No Helmet? You must be a thief

[mr_cellophane]

Look at this bloke at 30 seconds


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tff0nPe2Y5I


Is he a victim or thief ?

 

[HJ]

Trust the Scotsman to be so slow with the story, bike theft has been a problem in Edinburgh of years. I have know quite a few people who have had their bikes stolen, or damaged in common stairs. It about time something was done about it, now just need to keep an eye on Bumblebee Auctions and pick up a bargain

 

[goo_mason]

Three years ago we had two nicked from our stair (this was before I took up cycling) - one was my neighbour's £1000 road bike which he'd left out for less than 24hrs. Now - we live at the top of 4 flights of stairs, and the bike would not have been visible from the bottom. It was either a very opportunist thief who chose that one day to get in and drag himself all that way up just in case, or - as we suspected - the postie may have been tipping people off... He'd have been the only one to come up to the top floor the day the bike was out and seen it.

A while after that, we had someone apparently come in and knock out one of the railings (plus a big slab of stone stair) to pinch a bike that - again - had been locked up there for less than 24hrs. Despite the fact that there were people in all afternoon in the flats beside where it happened, no-one heard a thing. And once again, another opportunist thief who struck lucky or someone tipped off ?

That's the reason I've always carried my bike up and down every day and keep it in the flat, despite the fact that it's knackering to do ! Never mind, I took possession of my new Giant SCR2 road bike today - that's going to be like carrying a feather compared to the hernia-inducing MTB.

 

[HJ]

Three years ago we had two nicked from our stair (this was before I took up cycling) - one was my neighbour's £1000 road bike which he'd left out for less than 24hrs. Now - we live at the top of 4 flights of stairs, and the bike would not have been visible from the bottom. It was either a very opportunist thief who chose that one day to get in and drag himself all that way up just in case, or - as we suspected - the postie may have been tipping people off... He'd have been the only one to come up to the top floor the day the bike was out and seen it.

Or someone flyering the stair, or the Herald & Post guys, or...

A while after that, we had someone apparently come in and knock out one of the railings (plus a big slab of stone stair) to pinch a bike that - again - had been locked up there for less than 24hrs.

That is a fairly common technique, I have seen a quite a few stairs with the railings smashed, what you need is a really good lock on the common door and neighbours who like it kept shut...

 

[bobg]

The antidote is to commute on a Raleigh Superb: I used one for 4 years at Uni. No-one would dream of riding it, never mind steal it. Never locked, never nicked. Damn. I had to leave it behind in Handsworth Bham. I still feel guilty. Probably still just behind the back garden gate.....

I'd have been tempted if it'd got stainless steel wheels Just what I need!

 

[goo_mason]

Or someone flyering the stair, or the Herald & Post guys, or...

No flyers in that 24hr period, and definitely no Herald & Post (we get two issues, then a gap of a year until you get the customer service phonecall asking how you're finding the H & P, and they're stunned you've not had it as they've been paying the little scrotes to deliver it all that time. Then you get another two issues, then the whole process repeats... )

I once reported kids to the police when I found them in the stair and saw them run downstairs and out the door with a bike. The kindly policeman said it would be about 4 hrs before they could come round, even though the kids were still standing outside. Then I told him one of the kids had dropped a poly bag with schoolbooks etc in it, and it had the kid's name on so perhaps they could pay them a visit - at that point he told me that unless I went straight out and gave the kid her bag back, they'd come straight round and do me for theft. Not had much faith in the Leith police since, funnily enough....
(Luckily the bike wasn't one stolen from the stair - the kids had brought in in with them !!)