Bike thefts seem to be getting well out of hand – seems to me that certain elements of the criminal fraternity have cottoned on to a few factors:

1) bikes are worth a lot of money
2) expensive bikes are more and more common
3) relatively easy to take
4) components have high values and cannot be identified

Seems to me that high end bikes are now being delivered to handlers – I can’t imagine the thieves themselves have either use for these bikes themselves or the connections to sell so many on. If the police had the time and resources what could they do? I am at a loss as to how to even try attacking organise bike thieves.

Ebay

Agree on thiefbay and gumthief.

Also, the lack of any consequence. Sadly, as with a lot of ‘minor’ theft, it’s rarely properly followed up, and rarely properly prosecuted.

poverty gap is your answer..

more teenagers are leaving school with a negative outlook and no faith in society..
they’ve just spent the last three years seeing only negative comments in the media about the adult economy they are about to step into and they are turning on, tuning in and dropping out wholesale..

why throw themselves into a life as a struggling wage slave, doomed to walk the tightrope of poverty for eternity.. when they can just nick expensive stuff from the mindless oozing slugs that have sacrificed themselves to capitalism before them..

it’s like the late 80s in many ways.. only more beige because everyone is listless and so blindly obedient of their banking overseers.. so there are no yuppies.. and no strikes..
just apathy and austerity and pent up frustration.. and there will always be a percentage of school leavers who just won’t buy it..

so the ranks of the criminal underclass are swelled and the yuppies are yuppies of crime.. getting rich on the easy pickings as the black economy booms..

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a **** big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of **** fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the **** you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing **** junk food into your mouth. Choose a really **** expensive hobby like cycling, Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, **** up brats you spawned to replace yourself.

Choose your future.

Choose life.

Mate,thieves will pinch anything,they dont give a ****,i used to work in the prison service,& there mentality is if youve got a nice house,& a nice car you can afford to get stuff nicked,as its insured !!!,thing is they never seem to rob n thieve off council estates & all the bedsits where the drug addicted scumbags live do they ?.

I despise drug dealers & thieves..as clarkson says”they should be shot !”.

Drugs. When my yeti was stolen a few years ago 2 crackheads took it and sold it on for £20. It cost me over £3k to build in 2005. Fortunately I got it back. Someone I know found out who took it and let’s just say persuaded them to go and get it back from who they’d sold it to.

Someone I know found out who took it and let’s just say persuaded them to go and get it back from who they’d sold it to.

They should have hve been given a weeks supply all in one syringe ,they’d have enjoyed that & so would you !!!.

£20.00 for a £3k bike ??,i mean who in the right mind would even buy it ??,apart from another one of them lot ,its like buying a new Bentley Gt for £200.00 its the buyers that create the market so theyre as much to blame…

There you go.

Ebay, David Cameron, drugs and an overstretched law-and-order system.

Everyone is right.

What’s driving bike theft?

exactly the same as what drives all the other thefts …….. demand

Also, the lack of any consequence. Sadly, as with a lot of ‘minor’ theft, it’s rarely properly followed up, and rarely properly prosecuted.

Sad but true. The unit I work in occasionally rig “decoy” bikes for thieves to steal under “controlled conditions” 😉 . We achieve far better sentences when we attached to the back of a car as we can charge them with theft from a motor vehicle, whereas if they are chained to a railing the sentencing tarrif is usually lower 🙄

BIKE THIEVES FUEL DRUG USE

This headline in a national tabloid should get some attention.

BIKE [strike]THIEVES[/strike] RACERS FUEL DRUG USE

Any way we can blame Jeremy Clarkson a bit too?

😕

good work Bregante.

lol.

Anyone thought about putting a GPS/3G chip into their bike so you can do a find-my-iphone style thing? That would be cool.

Any way we can blame Jeremy Clarkson a bit too?

he epitomises the wealthy middle class that are getting their bikes nicked.. making it infinitely easier for the thief to objectify their victim..
in fact he almost makes bike theft a civic duty..

job done

Favourite part of my job but we can’t do it too often.

Superficial. These are already available but they don’t work too well in built up locations unless they also have an rf transmitter built in. And they cost a LOT

End user tracking devices are starting to reach the market, such as the Spylamp. It was reviewed in the ctc mag recently.

The headset variant looks pretty neat.

What price the prospect of being able to bust a bike thief? If that price is right, it’s less than some of the recently touted tyres…… Looks like the true cost is keeping a data enabled sim going.

Ben061, these do work in areas where there are but a few buildings dotted about. I have real world experience of them however and in built up estates where there are dozens of properties close together, a 50 m range doesnt quite narrow it down. And often, that’s as good as you’re going to get. The rf ones are about £1k plus another £1k for the tracking unit.

Tracking devices are already flawed, the media is advertising where they might be hidden, where they are not as effective ect ect.Thieves are not totally stupid. Tracking cars in the motor industry has been available for years but eventually the thieves get wise and are able to out wit them. People often tell me with a transponder in my ignition key my car is safe, cobblers a scam a while ago thieves hired cars and vans for the day removed the transponder and fastened it up near the steering column then had a new key cut. Hand the vehicle back no obvious sign of anything wrong, a couple of days later the thieves come back and just take the vehicle using the newly cut key. Thats just 1 example the solution needs to be different. Surely there must be some uni grads able to develop something as part of their degree?

There are too many riders who are happy to buy bargain bike/frame/parts with no proof of ownership from the seller. They must suspect the bike or parts are probably nicked but why let that get in the way of a bargain.

They’d also be quick to post on forums about thieving scum if the same happened to them.

“driving bike theft”. I thought this was some kind of dynamic mugging. Perhaps with thieves zipping up to you in a stolen Golf and whisking the bike from underneath you. I now realise it’s ‘driving’ as in ‘driving impact in a vertically-integrated, matrix-aligned, continuous improvement framework to engage with stakeholders and promote shareholder value’ style.

What’re the reasons for the apparent increase in bike thefts? I’m repeating some well-made points here.
It’s easier to hear about thefts now with forums like singletrack. If you’re attuned to hearing about bike thefts you’ll find more reports of them.
An easy market for passing on stolen goods outside the local area.
reporting on celebrity culture. Make it seem effortless to achieve fame & wealth & folks start to believe it and assume they can take what they want.

In hard economic times inequalities can be more noticeable: the poverty gap, big bonuses, asymmetric loss (your £3000 bike Vs the thief’s penalty). Folks feel more aggrieved about property loss and report it more. Conversely, folks feel more aggrieved about your wealth and feel it’s only fair to take it from you.

I don’t think shooting/beating/hanging thieves would really help. Each thief will have slightly different motivation for their act and needs to be treated differently. Unfortunately, government by its action seems to say there isn’t the time or money to do this so we muddle along with a ‘tolerable’ level of theft. OK for society, but sometimes devastating for the individual?

Before 2008 I thought we’d moved into a nicer world. It doesn’t seem so different from the early 80s now. Although the bikes are better.