You are reading a single comment by @Nishiki_Alien and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Nishiki_Alien
There are usually police patrolling nearby, also Market Inspectors carrying radios and in marked tabards or similar.
If you see your bike, say nothing, but quickly locate a MI or cop. A fruit seller or someone like that should have the number of the market inspectors, and the MIs have the numbers of the nearest cops. Bethnal Green cop-shop is open on Sundays, and is active on bikes.
All this assumes you can prove the bike is yours. If you can't (no folded piece of paper down the seat-tube), then you'll have to bluff. No sellers in street markets like to see cops on their stall, and it makes little difference if the police take the bike until ownership is proved, or the seller gives it back to you, EXCEPT, if the same vendor is having the same problem on his stall every couple of weeks, the police will have a serious word with him about 'receiving stolen goods'.
Without proof you can ask quietly for your bike back, or loudly cuss and do your nut, depending on what you think will work. If the vendor is trying to sell your bike, be loud. The buyer will do one. If you think the vendor will do a runner, try and lock up the bike. Under some circumstances that should be the first thing you should do - sometimes at BL sellers stand some distance away from a hot bike, so they can't be implicated in case of trouble.
At Brick Lane you have to reach early - you see the dirtbags in the cage there stripping down frames and playing 'mix and match' from 8am.