ride is ended and it’s uploaded via phone Bluetooth so guessing if they try that it will
Automatically go to my strava?

In order to do that they’d have to have your phone as well.

What happens is Garmin sends the file to your phone to upload that to Strava. Without your phone that won’t happen so you won’t see where they were when they stopped and saved the ride.

They can save the ride on the garmin and see the route on it or they can simply link it up to their phone or laptop and download the routes.

That’s a bit of a concern. Guessing no way of knowing if that’s happened via the garmin connect app.

No because they’d have to know your Garmin connect details to load the file up too.

It’s just saved as a data file on the garmins drive so they just access that and everything else on it.

F********ck! Can I ask whereabouts?

So sorry to hear that.

It’s scary! A friends son, aged 14, and a few of his mates all have nice bikes as they compete at junior level in Enduro events. They’re all really good riders

2 nights ago they were stopped at the jump spot they’ve built in the woods by the local park by a group of 30-odd year old blokes who threatened them with knives and took their bikes off them.

One of the bikes had a tracker and was traced back to scrote central about 6 miles away. Looks like the scumbags are travelling to target kids in local spots and take their bikes off them at knife-point

This is in east lancs/north Manchester

LMT
Free Member
Was attacked on the canals in Birmingham today for my bike, it’s my work bike, bit shaken but no injuries, police great tbh did really well but obv no luck.

I’m concerned about my garmin, can anyone else access its data to find my start points? I’ve contacted garmin but obv it’s a weekend. Anyone know?

Also it’s an Orange speedwork grey 2019 model it’s as purchased no upgrades as it was my work commuter.

As a born and bred brummie,(live in rural yorkshire now) thats shocking, guessing its small heath tyseley way ? … know there had been people jumped for their bikes before, loved riding the miles of canals and really miss them sometimes , but dont miss the shit Birmingham comes with either, let me know the exact area and ill message and warn a few others as well , good luck getting the bike back

Yep it was small Heath on the canal just by the ackers trust, one jumped out in front of me and before I realised it his mate was behind me taking swings at me with a massive spanner. Apparently on Twitter you can’t describe them as 2 Asian males, who as I found out had backup just on the bridge so 4 in total.

Hi yep it was by the ackers trust over canal bridge, jumped out just as the side of it.

This is in east lancs/north Manchester

My godson in south Manchester has had two bikes taken off him by youths in the park. He’s a big lad but luckily has had the sense to realise a bike can be replaced and he can’t be.

LMT
Free Member
Yep it was small Heath on the canal just by the ackers trust, one jumped out in front of me and before I realised it his mate was behind me taking swings at me with a massive spanner. Apparently on Twitter you can’t describe them as 2 Asian males, who as I found out had backup just on the bridge so 4 in total.

shit news mate , exactly same as last year , maybe the year before as well , hope your ok etc , one of the reasons I moved out of Birmingham, got fed up of that shit!

I saw this on Twitter earlier. It’s something I’ve always had in the back of my mind when riding along the river path in Maidstone.

Hope you get your bike back, and that the experience doesn’t put you off riding your remaining bikes.

It won’t, but will question where I ride and when a bit more. The canals during lockdown have been a lifeline, that’s gone now.

It’s scary! A friends son, aged 14, and a few of his mates all have nice bikes as they compete at junior level in Enduro events. They’re all really good riders

2 nights ago they were stopped at the jump spot they’ve built in the woods by the local park by a group of 30-odd year old blokes who threatened them with knives and took their bikes off them.

One of the bikes had a tracker and was traced back to scrote central about 6 miles away. Looks like the scumbags are travelling to target kids in local spots and take their bikes off them at knife-point

Worries me too with my lad and his mates.

My son who was 20 at the time was riding along the river in York to meet me when three lads jumped him and knocked him off his bike (nice MTB) i was about 10 yards away…

Lets just say they were a tad suprised by my flanking attack…

Happens a lot around posh York

Slight tangent, but I’ve noticed when I upload to Strava it puts the serial number of my garmin on it, ‘upload from device such and such’
Is there any way to search for that serial number? If they do sell it on to someone who uses it might be possible to find them and ask where they bought it

Proper sucks for the OP but just for a bit of balance. I’ve been using Sheffield canal a lot more recently, on one occasion I spotted 3 guys coming towards me, they didn’t look particularly friendly and had that classic stumbling walk of heroin addicts, as I got closer one started shouting to his mate and I thought “here we go” but as I got up to them the first two stepped nicely aside and suggested I just if the third guy doesn’t move I should “just **** knock him in, he’s a waste of space”. Probably the most polite people I met all day.

Glad it wasn’t any worse OP. We’re spoilt by having the canals around here, sadly incidents like this spoil it for us, I’ve seen a viral video of someone on a bike getting pushed in to the canal at Wordsley crystal near me, fake or not it makes me apprehensive when passing a few lads.
I want to ride the canals over that way but wary of doing so on my own (started by the reports of people being mugged by Cadbury’s and the Uni a few years back) I just hope that my odd looking Fargo with Jones loop bars isn’t appealing to them or I can use it as battering ram to ride through them

I’ve been using the canals for years, through lockdown getting bigger rides in, much bigger, there’s a few ranging around 60 miles. We have a great network, but there’s obv a areas to be aware of.

I’ve met some great people during lockdown and it’s been a lifesaver but it appears it’s just not safe in certain areas.

After talking to the police this morning, this isn’t an isolated incident and it wasn’t public knowledge that recently there’s been a few at the same point.

So sorry to read this OP. Being mugged is an awful experience. Just glad that you’re not hurt. **** scumbags

Well done OP for not risking it, glad you are unharmed.

Hopefully the police will do an undercover operation with a plain clothes Bobby or two riding up and down there on some nice bikes from their stores

Thats awful to hear. Im not too far away and know a few folk over that way so will put a few messages out for you. Chances are its on a fake facebook profile for a quick score or shpock etc. Glad to hear your ok though bud! Like someone else has said, a bike can be replaced.

That is very unpleasant, glad you are physically OK.

I’m concerned about my garmin, can anyone else access its data to find my start points? I’ve contacted garmin but obv it’s a weekend. Anyone know?

If the thieves know about Garmins then they could connect it to a computer via its USB port and download the GPX the files that are stored in the internal memory and then analyse the files with any of the numerous services or programs that can do this.

But if they know enough to do that, I think that they are more likely to do a factory reset ASAP and remove any link to you in the data.

That sucks ,sorry to hear OP. Hope you get some follow up. As other’s have said hope you are OK physically but also (when the time is right) maybe take time to address the effect this can have one’s mood/future plans for cycling. May be time to ride a beater and wear running shoes/wear a conspicuous helmet-cam

It’s sad, I grew up cycling-commuting along Midlands canals (and later on MTBs) and never thought or heard about such a thing happening. Times are a-changing.

Hopefully the police will do an undercover operation with a plain clothes Bobby or two riding up and down there on some nice bikes from their stores

“Inspector Plainclothes successfully disarmed the primary attacker by kicking the armed attacker into the canal. Inspector Plainclothes simultaneously tasered the attacker’s nearest accomplice mid-manoeuvre, while tracking a further two fleeing accomplices via 360deg helmet-cam equipped with facial recognition. Armed-drone-support successfully neutralised the fleeing suspects as they attempted to scale a fence situated 300 yards away from the initial encounter. At time of going to press it was not known if any of the suspects survived the incident”

I grew up cycling-commuting along Midlands canals (and later on MTBs) and never thought or heard about such a thing happening. Times are a-changing.

No they aren’t, we’re just much better at reporting it these days. You would’ve been pretty hard pressed to jump on an Internet forum to report the theft of several thousands of pounds’ worth of bikes in the 1970s. Gangs of shitheads is not a 21st Century phenomenon.

Also,

He’s a big lad but luckily has had the sense to realise a bike can be replaced and he can’t be.

That.

I’m concerned about my garmin, can anyone else access its data to find my start points?

I’d hazard it’s far more likely to be fenced in the local boozer for a pint of Evo-Stick than it is to be forensically analysed by Neo to find your home address.

It does rather raise an interesting point though; it’s easy to worry about “what if…?” after it’s too late. Lock your devices, back up your data, don’t start a GPS track from your front door.

It’s an old edge 250 not sure it can be locked? I had recently wiped it as it’s all on strava and seems daft on both so only about 5-6 rides on it. Strava I have privacy zones but yep in future start the clock a bit futher away.

Edge 520, autocorrect…

Having just skimmed this thread, I took my youngest out for a local spin, local alley with a get off and push under gate there’s a tracksuited scrote stood rolling a spliff on the seat of a Trek Rail E-mtb which looked a good £3+k above his typical price bracket (sorry for the assumptions)…

As I trundled my ancient stumpy past him he was clearly just eyeballing it, to the extent that I was looking directly at him for a good five or six seconds and he was focussed entirely on the bike (or my crotch) pretty much oblivious to me.

The graphics are sublimated black on black, and it’s a good few years out of date so he probably had no clue what it actually was but could clearly smell a level “proper bike” about it…

It was the sheer obviousness of it, it wasn’t an admiring glance, it was a long appraisal of the risk/rewards of knicking a bike off a bloke out riding with his kid…

I suppose the whole covid cycling boom has made bike theft an even more appealing option, the likelihood of capture is as low as ever, while the rewards are currently higher.

It was the sheer obviousness of it, it wasn’t an admiring glance, it was a long appraisal of the risk/rewards of knicking a bike off a bloke out riding with his kid…

I’d have let him then made off with his eeb after the thick **** took your beater.

Or alternatively, maybe he was just trying to work out what it actually was.

That is awful. Hope it doesn’t do your brain in too much.
I commute via canal in Leeds. Had a few situations with gangs etc, but I am a bit intimidating/ugly.
I got grabbed round the neck by a bloke a while ago and I laughed in his face, he backed down. Crapped myself.
Used to ride through harehills and chapeltown with a bike chain in my pocket years ago. I was ready for it.🥴
These days I don’t know? Not sure I could hand over my bike to anyone though. Maybe I would. Or maybe I would go nuts?
Hope you can get back on the canal one day and feel safe✌🏻

Same thing happened to me by a canal in Glasgow almost 25 years ago now. Funnily enough it was for my Orange P7 (maybe there’s something about Oranges).

The police actually got the bike back in the end and the two junkies who did it plead guilty. Still **** me up for a good while after though.