Thefts of GPSs in cafes.

[Racing roadkill]

I got mine cheap off a bloke stood outside a cafe. It works fine.

 

[Pale Rider]

I was surprised at the number of unattended and unlocked bikes at the Barnard Castle control of London Edinburgh London.

Not just for a few minutes, a lot of riders were in the control for several hours if they were eating and kipping.

Of the hundreds of bikes parked outside at busy times, most were unlocked.

Things were fairly casual in the control as well, any number of gadgets left on charge unattended.

 

[Racing roadkill]

I was surprised at the number of unattended and unlocked bikes at the Barnard Castle control of London Edinburgh London.

Not just for a few minutes, a lot of riders were in the control for several hours if they were eating and kipping.

Of the hundreds of bikes parked outside at busy times, most were unlocked.

Things were fairly casual in the control as well, any number of gadgets left on charge unattended.

Yeahbut it’s an Audax. Nothing bad will happen to anyone with a wool jersey, a bobble hat, and a Brooks saddle. Them’s the rules.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I was surprised at the number of unattended and unlocked bikes at the Barnard Castle control of London Edinburgh London.

Not just for a few minutes, a lot of riders were in the control for several hours if they were eating and kipping.

Of the hundreds of bikes parked outside at busy times, most were unlocked.

Things were fairly casual in the control as well, any number of gadgets left on charge unattended.

I carried a cafe lock in 2013, but never used it at the controls. It will be the same at PBP.

 

[Blue Hills]

Yeahbut it’s an Audax. Nothing bad will happen to anyone with a wool jersey, a bobble hat, and a Brooks saddle. Them’s the rules.

I do have the idea that in some of that persuasion locking stuff up is seen as "not done". I know of someone who had a nice bike nicked from outside an Audax. Rich pickings for sure for any vaguely clever thief willing to do a few minutes online research.

 

[Sniper68]

So they produce & sell non-working units?

Yes and no,sort of.
They tend to release units before they are fully ready then release loads of update/patches.The Garmin Edge 820 was a prime example.I had four of them in under 6 months.I sold the 4th without even turning it on.
Garmins user Forum highlights this.There's page after page of fixes and patches.When they're sorted they can be brilliant units but I've given up on them.
There will be 1000s who won't have a problem but there's also many who will.I've had a few Edge units that were fine (200/520/800) but the 820 was an absolute dog IMO.My son uses my 5 year old Edge 200 which has been faultless but it is basic.

 

[Alien8]

I was surprised at the number of unattended and unlocked bikes at the Barnard Castle control of London Edinburgh London.

Not just for a few minutes, a lot of riders were in the control for several hours if they were eating and kipping.

Of the hundreds of bikes parked outside at busy times, most were unlocked.

Things were fairly casual in the control as well, any number of gadgets left on charge unattended.

I took a Pitbull Mini and cable with me and used it at every control bar one (where I just popped in and out).

But that was certainly at the extreme end and although I saw the odd cafe lock deployed, as you say, most bikes were left unlocked for potentially hours.

I guess it was a combination of riders believing their bikes were being looked after by the volunteers and the event itself addling the mind.

When (if) I do an event like that again, I think I would take an ordinary padlock with a shackle long enough to go across the stays.

But I couldn't leave my bike unlocked.

 

[Globalti]

The best organisation I ever saw is the Cape Argus race in Cape Town. With 32,000 riders it has to be good so there's a secure bike park at the finish where you get a numbered ticket for your bike. The organisation involved in trucking thousands of bikes in removal vans from Johannesburg then back is something else.

 

[Levo-Lon]

There was an incident in my local watering hole not long ago where someone had a pair of prescription spectacles and a pint of beer stolen from their table whilst they were using the toilet. Nothing surprises me any more. Some scrotes will nick anything. In a cycling café, any random scumbag could walk in dressed as a cyclist, in exactly the same way people will wander on to a building site wearing a hi-vis jacket and hard hat and walk off with any power tools that have been left unattended. If you look like you belong in a certain setting, you become invisible and no-one pays a blind bit of attention to anyone wearing the right kind of attire.

That's how bike thieving shyte operate at trail centres and the likes.
Who takes notice of a mountain biker with a mountain bike.

People are so trusting, or simply oblivious to what's going on around them.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

People are so trusting, or simply oblivious to what's going on around them.

Maybe they are just nice people & expect others to be the same

 

[Heltor Chasca]

I’ve alluded to my African blueprint before with regard to theft.

Stopping at a CoOp in Chepstow on an Audax I was doing, there was no street furniture to lock my bike to. Seeing another cyclist pull up and leave his bike against a wall unlocked, I assumed he didn’t have a lock. I offered to lock my bike to his to decrease the chances of a theft. He was too tired to say, ‘No it’s ok. We don’t lock bikes on Audax events.’ And let me. I was too tired to notice his bemused expression. I got the hint many days later digesting the situation.

I’m an anomaly for sure. I used to work in a culinary/medicinal garden. I didn’t realise it, but I really used to offend the landowner because I used to lock my vehicle up while I worked. I had to explain my old African habits. Still shook his head.

 

[Globalti]

Regrettably my own African experience agrees with yours. If something isn't locked, bolted or welded in place it will disappear. We don't allow any of our Lagos staff to take vehicles home and all company vehicles are GPS alarmed with a battery removal alarm as well. The problems happen when a driver gets pressured into lending the vehicle to a friend or relative and it comes back the next day with different tyres, battery, starter motor, whatever. Theft starts with politicians and goes right through life, with everything and everybody fair game. When buying anything like a car, a house or land you have to take extreme care to be sure the asset actually belongs to the seller.

 

[jefmcg]

How did we get here? From a theft in Lancashire, to casting the whole of Africa as a den of thieves, or to quote a notable politician, a shoothole?

Mind you, it's understandable if Africans might be a little light fingered, considering Europe has for centuries systematically stripped that continent of everything of value, including generations of fit young people. And though we may have slowed a bit, the Chinese are picking up our slack, albeit they do not need more people, so that's something.

Much of the wealth of Europe is the plunder of Africa, but they can't be trusted not to steal a starter motor. I guess that kind of balances things out.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I often do not lock up the recumbent at village shops on audaxes on the basis that very few will successfully manage to ride away on it. My road bike I tend to use the cafe lock unless a group of us is there and we have a rita for bike watching.

 

[Adam4868]

I don't stop,my body is a temple...I must resist cake...