someone just tried to nick my flipping bike!

[mrsflibble]

in a case like that I'd be annoyed just as much that i've no longer got a camerphone lol!

[Thomzo]

The bike racks at work are right next to the back door, in full view of the security camera and actually underneath the offices. We have a barrier across the entrance to the car park but you can cycle or walk around it. A couple of months ago someone nicked my BF's bike between 4pm and 5.30pm in full view of a whole load of staff who were outside smoking. He cycled into the car park on an old bike and locked it up. Walked away for a few minutes and then came back and took J's bike instead of his own. He used bolt cutters on the lock but the people who were there didn't realise that was what he was doing. Later on he came back for his own bike.

It was all recorded on the CCTV. The security guard called the police who said they knew who it was. A few weeks later J rang them to find out what they had done about it - yep you guessed it .... NOTHING!

Grrrrr. And they wonder why people in this country take the law into their own hands!

Zoe

[Ellendra]

I know of one person who keeps his bike from being stolen, by draping a used condom over the handlebar.

Not sure I'd recommend that, but sometimes the way to keep things from "wandering off" is to make them look like no one would want them.

[mrsflibble]

tbh ellendra, round here they'd probably see it as a bonus "ooo, i can rinse that out..."...

[hamster]

...

Not sure I'd recommend that, but sometimes the way to keep things from "wandering off" is to make them look like no one would want them.

True. I had a decent bike with loads of gears and suspension and stuff which I'd used at home where it's hilly and it got swiped in my second term at uni in broad daylight despite being locked securely to a bike rack in a busy part of the town centre. I replaced it with the cheapest, rubbishest bike I could find and left it chained to various lamp-posts all over the place, went to the pub and forgot about it and left it overnight a couple of times, and nobody ever touched it.

[Thomzo]

I did suggest to the BF that he paint his new bike bright pink. That way nobody would take it. For some reason he didn't like the idea.

Zoe

[witch way]

When I went cycling in Holland the locals told us that the first thing they did to a new bike was paint it over with any old rubbishy paint they could find and smear dirt all over the shiny spokes and wheels. Do saddles and pedals come off easily these days? If you removed them when you locked up the bike, that would stop em (ouch).

[Jared]

The bike racks at work are right next to the back door, in full view of the security camera and actually underneath the offices. We have a barrier across the entrance to the car park but you can cycle or walk around it. A couple of months ago someone nicked my BF's bike between 4pm and 5.30pm in full view of a whole load of staff who were outside smoking. He cycled into the car park on an old bike and locked it up. Walked away for a few minutes and then came back and took J's bike instead of his own. He used bolt cutters on the lock but the people who were there didn't realise that was what he was doing. Later on he came back for his own bike.

It was all recorded on the CCTV. The security guard called the police who said they knew who it was. A few weeks later J rang them to find out what they had done about it - yep you guessed it .... NOTHING!

Grrrrr. And they wonder why people in this country take the law into their own hands!

Zoe

Same thing happened to me 2 weeks ago, locked up my spanking new bike (only a month old) in the car park behind my offices, with windows on two floors overlooking it, come 4 o'clock, looked out my friends office window and it was gone, just a cut lock left on the floor. So annoyed, but the CCTV was worse than useless, couldn't identify the bike let alone who was riding it.
Insurance company have forked out thank goodness, and I have ordered myself an axa basta ring lock for the back wheel with a chain to attach into in, and am going to be picking up a Kryptonite D lock when I pick up my replacement bike this weekend. It will also be marked, and electronically tagged, thanks to http://www.bikeregister.com
Hopefully that will keep the little blighters filthy thieving hands off it

[Graye]

I'm glad they didn't manage to steal your bike or trailer but it's a real nuisance to have to replace the lock etc. All you can do is make it time-consuming to release the bike from whatever you attach it to. You then have the possibility of them damaging it out of pure spite though.

On a similar subject I drove to Scarborough today for a final round-up of things we can't live without in France. Our car doesn't move from one week to the next when we are in Whitby BUT we have to park on the roadside as there is no vehicle access to our cottage. The first thing I noticed was a key scratch the whole length of it. It's a pretty basic four year old car so it can hardly be seen as an envy thing, unless it's the foreign registration. What is with these mindless morons? We have also had a huge dent (kick?) in a previous car, and a wing mirror torn off (pavement side so not a passing vehicle). I really can't see what these half-wits get from being so downright anti-social.

[mrsflibble]

I'm glad they didn't manage to steal your bike or trailer but it's a real nuisance to have to replace the lock etc. All you can do is make it time-consuming to release the bike from whatever you attach it to. You then have the possibility of them damaging it out of pure spite though.

yes, but i would rather have a damaged, fixable bike than no bike at all hahaha!

sorry to hear abot your car, is the scratch too deep to t-cut out?

[Super.Niki]

I had my bike nicked the other day, thought it was safe (attatched to a lamp-post outside the boyfriend's house with an oxford lock) it had been there hundreds of times over the 2 months we'd been together (3 next week! yay!) and some little git nicked it!!

bright pink, gears don't work properly and the back break has been taken off due to the need to be fixed.... so with anyy luck the little git zoomed off, tried to break and skidded under something fast!

Worst part was I called the police as soon as I found out, me, Giles and one of the security guards pinpointed a time period it was nicked (sometimes between around 10pm-3pm) and the area's totally covered by security cameras... yet the police havn't even bothered to get back to me

the excess on the insurance is £100 and the bike's worth about £70... just not worth it! Comes a month and a half after being burgles at work then 4 days later being burgled at home.

I really hate the world sometimes

[mrsflibble]

my insurance excess is £150, bike was £130 so if anything did happen i'd probably call for a whip-round of my family lol!!!

[Thomzo]

The only slightly-funny thing about the BF's bike being stolen is that the insurance company that paid out on it is the same one that owns the office building. Will check out the bike register site though. That sounds like a good idea.

Zoe

[JulieSherris]

Mrs F, I sympathise - but thank goodness you only had a dmagaed lock to contend with!

A few years ago, hubby decided to take up road cycling again (he used to be really into triathlons in a big way) and he bought a custom-built Ribble cycle.
Well, the bike is really very nice, but I am too much of a heathen to appreciate it properly
Let's just say that my 'new' car (1 yr old, ex-showroom) an Opel Agila actually cost the same amount

So, I bought him a 'Datatag'. At least I think that's what it was - you remove the saddle & drop the small 'tag' inside the frame. Then you use the stickers all over the frame alerting the would be thieves that it's protected - I think it works on the microchipping system & cops can scan the frame to find the data. The type I bought also has a dormant GPS - if the bike goes missing, the company then looks for it using their GPS & hopefully, it's found..... luckily, we've never had to test the theory!

I know the standard datatag costs around £25 - cheaper than replacing your bike, but then again, I guess no security is defence enough if the little sods REALLY want to nick it

Good luck with it in future - aren't the bike trailers great? I had one when we were in Blackpool & little Leah LOVED it!!
I still have my bike, but to be honest, the roads out here just aren't safe enough for me to be wobbling around on them!!
I will look at maybe selling it on at some point soon - and invest in a quad bike & trailer to whizz me back & forth to our bogs when peat cutting is upon us next year!!
Julie.