We were approached by 2 police officers at the end of our ride today to warn us about a spike in bike thefts around the peak district and greater manchester. Apparently they’ve had about 40 high end bikes nicked during burglaries and they seem to be linking them by the fact that a lot of the houses having cars parked out front with bike racks on them – particularly higher end racks eg thule etc…

They were strongly advising us to remove carriers etc and bars if possible (when on holiday) to avoid unwanted attention from thieving *$#=%/@=

It’s obviously quite a problem as they’d taken our number plates and were intending to send letters to us to warn us of the problem.

They asked us to share so we thought STW would be a good place to start!

Interesting, thanks.

Sure they were coppers? 😉

Taking reg plates of people with high end bike racks seems a bit of a waste of taxpayers money
IMO,on the other hand I think they are right to make an issue of bikes being stolen,I see a lot of high end bikes on tops of cars quite often,outside pubs,supermarkets and generally left for thieves and opportunists to have a go,most of the time the bike is worth more than the car .

Hm.

I’m in Sheffield and we’ve had quite a few thefts recently also.

Word on Ridesheffield at one point was that a market in Hull was worth visiting on Sundays to look for your bike.

Maybe I’ll remove my roofrack. It’s not that much of a pain to remount but it’s a serious pain to store built up.

Strange that they are also saying the same thing in East Anglia, too. The police had got an article in the local paper explaining that there is currently a spike in bike thefts and provided advice as to how to protect against opportunistic thieves.

Of course, opportunistic thefts do not lead to significant spikes, so quite what the advice is relevant to, I’m not too sure…

Rachel

They can – one team coming into an area for a period can be responsible for quite a spate. Police stats are all based on percentages, so 10 bike thefts in August compared to 5 in July, or August last year, sends police top brass loopy. Obviously this varies between force/division/sub-division depending on crime stats. Teams/criminals all have their preferences and preferred M.O.s, some plan, some await easy opportunities.

High end bikes outside house that arr then put into a shed or garage.

Talk like a pirate day was on Friday hora

Why is taking number plates a waste of money?
If the police can’t talk to the owner face to face, they can check on pnc, and send a letter, pointing out the problem of bike theft.
Good idea I think

Pieces of bike parts mi matey, plenty of plunder like gold doublooms on the ‘bay

Why is taking number plates a waste of money?
…they can …..send a letter, pointing out the problem of bike theft.
Good idea I think

AAAH, I can’t believe you can spout such stuff. Call me old fashioned but they should be going out there catching the bloody criminals instead of just informing the public that they’re going to get stuff nicked.
We had one doing the rounds here just after we moved in checking to make sure we didn’t have anything valuable in our garage, eg tools, lawnmower bikes etc.

Of course we’ve got stuff like that in our garage, that’s what a garage is for. Likewise it’s pretty pathetic telling people not to use bike racks for transporting bikes or not to use mountain bikes in the Peaks cos they might get stolen.

To be fair though it’s not the coppers fault. Whether they catch the felons or not is pretty much irrelevant given the derisory sentances handed out these days for ‘petty’ theft of £3,000 items.

I thought it was common sense to take your bike rack off your car at home as it makes it blatantly obvious you have nice bikes..

Why is taking number plates a waste of money?

You just can’t please some people.

“The police don’t care about bike theft!”

“Why are the police wasting resources on bike theft?”

Call me old fashioned but they should be going out there catching the bloody criminals

It does sound like that’s what they’re trying to do, to be fair mate.

I took my rack off in part as its like a beauty parade advertising your bike clearly and follow/where you live. Yes we should be able to do what is practical and best for us. The sad truth is we cant. Just like you cant leave valuables on show in a car. Its not rocket science so if you do it you have to accept the risk.

Police awareness is great as arrogant folk seem to assume one should be able to drive round/not conceal and the Police know no better.

Guess who is WRONG.

If everyone leaves their bike racks on it will give the police a better idea of where to organise the stake outs.

Are you sure they were coppers? Did they happen to ask your address and what bikes you have ? 😉

Being fair to the police, it’s not the worst tactic in the world. Increasing awareness, maybe preventing the crime happening in the first place and they’re out there “keeping an eye on things”. Maybe they might just catch a bike thief in the act of nicking one from a car.

I mean, it’s a better use of resources than them sitting in the station drinking tea and waiting for you to phone up saying your garage has been broken into…

just attach a sticker to the bumper of your car saying “no expensive bikes left in this car overnight”. Seems to work okay for tradespeople with massive branded vans sat on the drive (and maybe a ladder strapped to the roof)

Crims generally aren’t stupid. We might not like them but I’d expect there are plenty with an eye for an opportunity.

going off experience i found the police to be quite useless…they dont really care about bike theft and when you all but give them the culprit they manage to make a balls up of it…and even now they still wont return the recovered stolen property

The vast majority of the bike carriers I see being used are carrying BSO’s.

If the thieves are using the carriers as a means of identifying a household as one which potentially contains ‘nice bikes’, they must have a pretty low success rate of finding decent bikes that way. I know the carriers state ‘I have bikes’ but I’d bet a fair wedge that most garages have bikes in even though there’s no carrier on the car on the drive.

Or do they sit outside your house all week waiting for you to take your bike out on your car to see what you ride?

Seems like its more cost-effective to advise people how to avoid crime than it is to prevent crime.

advise people how to avoid crime = prevent crime. no?

its good the police are are taking prevention seriously. I hope they take investgation seriously too.

hurray for the police.

seriously folks, some bike thiefs run scarily big opperations. All the ‘do thiefs really…’ chat up there^. Well yes they do all that and then some. just do everyhitng yu can not to sraw attention to yourself in the first place.

Bikes are far better off transported inside a car. Far too easy to be followed home from trail centre car park, or mid journey.

Someone on Pinkbike contacted me to ask whereabouts I was in Manchester. The questions did raise a bell. I simply replied (as I always do) I MEET Old Trafford or Man Utd not at my home/collect.