Cracking piece. There is a potential solution. Register every bike frame with BikeRegister.co.uk. Then make it mandatory for every online sales platform (Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, ebay) to list the registration number, with autolookup for stolen models. Microdots in the frame make it impossible to renumber a frame.
I've spoken to BikeRegister and a number of other orgs about this - all doable. It's something that's been spoken about for yonks. The only obstacle is political will. The Dept of Transport were looking into it...five years ago. Still nothing.
Yes—this 100%. And some form of bill of sale/title that goes with it, so honest buyers and sellers have real paperwork that shows an item isn’t stolen goods.
Destroy these bastards’ market and you stop their evil actions!
How about a simple thing. I have a Specialised with SRAM electronic gears, which I have registered with SRAM. Surely, SRAM could allow me to track the bike through their apps if it is stolen.
The cultural and western degradation we have let one political movement convince us was “enlightened” and humanitarian has to be to blame for this. Interesting who we are that we tolerate this degrading pointlessness. I guess it stems from us being convinced that lower order thinking and society will respond positively to higher order and society - but recent history shows the opposite seems more likely. The gang depravity in NYC circa 1900 finally was tamed by a hardened police chief who told his cops to be the toughest gang and beat the shit out of the criminals - who responded to nothing else. His solution worked beautifully. I guess we can only wait for some of us to stop pretending.
You are referring to Bill Bratten who was appointed by Repbulican Mayor Rudi Guiliani. Since the Democrats took over, crime has shot back up. The left appears to love crime providing it is not being visited upon them. Of course, eventually it will and then wait for the screams of rage.
He is not referring to Bratton or Guiliani, who were not yet born in 1900. However, even in 1900, no police chief turned the police loose to beat up gang members. Nor did Bratton. He did pursue strategies, including the “broken windows” approach, but that had nothing to do with gangs or beatings. So this “history” of policing is fantasy. In any event, NYC is among the safest big cities in the nation with murder and violent crime rates below not only most urban areas but lower than most red states.
David & Kevan: So sad that you appear to have fallen down the Republican rabbit hole and bought into Trump's lies about crime. For NY citywide stats showing significant decreases in burglary/possession of stolen property/criminal trespass/unauthorized use of a vehicle/grand larceny/& robbery from 2000 to 2023, in some categories by more than half, see vhttps://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/crime-statistics/historical.page
Fascinating. Well done for getting your bike back.
Please, please cover phone thefts at some point (no need to have yours stolen!). I'm in SE1 and it feels entirely unwise to use a phone in the street any more because of the risk of people on bikes with faces covered grabbing it. And it's not just the phone loss but the risk of thieves accessing email/SMS and resetting passwords to do a digital heist afterwards . Google's recent update to detect an Android phone snatch automatically and lock the screen is promising, and Apple should copy that, but even the Google feature is off by default.
It's such a knotty topic and I think it's been reported elsewhere, the real question I have is who's behind it, where's the organised crime involvement, who is then shipping them to China for parts?
I disagree. This is following the trend of blaming someone else, in this case the Chinese.
This is our problem and we must solve it. Vigorous policing and swingeing penalties in terms of long jail sentences would do the trick. Aha I hear you cry. We have no more prison spaces. We have lots of remote military land. Put up a load of military marquees and even more razor wire and put them in there. To avoid them getting bored, put them all on exercise bikes round the clock and hook them up to the national grid. Now that really is reliable renewable energy. Who cares if the wind does not blow or the sun not shine? If you do not generate the required energy, your dinner will be swedes and turnips until you do.
That's the question I'd love to see an answer to. How has phone theft evolved to the point where there is significant technical skill and organisation to not just pinch and resell but as a scaled up operation that can do digital thieving via online accounts (kids on bikes seem unlikely to be capable of that), reselling, or shipping off en masse to be stripped for parts. Even though kids do the nicking, it feels like organised crime. I've not seen any good coverage of even what the police are doing, or can do, to catch the people behind the kids.
Agreed! Until these criminals are caught and stopped, here’s what you can do to secure your phone.
Buy a Peak Design phone case and attach their camera wrist strap to it. It is a pretty sturdy way to secure your phone to your wrist or a backpack strap, making it harder to snatch (or drop accidentally):
The Dutch have low levels of bike theft? I'm from Rotterdam and most people I know have had their bikes stolen at least once. We absolutely don't leave them unlocked, it's not the 60s with the wittefietsenplan.
So if you posted something determined to be offensive, the po po have time to arrest you. If your property is stolen, property that you bought with your hard earned money, then they don’t have time for that? Maybe it’s time to clean house. Get people in place that care about the people that pay their salaries.
Forest are doing a great job of putting themselves out of business by continually eroding everything that made them better than Lime and now seemingly not bothering to maintain their fleet. Other than that, bike subscriptions are great option.
My husband and I had our bikes stolen in 2006 while living in New Orleans. The neighbors kids saw them stealing the bikes, followed them to the new location (a churches chicken several blocks away) and came running back to tell us. My husband was not confrontational at all, so he opted to call the cops. We had recently bought the bikes and had a receipt. We told the police all of this, but his attitude was it's our word against the kids. The kids will just say their grandmother bought them the bikes. The cop left without doing anything.
Last year my car was stolen while I was at work. I had GPS on the car, that didn't seem to matter. I actually never even saw a cop! Got a call a few days later with a report # for insurance. I watched my car drive all over town, probably robbing people and stealing more cars. Later it was used for a shooting.
That is depressing and crazy. The police are supposed to do something to make life better and not shirk their responsibility and let thieves get away with criminal activity. Shameful.
Great read, and I'm glad you got your bike back! The threat of getting my bike stolen has changed how I cycle around London, only cycling to and from places where I can park it securely off street (mainly between home and work). When renting a house, space to keep the bike indoors is a must have requirement. Ideally I would also have a 'burner bike' that I would happily park anywhere, but I fear even that would eventually get stolen if left outside overnight.
Thank you for covering bike thefts. My son's bike was stolen from our shed at the end of March in Harlesden (NW10). A few weeks later, I found it outside a barber's shop round the corner from us. It was outside the shop with a few other bikes - presumably stolen as well. I went it, said to the barber that it was my son's bike, he mumbled something and then added : "If you are sure that it is, take it." I took it, of course, and reported the dodgy barber shop to the police - twice. I had no follow up but the barber's shop doesn't have bikes outside anymore. Maybe they just keep them in a different location now...
First, I’m sorry for all your trouble. As the main rider of my family’s only “vehicle” here in Yokohama, my life would stop if it was stolen. Second, I can’t even understand the pic of your bike. It looks ten feet long and has weird wraparound rails. When I read ebike I imagined something like I have.
Cracking piece. There is a potential solution. Register every bike frame with BikeRegister.co.uk. Then make it mandatory for every online sales platform (Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, ebay) to list the registration number, with autolookup for stolen models. Microdots in the frame make it impossible to renumber a frame.
I've spoken to BikeRegister and a number of other orgs about this - all doable. It's something that's been spoken about for yonks. The only obstacle is political will. The Dept of Transport were looking into it...five years ago. Still nothing.
Superb suggestion, just a minor correction (sorry!): the website is bikeregister.com not .co.uk
Oh yes that's the one! Thank you
Yes—this 100%. And some form of bill of sale/title that goes with it, so honest buyers and sellers have real paperwork that shows an item isn’t stolen goods.
Destroy these bastards’ market and you stop their evil actions!
How about a simple thing. I have a Specialised with SRAM electronic gears, which I have registered with SRAM. Surely, SRAM could allow me to track the bike through their apps if it is stolen.
Fascinating article. When did London turn into New York or San Francisco?
Who are the thieves?
Why are police disinterested?
Are you kidding? The police are no longer interested in shoplifting, burglary, or any other sort of crime. Too busy investigating themselves!
LOL
The cultural and western degradation we have let one political movement convince us was “enlightened” and humanitarian has to be to blame for this. Interesting who we are that we tolerate this degrading pointlessness. I guess it stems from us being convinced that lower order thinking and society will respond positively to higher order and society - but recent history shows the opposite seems more likely. The gang depravity in NYC circa 1900 finally was tamed by a hardened police chief who told his cops to be the toughest gang and beat the shit out of the criminals - who responded to nothing else. His solution worked beautifully. I guess we can only wait for some of us to stop pretending.
You are referring to Bill Bratten who was appointed by Repbulican Mayor Rudi Guiliani. Since the Democrats took over, crime has shot back up. The left appears to love crime providing it is not being visited upon them. Of course, eventually it will and then wait for the screams of rage.
He is not referring to Bratton or Guiliani, who were not yet born in 1900. However, even in 1900, no police chief turned the police loose to beat up gang members. Nor did Bratton. He did pursue strategies, including the “broken windows” approach, but that had nothing to do with gangs or beatings. So this “history” of policing is fantasy. In any event, NYC is among the safest big cities in the nation with murder and violent crime rates below not only most urban areas but lower than most red states.
David & Kevan: So sad that you appear to have fallen down the Republican rabbit hole and bought into Trump's lies about crime. For NY citywide stats showing significant decreases in burglary/possession of stolen property/criminal trespass/unauthorized use of a vehicle/grand larceny/& robbery from 2000 to 2023, in some categories by more than half, see vhttps://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/crime-statistics/historical.page
Karena, I have a beautiful, late nineteenth century wrought iron tower for sale. It occupies a prime location in Paris. Interested?
Really a fantastic article. Well done.
Fascinating. Well done for getting your bike back.
Please, please cover phone thefts at some point (no need to have yours stolen!). I'm in SE1 and it feels entirely unwise to use a phone in the street any more because of the risk of people on bikes with faces covered grabbing it. And it's not just the phone loss but the risk of thieves accessing email/SMS and resetting passwords to do a digital heist afterwards . Google's recent update to detect an Android phone snatch automatically and lock the screen is promising, and Apple should copy that, but even the Google feature is off by default.
It's such a knotty topic and I think it's been reported elsewhere, the real question I have is who's behind it, where's the organised crime involvement, who is then shipping them to China for parts?
I disagree. This is following the trend of blaming someone else, in this case the Chinese.
This is our problem and we must solve it. Vigorous policing and swingeing penalties in terms of long jail sentences would do the trick. Aha I hear you cry. We have no more prison spaces. We have lots of remote military land. Put up a load of military marquees and even more razor wire and put them in there. To avoid them getting bored, put them all on exercise bikes round the clock and hook them up to the national grid. Now that really is reliable renewable energy. Who cares if the wind does not blow or the sun not shine? If you do not generate the required energy, your dinner will be swedes and turnips until you do.
That's the question I'd love to see an answer to. How has phone theft evolved to the point where there is significant technical skill and organisation to not just pinch and resell but as a scaled up operation that can do digital thieving via online accounts (kids on bikes seem unlikely to be capable of that), reselling, or shipping off en masse to be stripped for parts. Even though kids do the nicking, it feels like organised crime. I've not seen any good coverage of even what the police are doing, or can do, to catch the people behind the kids.
Agreed! Until these criminals are caught and stopped, here’s what you can do to secure your phone.
Buy a Peak Design phone case and attach their camera wrist strap to it. It is a pretty sturdy way to secure your phone to your wrist or a backpack strap, making it harder to snatch (or drop accidentally):
https://www.peakdesign.com/products/cuff?Color=Black
Chris Webb was attacked for his phone same day you wrote this... https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/labour-mp-chris-webb-attacked-mugged-london-phone-thefts-blackpool-south-b1192049.html
The Dutch have low levels of bike theft? I'm from Rotterdam and most people I know have had their bikes stolen at least once. We absolutely don't leave them unlocked, it's not the 60s with the wittefietsenplan.
So if you posted something determined to be offensive, the po po have time to arrest you. If your property is stolen, property that you bought with your hard earned money, then they don’t have time for that? Maybe it’s time to clean house. Get people in place that care about the people that pay their salaries.
Have you been visited much?
Amazing read. This is what locks me to a Forest subscription rather than purchasing my own rn and I’m sure I’m not alone
Forest are doing a great job of putting themselves out of business by continually eroding everything that made them better than Lime and now seemingly not bothering to maintain their fleet. Other than that, bike subscriptions are great option.
My husband and I had our bikes stolen in 2006 while living in New Orleans. The neighbors kids saw them stealing the bikes, followed them to the new location (a churches chicken several blocks away) and came running back to tell us. My husband was not confrontational at all, so he opted to call the cops. We had recently bought the bikes and had a receipt. We told the police all of this, but his attitude was it's our word against the kids. The kids will just say their grandmother bought them the bikes. The cop left without doing anything.
Last year my car was stolen while I was at work. I had GPS on the car, that didn't seem to matter. I actually never even saw a cop! Got a call a few days later with a report # for insurance. I watched my car drive all over town, probably robbing people and stealing more cars. Later it was used for a shooting.
That is depressing and crazy. The police are supposed to do something to make life better and not shirk their responsibility and let thieves get away with criminal activity. Shameful.
I hate bike thief's with such a burning passion, they are the worst of humanity, the scummiest of the scummiest, special place in hell for them
Great read, and I'm glad you got your bike back! The threat of getting my bike stolen has changed how I cycle around London, only cycling to and from places where I can park it securely off street (mainly between home and work). When renting a house, space to keep the bike indoors is a must have requirement. Ideally I would also have a 'burner bike' that I would happily park anywhere, but I fear even that would eventually get stolen if left outside overnight.
Thank you for covering bike thefts. My son's bike was stolen from our shed at the end of March in Harlesden (NW10). A few weeks later, I found it outside a barber's shop round the corner from us. It was outside the shop with a few other bikes - presumably stolen as well. I went it, said to the barber that it was my son's bike, he mumbled something and then added : "If you are sure that it is, take it." I took it, of course, and reported the dodgy barber shop to the police - twice. I had no follow up but the barber's shop doesn't have bikes outside anymore. Maybe they just keep them in a different location now...
Chuffed you managed to get it back and also can't imagine what a challenge it must've been getting a GSD back home without a front wheel. Chapeau!
‘The Dutch don’t leave their bikes locked’? - I don’t think Mr Munk has spent much time in the Netherlands
I don’t even live in London or cycle but this piece was riveting. Thank you for sharing and I’m glad you got your bike back!
First, I’m sorry for all your trouble. As the main rider of my family’s only “vehicle” here in Yokohama, my life would stop if it was stolen. Second, I can’t even understand the pic of your bike. It looks ten feet long and has weird wraparound rails. When I read ebike I imagined something like I have.
https://cycle.panasonic.com
Yours looks ready for battle. Which may be what it’s like in London traffic. Condolences.