When It's Okay to Steal Bikes

Got a favorite tool for stealing bikes? Casey Neistat does, and he's not afraid to use it. Sometimes it's okay to steal a bike, he says. When? When it's nobody's bike. Take a listen:

Those Thieving Danes

The Danish like their bikes, sure, but a new study reveals that they also like other people's bikes. Enough to steal them. According to a YouGov poll conducted for Danish insurance company Alm. Brand, 17% of Danes have stolen a bicycle.

Before you start re-envisioning your typical Dane—accessorizing that tall, attractive blond(e) with a pair of bolt cutters, perhaps—know that, in bike-clogged Copenhagen, cyclists often leave their rides untethered, merely propping them somewhere amidst a mess of other bikes. A would-be bike thief in the Danish capital, then, needn't tote tools.

Nor, supposedly, do the perpetrators of Danish bike thefts—200 bikes are stolen in Denmark per day—supply chop shops or finance meth habits. Coverage of the Alm. Brand poll invariably attributes the 17% figure in part to the indiscretions of Danish youth. The nightlife dies down, the story goes, and party-goers with relatively few transportation options avail themselves of the city's unlocked bikes.

Seems innocent enough, maybe, but the "borrowed" bikes are seldom returned, and only the owners of expensive rides can enlist law enforcement for help in bike recovery. Copenhagen police do not investigate thefts in which the value of the stolen goods is less than 100,000 kroner (~$17,000). All told, bike theft ends up costing Danish insurance companies on the order of 200 million kroner ($34.4 million) per year.

No word yet on what action they might take to cut these losses.

It CAN—and Does!—Happen Here

Don't be lulled into a false sense of security, cyclists: Bikejacking happens here, too. The first I'd heard of bike-theft-under-threat-of-bodily-harm was a June story about bikejacking in South Africa, but now I learn that such crimes happen in Cleveland, and with some frequency.

Cleveland's NewsNet5 reports two bikejackings in the same week: (1) a 24-year-old man stabbed and relieved of his wallet, phone, and bicycle and (2) a man robbed of his bike while waiting for a bus. In August an Ohio City man lost his bike to a shotgun-toting assailant with a bandana over his face.

How to avoid falling victim to such attacks? Plan your routes, a commuter tells the camera crew. Steer clear of poorly lit or near-deserted areas. And if you don't have the bodily heft to deter could-be bikejackers, consider packing some pepper spray.

FINALLY

The Kickstarters just keep coming. Obviously lots of budding entrepreneurs are keen to combat bike theft (and perhaps make a buck. too?). This latest funding opportunity is brought to you by Curtis Dorrington of Bristol, UK. He's seeking financial support for the manufacture of Quick Caps, fit-and-forget mechanisms that put your quick releases on lockdown. Take a look:

Dorrington believes that his creation fills a real and long-felt need: "We would like to promote our products with the prefix 'FINALLY' because we aim to FINALLY address current issues, answer the questions of improvement and fill the very clear voids in today's climate."

Let's save the world, one theft-proofed (or at least theft-deterred) wheel at a time...

Sign the Petition, People

Seattle Met ran a feature about bike theft in its October issue. "This Is What Happens to Your Bike After It's Stolen" is most interesting for those in or at least familiar with the Emerald City, but click through to see the accompanying artwork if nothing else. Todd McLellan's graphic of a bicycle's multitudinous parts, disconnected from one another but still arranged in roughly the proper configuration, calls to mind the chop shops described in Casey Jaywork's text.

Most striking to me were the piece's revelations about Craigslist:

Whereas eBay and Facebook feature 'back doors' for law enforcement to track suspected thefts, [Stolen Bike Registry founder Bryan] Hance says, Craigslist’s tiny San Francisco staff relies on users to flag illegal or inappropriate posts. But read the fine print: Craigslist’s terms of use stipulate that when it comes to site moderation, the company has 100 percent authority and 0 percent responsibility, making it difficult for aboveboard users to organize against illicit sellers. 'The minute you start pointing out that they’ve got stolen goods, you’ve violated their terms of service and they’ll send you a cease and desist,' Hance says. The terms also nix bots that can comb the site for postings whose descriptions match stolen goods, as part of a larger strategy by the for-profit company to prevent competitors from using its data.

And eBay, too, had suffered in my estimation by article's end. Jaywork tells the story of how a "scrupulously honest bike buff in Maryland" bought on eBay a used frame that turned out to be a $8,300 Mudhoney stolen from Seattle resident Whitney Rosa nine months earlier. The buyer asked for the serial number during the online auction, but, since the seller offered a lame excuse for withholding it, didn't get a chance to check it until the frame arrived. Upon determining that the bike had been reported stolen, the buyer contacted Seattle police, eBay, Whitney Rosa, and other customers (presumably to alert them that they, too, might be in possession of stolen property).

According to the sketchy (and subsequently busted) seller at least, this last part of the buyer's action was in violation of eBay policy. "It has come to our attention that you have broken a serious eBay policy and contacted past buyers regarding transactions they completed with us," wrote the seller. "This is harassment & a serious eBay policy violation… Please stop playing vigilante."

What both eBay and Craigslist should do is require serial numbers on bike listings. Seattle's Project 529 is collecting signatures on a petition to that effect. BTB covered the effort back in June, but it's not too late to learn more and express your support.  

Das sicherste Fahrradschloss der Welt?

Even its (German) makers seem undecided about whether this gizmo is the most secure (sicherste) bike lock in the world or the craziest (verrückteste). Take a look at the latest television spot from Conrad Electronic:

("You have the fun," reads the captioning. "We have the technology.")

"Aber wer sagt, dass das nur Profis schaffen…?" asks Conrad on a webpage devoted to the construction of the bike elevator. (That is: "But who says that only professionals make that?") With (1) components available through Conrad itself (of course), (2) the instructions provided (both a video and an Explosionszeichnung=exploded assembly drawing), and, perhaps, (3) a reasonable command of German, you, too, can power your bike up a pole and out of thieves' reach.

You, too, in other words, could own das ultimative diebstahlsichere Fahrradschloss (the ultimate, burglarproof bike lock)—at least until the bike snatcher adds a ladder to his kit.

Sit on Your Lock, Invites Seatylock

Perhaps, conscious of the very real problem of saddle theft, you remove yours when riding your bike in the city. If so, you probably carry the saddle with you as you go about your business. But what if your saddle, rather than itself potential loot, were part of the system that secured the real booty (your bike)?

Seatylock wants to make that dream a reality. Billed as "the first and only saddle that locks your bike," Seatylock is a saddle that transforms into a lock. I could write out the particulars, but you might as well just watch the Kickstarter pitch:

Scroll down on the project's Kickstarter page and, amongst a wealth of details, you'll find a video of Seatylock withstanding attacks by bolt cutters, a saw, and ice spray. Seatylock.com lays out the product's various features and advantages. Armed with all this information, you ought to be able to decide before the November 14 Kickstarter deadline whether you want to be among the original backers of this seat and lock in one. Do you expect more from your saddle?

Want a Bolt Cutter; Get a...Procedure

Washington Bike Law posted a photo on its Facebook page on Monday, a slightly doctored version of which appears below:

Stapled to a Seattle telephone pole, the flyer in the photograph purports to advertise an educational opportunity for would-be bike thieves. Call the number on the tear-off tab, though, and you reach...wait for it...DrSnip, a vasectomy clinic in northeast Seattle. While many bloggers have obscured the clinic's phone number to discourage facetious inquiries, the precaution may be unnecessary: Bicycling reported yesterday that DrSnip had experienced no uptick off-topic phone calls.

To my knowledge, no one has claimed responsibility for the prank.

Prophylactic Bike Theft? What?

When a bike goes missing in midtown Manhattan, there's not necessarily thievery afoot. According to Gawker, the NYPD cuts locks affixing bicycles to city property and takes the confiscated two-wheelers back to the precinct.

To grasp the Gawker story (as one reader pointed out in the comments), you have to understand bike rental in Central Park. Apparently the park's fringes swarm with folks "aggressively hawking rental bikes," many of which were illegitimately acquired. So the NYPD confiscates bikes, the story goes, to prevent them from being stolen by unscrupulous bike renters.

While BikeForums senior member walrus1 seems skeptical of the Gawker story, stopbeingterribleandillstopbeingmean claims (in the Gawker comments section) that "having your locks cut and your bike taken if it's not in a designated parking area is a risk that's just a fact of life for bicyclists in Japan." He (she?) continues:

Leaving a sticker on the pavement where the bike was notifying cyclists where to go to pay their fine and retrieve their bicycle is likewise a fact of life for the city employees who do it. How have the citizens and government of the number one city in the world's largest economy and military power not figured this one out yet? It's not as though the bicycle is a new invention.

As Gawker tells it, though, even locking your ride to a dedicated bike rack won't ensure against police confiscation, and officers won't leave you a note about where you can collect your bike. And even if they did, you'd still be out the lock they cut and the time expended paying the precinct a visit to collect your property. While the New York Post says police sources confirm the confiscation story, it also cites a legal precedent that might give the NYPD pause: In the 2005 case Bray vs. City of New York, participants in the Critical Mass bike ride successfully sued the city for cutting their locks and taking their bikes.

While the police action has some cyclists appalled or indignant or horrified, in other circles the confiscations have fans of two-wheeled transport consulting their dictionaries (or not).

The headline mrcreosote chose for his post on roadbikereview.com—"NYPD prophylactically steals bikes to prevent people stealing bikes"—perplexed at least one reader of the thread.

"I think you meant 'Proactively,' not 'Prophylactically,'" commented jfaas. "I'm pretty sure the cops are not worried about getting pregnant when they cut the locks..."

VÉLO PERDU / VOLÉ: Europe Fights Bike Theft

See the sticker circled in the image above? That's BikeSeal, a three-company collaboration that claims to combine "bank-level digital security with the power of social media to tackle the growing problem of bike theft and recovery."

This press release lists BikeSeal's developers—"INSIDE Secure, a leader in embedded security solutions for mobile and connected devices, Selinko, the object identification company, and Cherry On, a company committed to reducing the problem of lost and stolen bikes"—but otherwise contains a combination of jargon and platitudes that I found less than comprehensible. I dug a little, though, and was able to demystify matters slightly.

Selinko seems primarily concerned with certifying the authenticity of such products as wine, perfume, and leather goods, but the "new, discreet, and easy-to-integrate identification solution" it has developed to foil would-be counterfeiters of luxury goods can also reliably associate a bicycle with its rightful owner. You affix a tag with an NFC (= near field communication) chip in it to your bicycle, and subsequent scanning with a properly equipped phone will identify the bike as yours.

Why can't a thief just remove the chip? Because Selinko's bike-specific NFC tag boasts "permanent adhesive," a fact I also gathered from Cherry On's promotional video. The video is only available in French and Dutch, neither of which I understand, but this illustration spoke almost as loud as words:

(If anyone who knows French or Dutch wants to watch the video and tell me what the voiceover is saying at ~0:55, I'd appreciate it. I'm not sure what the drawing in the bottom right is supposed to indicate. That the tag can't be removed even with solvents?)

Cherry On's contribution to BikeSeal, from what I can gather in spite of the language barrier, is the social media/community mobilization side of things.  

This is all reminiscent, of course, of efforts underway elsewhere. Some combination of tagging, technology, and tapping into networks of concerned citizens/cyclists figures into the work of Bike Shepherd, Bike Index, and Project 529. Might bike owners gain the upper hand at last, both here and across the pond?