Take It from a Bike Thief

Perhaps you remember reformed bike thief Shenol Shaddouh from this 2013 BTB post. Now, more than four years after his tale of redemption appeared in The Docklands and East London Advertiser, Shaddouh remains on the straight and narrow. He recently offered Cyclist readers advice on how to hold on to their bikes.

A couple takeaways:

1. Foil twist attacks: Back in his thieving days, Shaddouh used a scaffolding pole to twist D-locks. "If the first thing the lock comes into contact with when twisted is whatever it’s locked to, rather than the frame, then you can twist the D-lock to the point of breaking and it won’t damage the frame," Shaddouh told Cyclist. Take this into consideration when positioning your lock.
2. Adopt the Sheldon Brown: Shaddouh advocates what is known in some circles as the Sheldon Brown locking technique. "The best way to use a D-lock is not to lock your frame but to lock through your rim at the spot between the rear wheel and the top of the rear triangle, with the D-lock within the rear triangle but not through the chainstays," he says. Something to think about...

Ben*, Bike Hunter

Buy a VanMoof SmartBike and, if it gets stolen, the Amsterdam outfit will spend two weeks trying to track it down. If they fail to reclaim your bike in a fortnight, they'll replace it. BTB reported on this so-called Peace of Mind service—free for the first two years post-purchase—back in June 2016.

Now, with regular Medium posts, VanMoof is chronicling its bike recovery efforts. The Bike Hunting Broadcasts afford readers a "weekly peek into the wild world of VanMoof’s Bike Hunting Team."

This is the stuff of cinema (or at the very least, television): organized crime, just-in-time arrivals, high-tech gadgetry, international trafficking of stolen property, courageous crime fighters on the verge of losing hope...Casablanca, even!

So follow along, folks, and cheer the good guys on.

A VanMoof Bike Hunter fires up a tracker on the streets of Casablanca

*As VanMoof reiterates in each Bike Hunting Broadcast, their "Bike Hunters prefer to remain stealth and not use their real names."

Skylock (Now Ellipse) Debuts

Skylock got a lot of press back in 2014, and, as pre-orders begin to ship, the app-controlled bike lock continues to garner high-profile coverage. It's just not all positive.

Michael Tortorello reports in the Wall Street Journal that while the lock, now called Ellipse, boasts a solar panel and a theft- and accident-detecting accelerometer, it suffers from some unglamorous mechanical difficulties.

"So what happens if the app connects to Ellipse," writes Tortorello, "but the latch won’t clinch properly, preventing you from securing your bike to the rack?" He continues:

Or what if, later on, the latch refuses to release, threatening to leave you stranded 6 miles from home? Can the lock detect profanity, uttered in close proximity and at high volume? 

That’s what happened to us during a recent road test.

(I trust Tortorello means that the lock malfunctioned, not that it detected the frustrated tester's string of expletives.)

Though Ellipse creator Jack Al-Kahwati assured Tortorello that the issue he encountered has been corrected on the locks shipping to customers who pre-ordered them, the reporter sounds unconvinced.

"The technology in the Ellipse may be novel," Tortorello concludes his piece, "but our experience brought back analog memories: It felt just like losing a key."

Note also: The Ellipse is selling for less than the expected $249 reported by BTB in June 2014. The list price is in fact $199 (smart phone not included).

Your Chance to Win a Carbon Wheelset or a Top-of-the-Line Lock

I'm decreasing my own chances of winning by telling you this, of course, but...

Project 529's 2017 Bike Theft Survey is live, and, by taking five minutes to answer it, you'll both (1) help the Portland-based outfit amass information they hope will enable "law enforcement, advocacy organizations and the cycling industry to better understand how the cycling community is affected by bike theft" and (2) enter the running for a SRAM or Zipp carbon wheelset or an ABUS folding or U-lock. Do it.

Project 529 should already be familiar to readers. BTB first covered 529 back in June 2014, and subsequently reported on both its wood-bound petition to require online sellers to include serial numbers on bike listings and its fruitful collaboration with officials in Vancouver, BC. Now, in a newsletter that went out Tuesday night, Project 529 has announced a merger: "National Bike Registry and 529 Garage have joined forces," exclaims the email's header, "creating the largest and most advanced bike registry in North America!"

So if you've previously registered a bike or two with either of these parties, take this opportunity to log on to the new post-merger site and make sure you're maxing out the services on offer. And if you still have a unregistered ride in your possession? Get on that!

The Thrill of the Campaign

Got another bike lock Kickstarter for you, folks, and it's a good one. 

TiGr has been providing cyclists (me included) with "elegant bike security" since 2011, leaving little doubt that they'll deliver a quality product to campaign supporters.

The TiGr mini+ offers the portability of the award-winning TiGr mini but with the added versatility of a larger locking area.

Though the TiGr mini+ encloses about the same area as a standard U-lock does, TiGr takes pains to differentiate the two. (You know it's that last bullet that sells you!) 

Watch the full pitch below and, if you like what you see, head over to the Kickstarter page to snap up one of these limited edition locks while you still can.

Note: I can personally testify to the usability of the TiGr mini+; I was one of the cyclists who tested a prototype. "Bike security enthusiast"? I'll take it!

"I AM THIEVE [sic]"

Photo by Dije Siha Rahmad

When an Australian couple was caught on CCTV stealing a bike on the Indonesian island of Gili Trawangan last week, local law enforcement meted out a punishment aimed at (1) embarrassing the pair and (2) deterring other would-be thieves.

The day after the attempted theft, members of a locally organized security force—at less than two miles long and with fewer than 1,000 permanent residents, Gili Trawangan has no police presence—escorted the Australians on a "walk of shame." Such spectacles are not, the Guardian reports, uncommon on the island, with both tourists and locals subjected to the public shaming.

The Aussies got off easy, if you ask me, though the English on their neck placards is pretty grating...

"Thank you...for returning it"

For anyone in need of a feel-good story fix, here are a few:

1. Maybe you saw Mara Abbott come oh-so-close to winning the women's road race in Rio in August. The cyclist was in the news again late last month when her gold-colored Blue brand commuter bike went missing from outside her Boulder, CO home. The theft was her fault, Abbott said, since she'd left her ride unlocked, intending—but forgetting—to secure it in her carport after grabbing a bite to eat. Abbott's bike theft story had a happy ending, however: A Boulder man who'd read a Daily Camera piece about Abbott's loss spotted a two wheeler that looked like hers and reported it to police. Abbott was so thrilled to be reunited with her ride that on her way home from the police station she stopped for a celebratory doughnut. "I was jumping up and down and maybe crying a little because I was so happy," she told the Daily Camera.

2. James Brewster is nine, and his father died a little over a year ago, on November 29, 2015. The day before the one-year anniversary of Mr. Brewster's death, a silver mountain bike was stolen from outside young James’s home in Pinebank, Craigavon, County Armagh, Ireland. The bike was the last present Brewster had given his son. James's mother Una launched a Facebook appeal pleading for the bike's return, and it worked. Twelve hundred shares later the bike materialized in the Brewsters' yard. When James came home after Gaelic after-school club (!) he could hardly believe his eyes: "I actually looked at the bike and didn't think it was really there," he told the Belfast Telegraph. "I thought I was dreaming." (Watch Una's video of James's reunion with his bike.) 

3. Bike Index put out its full rundown of November bike recoveries yesterday, and photographic documentation of an early December recovery caught my eye. Nicely composed shot, eh?

Assault the Thief's Senses

Any lock that's halfway convenient to carry can be compromised by a thief with the proper tools and sufficient time to wield them. Two current Indiegogo campaigns—Stingray and SkunkLock—offer cyclists extra security measures in the form of ear- and nose-assaulting deterrents, respectively.

Designed by electrical engineer (and three-time victim of bike theft) Obadiah Sheikh, Stingray combines a powerful front bike light with a motion sensor that triggers a 140-decibel alarm, an ear-splitting screech on par with a gunshot or a jet engine upon takeoff. While typical locks, if broken, "sit quietly and watch as a thief rides away with your bicycle and all onlookers assume nothing wrong," Stingray both deafens the would-be criminal and alerts bystanders to a crime-in-progress.

"The main problem with a stolen bike," says Sheikh, "is once the thief is around the first corner, nobody knows it’s a stolen bike." Watch the full pitch below:



SkunkLock, which bills itself as "the only lock that fights back," holds a surprise for thieves with power tools: pressurized within a hollow chamber running the length of the U-lock is an undisclosed cocktail of chemicals that "induce vomit in the majority of cases, and elicit an instinctive response to run away immediately."

While it will not deliver the "Death to Bike Thieves" my sticker advocates (or fulfill creator Daniel Idzkowski's desire for bikes to blow thieves' balls off), SkunkLock does promise to leave the would-be bike thief with eyes stinging, stomach churning, and clothes ruined. Not bad. Check it out:

Loaner Locks and Bait Bikes

In August 2015, nearly a bike a day was reported stolen on Vancouver's Granville Island. Thanks to Operation Rudy, however, August 2016 saw only a theft a week. 

A collaboration between Granville Island, Project 529, the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Department, Better Environmentally Sound Transportation, and several Island businesses, Operation Rudy is "a multi-spoked approach that addresses easy bicycle storage and registration, cyclists’ security habits, theft deterrence, and physical site design."

Given the success of the initiative, other jurisdictions may want to consider implementing some of its components. The program 

• offers bicycle valet service free of charge seven days a week (at least during the summer months);
• encourages bike registration with 529 Garage;
• makes loaner locks available to cyclists willing to leave a photo ID at one of the participating businesses;
• uses bike rack signage to educate riders about proper locking technique;
• employs bait bikes to catch thieves (six arrests this summer!); and
• prompted the installation of bike parking structures in high-visibility (and thus safer) areas.

Heartened by this summer's decrease in Granville Island thefts, Vancouver officials are already hoping to take Operation Rudy to Olympic Village, another of the city's bike theft hotspots.

U-locks Are Targets Now

Bike security is an arms race: As riders employ sturdier locks, would-be thieves wield more powerful tools or devise sneakier attacks.

Consider the Bay Area. For years, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has mounted a public information campaign aimed at getting cyclists to swap their cable locks for more secure U-locks. And BART bike thefts have declined, 28 percent between 2014 and 2015, and another 22 percent in the first seven months of 2016. Bike East Bay's outreach coordinator Robert Prinz told the East Bay Times he attributes this decrease not only to BART's installation of bike lockers and encouragement of bike valet parking, but to its pro-U-lock message.

But now that the low-hanging cabled-locked fruit is more rare, thieves are increasingly targeting U-locks. Analysis by the East Bay Times of bikes reported stolen in the first three months of 2016 showed that, where the type of lock was mentioned, approximately 45 percent of thefts involved a cable lock, while around 38 percent involved U-locks. Sentences like this one from the East Bay Times's story strike fear in the heart of any bike lover: "In at least one case, the cyclist secured the bike with two Kryptonite U-locks—among the most expensive around—and a Kryptonite-brand chain, only to find the bike missing." Is no configuration of locks safe??

BART is considering upping its theft-prevention game with the installation of a new kind of bike rack, called Bikeep. Check out the next security measure thieves will be figuring out how to foil: