My much used and abused Dawes Edge One singlespeed and my friend’s retro Kona Lava Dome were half inched from her shed last night. If any Bristol people on the forum can keep an eye out for them, it would be much appreciated.

Her bike is a 1993 Kona Lava Dome, medium size, with a blue/grey fade. Mostly original bits but set up for commuter duties with Schwalbe slicks, black SKS mudguards (back one broken), a grey Bontrager saddle and one of those hideous adjustable stems. The pic below isn’t the actual bike, I’ve half inched it off Retrobike (sorry), but it’s pretty darn close.

And my winter bike, a Dawes Edge One singlespeed. Black with grey decals, stock apart from Maxxis Swampthing tyres, Race Face stem, uncut Easton EA50 Bars (fun in the tight twisty stuff round here) and a plain black WTB saddle. And some glow-in-the-dark skull stickers on the top tube. I’ll try and dig out a picture of it later.

Both bikes have had a few bob spent on them in upgrades and were regularly used and well-loved, so any info leading to their return would be greatly appreciated. Oh and sad to say the police weren’t remotely interested, they haven’t even come out to have a look or taken detailed descriptions. Grrrr…

****.

Sorry to hear that.

what area were they nicked from?

I have to say its getting hard to remember what bikes to keep an eye out for, as there are so many getting nicked

Sorry to hear that Ant, I’ll keep an eye out.

That’s a shame. Seems the scrotes don’t just nick shiny new bikes if those went. Reminds me, my own Edge One is languishing in the shed…

What the heck – are they are stealing bikes in Bristol now!

Southville. I think my single-speed should be fairly easy to spot – it has 33:16 gearing, 2.35 super tacky tyres and a rubbing back wheel (due to a shonky rebuild by yours truly) so it isn’t much fun to ride on the road. Just keep your eyes out for some sports casual type having a KFC-assisted heart attack at the top of a hill.

My SS got stolen 18 months ago, it was a battered old Kona Hahanna running 44:14 with knackered V brakes, sticky SPD’s and in generally shonky condition, so my money was on it ended up in the river, if they even made it that far.

However the really odd thing was, the bike was nicked from the cellar in front of my flat and whoever nicked it took my bike and replaced it with a old Raleigh mountain that wasn’t actually that bad (ie: flat pedals, brakes that worked, true wheels etc)

FFS. Back luck Ant – will keep an eye out. whose is the Kona?

Awwwww fek, not the Dawes.
🙁

Bastids. Utter utter bastids.

very bad luck – this forum needs a permanently stickied bristol bike theft thread into which people can add their own for reference.

Actually I was thinking about that, would anyone be interesting in starting a blog/website specifically for Bristol bike thefts? Or would it just become a background drone of misery?

Clubber, the Kona was formerly AnotherDeadHero’s retro SS “project” (i.e. spare room filler), but it went on to a productive second life as Tess’s general hack/work bike (and occasionally functioned as a guest MTB, which it was pretty good at).

Pete, I’m far more gutted than I thought I’d be. It was definitely a “so wrong it’s right” type of bike. Not to mention that since I bought it for £100 a couple of years ago I’ve spend nigh on £200 on bits for it. 🙁

Why do so many bikes seem to get stolen from Britol?

Slight hijack, but does anyone know what the security is like at the Bikefest?

I’m hoping to be riding most of the time but seriously is this going to be an issue?

Matt

“so wrong it’s right”

Yeah, nothing special really, but worth far more than the ££££s spent on it to you.
RRRRRSOLES.

djglover, lots of reasons – lots of MTBers, high concentration of nice bikes, lots of scrotes. This forum tends to skew things too as there are a lot of Brissle people on it and it’s quite a close-knit scene.

matt_bl, obviously it’s a good idea to secure your bikes or keep an eye on them no matter where you are, but I’ve done the Bike Fest quite a few years running and security has never been an issue.

Another day, another Stolen Bike in Bristol thread.

Depressing.

Here’s a pic of the Dawes in action at Mountain Mayhem the other year, with me using my agressive XC skills to put some n00b into the barrier. 😉

Doesn’t help that the Police don’t seem to know their @rse from their elbow:

“There is no dedicated ‘squad’ which deal with cycle theft, though the burglary squad will obviously investigate thoroughly incidents where cycles have been stolen as part of a burglary.”
Cotham Beat Manager, PC Lewis Wiltshire: E-mail 4 March 09.

“I am a police officer based with the Crime Reduction Team at Newfoundland Road Police Station. I have been tasked with reducing pedal cycle theft in the city as a result of the ‘Cycling City’ funding.”
Crime Reduction Officer, PC Frank Simmonds: E-mail 4 March 09.

Are the police aware of the existance of their collegue who has been tasked with this issue?

Depends whether you’re talking about catching them, or preventing bikes from being nicked in the first place. I should think the second is cheaper and (for some types of cycle theft) easier than the first.

As I say above, I’m not impressed with the response of the police in this case. You would think they would want to come out, have a look, flag up any security issues and take a detailed description, but instead they just wanted to give us a crime reference number and send us on our way. Having said that, we did phone them back with a detailed description of both bikes which they were happy to take.

whats going on!!!!!

if i ever caught the **** doing this i would chop there arms off!!!

but i never said that;)

Surely there needs to be a dedicated team looking at prevention and also investigating the targetted theft that is currently going on?

This statistic sums it up:
Over the two crime years 2006/07 and 2007/08, it is estimated that over £1 million worth of pedal cycles were stolen in Bristol. Of these, only 1%were recovered.

Source: PEDAL CYCLE THEFT – BRISTOL DISTRICT 2006-07 to 2007-08

oh poo, hard luck Ant :o(

BTW a fair few of tghe edge ones had 33:16 gearing

bad luck, have a look on trade it and gumtree etc though, chances are they’ll be selling them on through some website

Well if this isn’t it you should buy it:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270360037663&indexURL=0&photoDisplayType=2#ebayphotohosting

cool brakes.

Neil, yeah I know, I mentioned the gearing because it cheers me up slightly to know that whoever nicked it is probably going to be in intense discomfort as soon as they try and ride it up a hill. 😆

Tinribz, there are lots of them about, cheap as chips usually. I think they were the first complete singlespeed you could buy, but they have fairly limited tyre clearance and no disc mounts which is not what you want in a winter bike. They’re fun to ride though, light, quite a racey head angle and a super-low BB. You should get that one!

Mr Agreeable,

Think it would be worth notifying your loss to “Crime Reduction Officer, PC Frank Simmonds” and while you’re at it see whether these STW Bristol Bike Theft links could be sent to him?

This might help identify a connection between the thefts and, if bikes are ever recovered, help return them to their rightful owners.

Mr Agreeable – Member
This forum tends to skew things too as there are a lot of Brissle people on it and it’s quite a close-knit scene.

dunno if thats entirely true,
bristol is just super bad place for bike crime
4th worst place for bike theft
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6596559.stm

Bummer Ant – I know how it feels too. My first ever “real” mtb got
spirited away one night – gits ….. And I’m the “nicer” side of the
river to you, oh wait Southmeads’ just down the road !!!!!

Stickman, got any contact details for PC Simmonds? I can’t find him on the website.

Colande, the point I’m trying to make is that there are lots of Bristol people registered on the forum and lots of us know each other in real life too. I reckon this makes people more likely to post when something like this happens, otherwise how do you explain the apparent lack of posts from people in London?

Whoah that Kona takes me back! My first bike was the one under that – Fire Mountain.

Harry Too,

Can you publish email details for Crime Reduction Officer PC Simmonds please?

Think it’s time we started feeding some of these threads to his dept.

mr agreeable,
yeah fully understand your point, 😀 just wanted to highlight the fact that bristol is a super bad place for bike crime,
and not just because there are lots of registered members from bristol
it’s a given that london will be the worst due to the large population there,