| Subject: | RE: Bike thieves |
| Date: | 10/25/2005 06:11 AM |
| From: | Joe Tysoe |
|
After reading these stories and being the victim of having three bikes stolen in the last year alone, I would say that most folks with higher-end machines aren't leaving them unlocked... The place I live in Beaverton has kids bikes left out all the time, unlocked.. The theft last week involved the perps cutting my Kryptonite lock; I'm not sure what else to do except lock my stuff in the house. I don't leave my gear unlocked; and don't leave my gear on top of my roof-rack overnight, even locked down. I'll do that going fwd; but the absolute last thing I want is the tweaker who spotted the bike trying to come into my place. Obviously in my case someone saw me come in with the bike Tuesday, and then took it last Wednesday night. If tweakers are that desperate I wonder if they'd do something even more desperate. -----Original Message----- From: Luciano bailey [mailto:ride-@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 10:37 AM To: markjgi-@yahoo.com; ob-@topica.com Subject: RE: [OBRA Chat] Bike thieves Once and for all most of these bikes do not leave the area they end up in some dealers garage or attic until they cool down or are parted out( I have had people try to sell me bikes stolen years ago). This is not a sophisticated ring mainly drug users who use your ride as one way transpo to the drug spot. The moral of the story make it as difficult as possible to steal in the first place. As stated in Marks comments take a picture know your serial numbers and lock your bikes even in the garage. Nothing will discourage a thief more than the thought of having to break locks to get a bike there is usally an easier target. This forum has created the biggest aid in recovery and cutting down theft communication, the sooner a community is on the lookout the better the chances of spotting a bike. From: markjgi-@yahoo.com Reply-To: markjgi-@yahoo.com To: ob-@topica.com Subject: [OBRA Chat] Bike thieves Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 10:18:42 -0700 (PDT) I've been reading this thread for a while. two stories: my three bikes, and recovering someone else's bike. 3 years ago, someone broke into my garage and stole 3 bikes. They knew which bikes to take. two surfaced, one did not. a Ti Mercxk surfaced a few weeks later, b/c an OBRA member had a friend who was a recovered drug user (I think), the recovering drug user's former dealer had the bike and for $500 cash I got the bike back. The second bike was my custom track bike. It surfaced on E-bay. The person selling it has a business out of his garage. He goes to storage units and when someone doesn't pay the bills he buys the contents and sells them on e-bay. The guy who built my custom track bike saw it and contacted the seller, and I headed over to his house with some cash and a friend who is a black belt in kung fu, and for cash got that bike back. the third was a nice custom mountain bike which I figure the thief kept to ride as the easiest of the three to use. Second story, maybe 5 years ago, I saw a guy on a nice Litespeed, but it was clear he was jusy a guy riding to his day labor job. I said to him "nice bike" , he said thanks, I asked if he wanted to sell it. we haggled and he then sold it to me for I think $100. I knew it wasn't his, and I knew OBRA was a small enough community that the owner could be found. Sure engouh by that afternoon, we had figured out the owner and the bike was returned to that person. now you can stop reading, but here are the longer details: from my theft: being an above board guy, I had homeowners insurance, and knew the serial #s of all my bikes, and had pictures of them too! police took police report. homeowners paid me. So when the bikes were located, technically they belonged to my homeowners insurance co, not me. Each time a bike surfaced the polcie were no help, and homeowners didn't really want to lay out $$ to get the bike back, so each time I bought my bikes back with the blessing of the ins. co and the knowledge of the police. Ins Co even sent me nice letters stating that since I recovered the bikes and had to pay for them, they were mine to keep. From the other theft: I paid the guy who had the bike with a CHECK (while at his workplace!). so I could have stopped payment, but it was clear to me that the guy wasn't the one who stole it, but was just using it to get around. Also with his name, if the police were interested, it was easy enough to go talk to him, and maybe work their way up that food chain, but again no interest. So none of those 4 bikes left portland. Mark --- Eric Kytola <Eric.K-@kingrs.com> wrote: I couldn't help but thinking about bike thieves last night. But mostly I had questions. People were thinking our bikes get jacked and sent to another city where people bought our hot bikes. But I asked myself "how many people do I know that have bought a hot bike?" I couldn't think of anyone of the people I have ridden with who I thought might be riding a hot bike (wether they know it or not). So then I have to ask "well who would buy a hot $3,000 bike". I can't think of a substantial group of people who would buy stolen $3,000 bikes. I have a hard time thinking people would feel comfortable buying a used $3,000 bike anyway. So I couldn't think of anywhere or anyone who would buy our stolen bikes. Then I recalled a few episodes of Cops I had seen. The cops were busting people who were stealing copper wire to sell to scrap yards. I started wondering....maybe those bike thieves are recycling all the parts on the bikes to scrap yards. You might think I am crazy but I have 2 points of reference. My younger brother is a cyclist and he is also schizophrenic. He had a suspension fork that he thought was junk and unsafe to sell (which it wasn't) so he brought it to the metal recycler and got 5.00. he also thought he broke a specialized big hit last year. He took that in and got 8.00. I have also been forunate enough to have a few close friends that destroyed their lives being meth heads. Those people aren't rational or logical. They do stuff like tear all the wiring out of their cars so they can re-wire because it will run better. I have seen them steal skateboards to sell at 2nd hand stores. I have seen them rip video games off from friends to sell. The point is they aren't smart. They find something that works and makes them a few bucks and stick with it. They aren't looking to sit on a 3,000 bike and sell it 9 days later on e-bay. They aren't going to tear bikes apart and sell them for parts on e-bay. It takes too long to get the money! They need to get high NOW! Tweakers can't even stand still, there is no way they will take the time to market stuff. I am curious to know how many (if any) bike parts are rolling through the metal recycle yards in PDX? -----Original Message----- From: scott klinger [mailto:a1234bi-@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 8:07 PM To: ob-@topica.com Subject: RE: [OBRA Chat] Bike thieves Well, without giving too much away, as of right now its all line of sight stuff. Not very high tech. I've asked about some other ways, because obviously line of sight doesn't work so well. I mentioned Lojack, but I guess there is a lot of issues with it right now, i.e. no power source. After reading some of the ideas on the board, I have to admit, I would not want to piss off the bike riders in this city, I like the ideas of U-locking someone to a fixed object, and I really liked the idea of radiating bike parts, that was good. You don't even need to take them to OSU, just run over to Reed and do it there. shane.-@comcast.net wrote: Scott- Does the police force use any RF technology to track the bikes once stolen, or is it all line of site (eyesight) type work? -------------- Original message -------------- I had to respond to the bike thieves stuff. I'm a Portland Officer working out of Southeast Precinct, the hotbed of stolen bikes in Portland. I have to say that the bikes that are being stolen here are not staying here. Where they are going, I'd love to know, but they aren't going into the second hand stores to be re-sold. All of us out in OBRA land would be looking out for them. I search Ebay everyday on my own, and I haven't found where they disappear to. If anyone has any idea where the bikes go, or any ideas on who is ripping them off, feel free to let me know. I'd love to work on some bike thieves, I hate them as much as anyone reading this. And by the way, some of my fellow officers were doing a bike sting on Hawthorne a couple weeks ago and a dirtbag, (sorry, not a p.c. term "earthsack") stole our bait bike. And he got away. Now that I'm done laughing at my fellow officers, if anyone spots a black Cannondale Scapel mountain bike, freshly purchased from River City, we'd love to have it back. Yes, the cops got their bike ripped off right from underneath their nose, go ahead and laugh. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR SERIAL NUMBER HANDY! Scott Long, Steve wrote: I'm all for going "Clown" on them... ;-) ________________________________ From: Erin Playman [mailto:erinpl-@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 2:04 PM To: OBRA Subject: RE: [OBRA Chat] Bike thieves If it makes you feel any better, I work for a public defender and have gotten cases where PPB sets up stings for bike thieves. They put out a very expensive bike (usually full susp. mtb, they have a little fleet of their sting bikes) and get the person who takes it. Some of their very expensive bikes solicit felonies when stolen. They aren't doing the clown thing, however, and should definately take that into consideration. "Keith A. Prior" wrote: Bike thieves are scum of the Earth! I am not really sold on the Death Penalty but nothing burns me more than bike thieves and I feel that they should be gassed!! If I wasn't someone's daddy I'd get a few fed up people together who had their bikes lifted and set up a bike 'sting' to tempt a thief. When the punk goes riding off with the bike we come out of hiding dressed as clowns in makeup riding cruisers and do what the Italians did to Dave Stoller in Breaking Away! When the cops ask him who did this to him as he lays on the === message truncated === Mark J. Ginsberg Attorney At Law 621 SW Morrison St., Ste. 900 Portland, OR 97204 (503) 542-3000 Fax (503) 227-2530 markjgi-@yahoo.com www.bikesafetylaw.com __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ To respond to the whole group send to ob-@topica.com. To respond to the list manager send to cmur-@obra.org To unsubscribe send to obra-uns-@topica.com |
