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Surely it’s situational to some extent - if you live on an estate in Roehampton or Putney you might not be rubbing shoulders with Rolex wearing city boys on a daily basis - however every Saturday and Sunday you watch a stream of them ride past on 4K + bikes so it seems like an easy mark, local so they know the area / escape routes, have a lock up / flat they can chuck the bikes in etc. Threat of stabbing is going to be enough for most lone males to not put up a fight.
Also pretty easy visually even from a distance to pick out high value bikes - deep carbon wheels, disc brakes, branded frame
roadwarrior-
I've heard bike thieves scoping out targets and deciding which brand name they know best. Cannondale, Specialized etc will always be more of a target than smaller brands. Spotting a Rolex on the street must be hard, I think you'd have to wait outside a private members club or something to guarantee finding one.
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Richmond is full of people (and places) with more expensive shit on (in) them than bikes.
Crashing people off bikes so you're now in possession of a damaged, stolen road bike may even be dumber than the machete waving.
You can all keep arguing about it, doesn't change the fact there's a bunch of easier, higher value targets with less risk. They have to be pretty fucking high to have come up with this as their best money making scheme.
Sumo
hippy
Not when it's on someone's arm.
And again, if you think posh bikes are actually worth stealing and you're willing to throw a machete around in broad daylight for them, then go a fucking empty one of those boutique bike shops! Walk into Sigma Sport with a balaclava on and wave a machete around and walk out with a van load of bikes.
Like I said, there's a tonne of other, better options than crashing into the thing you're stealing, in broad daylight.