A Powder Bomb for a Little 'Thief-Shaming'

Given the official-sounding play-by-play, you can be forgiven for mistaking the European Bike Stealing Championships for an actual sporting event. In reality, though, it's an effort by the folks behind the online magazine WeLoveCycling.com to raise awareness about the rampancy of bike theft in Europe. 

The video is well done; there are far worse ways to spend four minutes than watching Rome, Amsterdam, and Prague go head-to-head for the 2015 title:

"For the Grasp Lock, you are the key"

To hear Grasp Lock co-founder and engineer Samson Berhane tell it, the primary problem with the bike locks already on the market is the bodily contortion they necessitate.

"No more stretching to unlock your bike," Berhane says in a Kickstarter campaign video for his Canadian start-up's biometric bicycle lock locked and unlocked by fingerprint. "No more reaching over the frame to secure your bike."

(The Grasp Lock's hinged arms, see, allow it to slide easily around your bike and the rack, making lock-up a snap.)

I'm more concerned with security than ease of use, though, so I was impatient for the video to address this aspect of the Grasp Lock.

"Its hardened metal body can resist virtually any attack," explains mechanical engineer Jason Zeng as the camera pans across three team members unsuccessfully wielding a crowbar, a saw, and a pair of long-handled cutters.

Impressive, but am I ready for a bike lock that requires batteries??

"I knew I was screwed": So-called "Kingpin" of Bike Thieves Apprehended in Portland

The television show Inside Edition could hardly have scripted a better ending to its segment on bike theft in Portland.

It began as a standard-issue bait bike story. The show's producers borrowed a $2000 Trek Fuel EX 5 from a local shop and engaged security expert Jason Cecchettini from BaitBike.com to outfit the loaner with a tracking device. Then they cable locked it (asking for trouble...) to a signpost—and waited.

Not for long. Soon enough a man with a pair of wire cutters made off with the Trek, and a film crew gave chase.

They tracked the bike's signal to a combination homeless colony/chop shop under Interstate 5, where they found Leroy Parsons with an upside-down Trek Fuel EX 5, one of the wheels in his hands.

"I knew I was screwed," Parsons later told police.

Parsons, known to the Portland police department's bike task force as the "kingpin" of bike thieves, was arrested at the scene.

Take a look/listen:

Perfecto?

BTB has both offered tips for vetting Craigslist sellers and passed along the Bike Index field guide How Not To Buy a Stolen Bike in Four Easy Steps. So it's only fitting that you read here about the latest effort to enable cyclists to purchase pre-owned rides without worrying that they're financing a criminal enterprise.

Called—aspirationally, we must assume—Perfecto, the brainchild of L.A. tech entrepreneur Rob Lawson bills itself as a "trusted marketplace for used bikes." It's a website where cycling enthusiasts can "buy or sell a bike, safe in the knowledge that it isn't stolen."

"Unlike ebay, craigslist or other listings sites," the venture's About page reads, "Perfecto is made by cyclists, for cyclists and we don’t tolerate stolen bikes."

Perfecto wants to build trust between buyers and sellers, and has implemented several ways of doing so. Users must create an account, and they are encouraged to log in through Facebook or Strava. Would-be buyers and sellers can chat on Perfecto. And after a transaction has been concluded, each party has the opportunity to rate the other. 

Perfecto also encourages bike sellers to include serial numbers with their listings. This actually surprised me. Why not make divulging a bike's serial number a requirement of hawking it on the site? (It has been almost a year since Project 529 sent the CEOs of Craiglist and eBay the names of 51,203 cyclists who wanted the online sellers to require serial numbers on bike listings. I'll have to look into what, if anything, came of that.) 

The ads I perused on Perfecto did seem to have more detail—and less sketch—than many a Craigslist posting, though, so it's a step in the right direction. If you're on the market for a used bike, check it out.

Five Years Post-Theft, Re-Bicycling Initiative Flourishing

When then nine-year-old Hayden Downes-Mills's BMX bike was stolen in 2010, he wrote a letter to the local paper at the suggestion of his mother's friend. "To the person who stole my bike," it read.

My parents bought my bike for my birthday in March, and I really liked it. I’m very upset that my bike was taken, and I would like to ask the person who took it to return it.

Hayden's original ride didn't show up on his doorstep, but eight other ones did, along with gift cards and a $200 check. The outpouring of community support—and sudden excess of bikes—prompted Hayden to devise a way to give back. Soon he and his family were accepting donated bikes, refurbishing them as necessary, and giving them to kids in need of wheels.

Five years later, Hayden's Re-Bicycling is going strong, gearing up to move into bigger digs and poised to recycle its 1000th bike. Read more and/or watch Hayden's interview on CTV News:

Scary S#!+

Bike thefts in D.C.'s low(er)-crime NW quadrant have been getting violent lately. DCist reported that, on July 9 at 11 p.m. on the 1200 block of R Street NW, a would-be thief approached a cyclist and demanded his bike. When the cyclist wouldn't surrender it, the foiled thief began stabbing him. No word on what happened to the attacker or the bike, but the cyclist was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Another incident occurred on July 11 at 10:30 p.m. on the 1100 block of R Street NW. Cell phone footage shows multiple aggressors trying to separate a BMX bike from its owner. WUSA9 reports:

     

"It's people like you who should be ill"

First there was Olgi Freyre, who let the profanity fly when a thief relieved her of the $700 KHS Flite 223 she'd locked outside the art supply store where she was working 40 hours a week while going to DePaul University part-time:

Then Portland's Roxy Thompson, age six, invoked maternal disappointment in an attempt to shame thieves into returning her father's fleet of custom road bikes:

Shortly thereafter, 23-year-old Briton Aaron Rush laid it out for the "douchebag" who nabbed his grey Giant:

And now there's yet another note-to-a-bike-thief in the news. This one was left at the scene of the theft by a British oncology nurse:

Harsh words, for sure—some commenters have even questioned whether a nurse would really pen such vitriol—but, like many a victim of bike theft, I know where that anger is coming from.

кражи велосипедов = угон машины

(If the title doesn't read "bicycle theft = car theft," I blame Google translate.)

The Moscow Times is reporting that Vladimir Petrov, a deputy in the Leningrad region legislative assembly, is attempting to amend the Russian Criminal Code to put bicycle theft on par with car theft. If Petrov gets his way, one convicted of either crime could pay up to 120,000 rubles (~2100 USD) or spend up to five years in prison.

Petrov proposes explicitly adding the word "bicycle" to the legal language specifying punishment for stealing "automobiles and other means of transportation." This because—as explained in a note accompanying the bill—Russian law does not currently recognize bicycle transportation as such.

Petrov's amendment would make Russia more, dare I say, progressive on this matter than the United States. As I learned when digging up dirt for "You F***ing Felon" back in October 2013, cars enjoy special status in many states. In much of the country, theft of a motor vehicle qualifies as a felony regardless of the vehicle's monetary value. In no state (to my knowledge, anyway) is bike theft recognized as a serious crime in a similarly automatic fashion.

A Land Where a Cable Lock Suffices—For Now

In the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík, cyclists—of which there are many—do tend to lock their bikes, just not with anything terribly imposing. 

Take the white single-speed below. Assuming it belongs to whoever filled the adjacent windowsill with bicycle-related knickknacks, this bike is, if not treasured, at least appreciated. And yet...it is "secured" by a small-gauge cable lock looped around the rear wheel and through some wires snaking out of the building. 

Bike owners sometimes affix their rides to slightly sturdier installations, but still usually with just a cable lock:

Reykjavik bike shop Markið does sell U-locks, but appears to stock cables in much greater numbers:

And bike theft is not unheard of even in low-crime Iceland. Around 700 or 800 bikes are reported stolen in Reykjavík (population ~120,000) per year, and reports from the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police cite bike theft as the exception to a reduction in crime generally.

Which begs the question: How long before Icelanders, too, must resort to increasingly stiffer measures to prevent the theft of their two-wheeled transportation?

Prevent the Ride-Away

The folks behind LINKA, the "world's first auto-unlocking smart bike lock," think a would-be thief is much less likely to make off with your bike if it's (1) unrideable because of an immobilized front wheel and (2) screeching as loudly as a jackhammer or power lawnmower. Seems like a reasonably safe bet.

If you've got a bike and a smart phone and are inclined to use the latter to help safeguard the former, check out LINKA's Kickstarter campaign. It runs through June 13 (but has already far surpassed its fundraising goal).
 

   

(Hooray for LINKA's use of Bike Index's database! Theft prevention efforts are better operating in concert.)