What to do if your bike is stolen

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  • report to the police:)

  • I'm not one to jump to conclusions, but I saw something today that seemed suspicious to me. At Wandsworth Common station there was a scruffy looking scowly kid standing with an blacked out Leader-style build (possibly Visp?) with his jacket hung over the drops. It had a red chain or something similar securing the saddle to the frame. The bit that made me curious was that it had LOOKs on it, but he was wearing his Nike Air Forces. Anyone had something like this go missing in that area or nearby? I went a bit Donal Macintyre and took a quick snap on my phone, but it isn't great. Hopefully it was genuinely his..

  • Tell everyone you know to keep a look out for it

  • Gutted to hear about all the bikes being nicked. I've been lucky so far. DLock and a cable in populated areas and rarely leave it long... [fingers crossed]

  • The police registration is a good idea as they do recover bikes and have no way of informing the owner. There are registration points all over London at the minute

  • my missus works for Vivastreet (a classifieds website like gumtree) and she faces lots of stolen bike ads that are too obvious and takes them down. So I pointed her towards this thread and oilver's first post and they have taken it on board and created a blog post for it: http://www.vivablog.co.uk/keep_your_bike_safe/

  • I'm not one to jump to conclusions, but I saw something today that seemed suspicious to me. At Wandsworth Common station there was a scruffy looking scowly kid standing with an blacked out Leader-style build (possibly Visp?) with his jacket hung over the drops. It had a red chain or something similar securing the saddle to the frame. The bit that made me curious was that it had LOOKs on it, but he was wearing his Nike Air Forces. Anyone had something like this go missing in that area or nearby? I went a bit Donal Macintyre and took a quick snap on my phone, but it isn't great. Hopefully it was genuinely his..

    dont mean to get all PC on you since i know you had good intentions. but ive been on this forum what 4 years or something selling bits here and there. Air max's happen to be my fave trainers i always wear lol and I could easily be seen as someone "who doesnt look like they know/should know about fgss type bikes"

  • Just had 4 bikes stolen from outside the garage that me and my mates were drinking in.. One guy went outside to grab his bike and go home, came back in and said 'there are no bikes outside' we all went out expecting someone (flatmate, anothet mate) playing a joke but no, we saw 4 people down the road on bikes, 3 of us chased them, 3 of them ditched the bikes and ran, the other rode my bike away, I caught two of them trying to jump a fence, both were 16 year old girls..
    We called the police, who came almost straight away, another mate rode around for a bit and came back with my bike! Said he found it dumped in a business car park!
    Apparently the two guys the girls were with are known to the police, so hopefully the fuckers are caught.

  • Were your bikes all unlocked then? Glad you got them all back - but hopefully it was a warning.

    Since noone has lost anything I wonder if the police will even care... hope so...

  • We never lock, we live in Auckland ;)

    One guys helmet was gone, and my light (which I'm sure they put on the helmet, from what I saw)
    The cops gave the girls a massive grilling about how they have no right to take people's stuff, how we have worked hard to pay for those bikes and for them to stop hanging around with dropkicks (we all assumed they were just impressionable young girls)

    I'm quite pissed off that someone had the nerve to walk down the driveway, to the garage which we were obviously in (music + beers!) and walk off with the bikes.
    The two girls were shitting themselves when I caught them.. a 6"1 ginge with a mullet who is pretty much foaming at the mouth can be quite scary it seems!

  • We never lock, we live in Auckland ;)

    GFGSS

    Global Fun Gathering and Social Scenarios

    ?!

    :-)

  • dont mean to get all PC on you since i know you had good intentions. but ive been on this forum what 4 years or something selling bits here and there. Air max's happen to be my fave trainers i always wear lol and I could easily be seen as someone "who doesnt look like they know/should know about fgss type bikes"

    Hahah Reginald, I wasn't judging his personality by his taste in footwear, I was simply referring to the fact that he was wearing sneakers that weren't compatible with his cleat pedals. I own plenty of Nikes..

  • has anyone tried reclaiming bike cost from kryptonite if the lock gets broken into?

  • I hate thief!

  • Post number 3 to get me out of the nursery.

    Bought a Kryptonite mini fahgheddaboudit (sp?) to lock up my single speed. Then someone's bike got nicked from the bike shed in our (closed) complex. Bike now lives in my bedroom, Kryptonite now used as a doorstop...

  • Hello,
    my bike got stolen at 5.30pm today in Stepney Green

    it's a Raleigh, Frame number: MAT9040220,
    BikeRegister Etching: 01 869 79763.
    if anyone sees it or you hear anything please let me know ! or any help i can get it would be great :)
    Theft has been reported to police.
    thank you !

  • What's it look like?

  • So I got a response back from the cycle task force: Here goes...

    Hi

    Thanks for your E mail.

    I fully understand your frustrations. We do work very hard to catch cycle thieves and recover stolen bicycles. We are also the only team in the UK who only investigate the theft of bicycles. The uniformed officers are from another team and have objectives to deal with cycle safety and although will deal with cycle theft their priority is to reduce casualties on the road.

    The best method of contacting us is by E mail. However if you believe a crime is happening or about to happen then 999 should be used. Alternatively use 101 for non urgent help and if necessary the enquiry will be passed on to us.

    We are aware of Brick Lane and other similar markets and have mounted operations and continue to monitor them. The local Tower Hamlets Safer Transport Team are the officers that routinely operate down there.

    We also conduct operations in relation to stolen bikes sold on gumtree and other auction sites on a frequent basis.

    There is a UK wide data base for registering bikes and this is described below. I have copied a generic e mail we send to people who have had their bikes stolen which has information that you might find useful.

    Sorry to hear about your loss. You should be contacted soon by officers from your local Safer Transport Team to get more information but some of the following generic advice may be useful some of which you may have already done.
    1.) Please report the crime in as much detail to your local Police Station in person, telephoning 101 or using the online reporting https://online.met.police.uk/ including the frame number wherever possible and as much detail including modifications and scratches and keep a note of this description.
    2.) Please visit the following two websites and register your bike and show it as stolen this will maximize the chances of the bike being return to you if recovered by the Police in the UK. Bike Register
    www.bikeregister.com/shop/bikeregister/bike-registration and Immobilise
    www.immobilise.com. At the same time register any other bikes in the household and any new ones you purchase in the future.
    3.) Send us the details as per point 1 of your bike and ideally a picture and we will circulate it to the team.
    4.) Finally keep an eye on this website
    www.bikeshd.co.uk collates all the adverts for bicycles for sale placed on websites like Gumtree. Craigslist, Loot and EBay in London. In our experience we normally find adverts are placed within 24hrs and if not keep looking. If you do see your bike let us know and we will see what we can do to return it to you. It might be also worth visiting and making entries on the following forums to maximize the power of 'social media'; Road cc
    www.stolen-bikes.co.uk is free and allows you to report your cycle as stolen nationwide, you can set up a tweet to your report including picture and summary and we advise your crime reference number. It also allows you to set up an alert on Findthatbike which like bikeshd collates all the adverts on Ebay, Gumtree and Preloved and will alert you when a cycle matching yours is advertised. We have recovered cycles stolen and sold far and wide via this site.
    http://road.cc/forums/roadcc-bike , Bikeradar
    http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/ , London Fixed Gear and Single Speed
    http://www.lfgss.com/ and finally CycleChat
    http://www.cyclechat.net/ .
    5.) If you see your bike please contact us on cycletaskforce@met.police.uk and we will see what we can do to help.

    Thanks

    Jim Morris PS 144ST
    Cycle Task Force - STC

    Email:- Jim.Morris@met.police.uk Jim.Morris@met.police.uk

    Have you marked your cycle? www.met.police.uk/transport/cycle_marking.html

  • The fact is, nicked bikes are being bought by guys shipping them abroad, so unfortunately the chances of ever finding some bikes are practically none :(

  • You know this how?

  • Why would you go to the trouble of shipping a stolen bike abroad? In my experience they tend to end up on Gumtree - a thief doesn't want to be caught in possession of stolen material and looks to shift their wares as quickly as possible. In case it's of any help, you can read about my experience with stolen goods here:

    http://thekindnessoftrees.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-appropriate-bicycle-pt-3.html

  • Many thanks! Great info. Should register my bikes!

    In my experience, most gumtree ads are either hoaxes or stolen. Nearly every one I contacted appeared suspicious.

    I once bought a very expensive racing bike on ebay and later discovered that around the same time it was also posted on gumtree for half the price.

    The ebay user appeared legit and the bike was clean. So I wonder what the scam is?

  • Saw some really nice looking fixies at Brick Lane market sold by some shady-shady guys a few weeks ago.. Was hoping to find my Peugeot but now luck. Went there today as well but it seems that Police raids that place after all, therefore it was totally clean.

  • I've just had my beloved Hed Deep Jet stolen from my brothers bike, along with a matt black alpina fork and thomson stem from Columbia Road tonight (Sunday 18th August) at about 10/11pm

    The wheel is actually pretty fucked, I am just very attached to it as I've rebuilt it a few times and it's survived a major crash. I desperately want it back

    I'd really appreciate if anyone could keep an eye out for it popping up on gumtree/ebay/(I dread to think) here

    thank you

  • who is the best insurer? I went with cycle guard....

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What to do if your bike is stolen

Posted by Avatar for Oliver Schick @Oliver Schick

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