Fixed more difficult for thieves?

Has anyone ever witnessed someone steal a Fixed bike and try to ride it away?

Has anyone ever witnessed someone steal a Fixed bike and try to ride it away?

I've seen a thief tying a pig to a fixie and then "shoo-ing" it in to flight. I think that's the most common technique these days.

I've seen a thief tying a pig to a fixie and then "shoo-ing" it in to flight. I think that's the most common technique these days.

That's a bloody lie and you are as pissed as a Bishop.

Who said they're going to ride it after they cut the lock?

I bummed a hobo for a pint of Pernod.

What was theb wyuqrstgopn>?

I bummed a hobo for a pint of Pernod.

Quoting Jack Kerouac at this hour is very impressive.

Quoting Jack Kerouac at this hour is very impressive.

Almost as impressive as spelling his name right...

haha

Jack what? moo

Thinking about it, it's more Ginsburg really. Moo moo.

Gin

Has anyone ever witnessed someone steal a Fixed bike and try to ride it away?

yes.

Who said they're going to ride it after they cut the lock?

They don't neccesarilly have to cut a lock. Lots of people I know have been pulled from their bikes in underpasses etc. Common practice for group of kids in Bristol to surround bike and grab sadle to stop you. Had it happen to me once. They stopped me for a few seconds to ask me if I "wanted to swap my bike" for another one they had with them (wonder where they got that and why they wanted rid of it?) and then I managed to make a break for it.

More the type of scenario I was thinking of as you'd be more likely to witness it than a cutting lock theft.

I think a 'racing bike' geometry position would be more of a challenge than simply being fixed. If some thief jumped on a bike with risers and that (street/trick setup) Im sure they could ride away happily.

But a bike with really high saddle, really low drop bars, fiddly road strap pedals or even worse, clipless aswell as tight racey geometry and drop brake levers would probably all freak a thief out just as much if not more.

The most challenging thing probably being a brakeless track bike with deep drops and clipless pedals.

But of course, unless there is someone chasing they do not have to ride off particularly fast.

But a bike with really high saddle, really low drop bars, fiddly road strap pedals or even worse, clipless aswell as tight racey geometry and drop brake levers would probably all freak a thief out just as much if not more.

And coming from what I've seen, theives and hoodlums always ride these low saddle heavy mountain bikes pacing at 3mph looking COOOOL & talking on their mobile phone going "innit bruvs/blood".

Not that I don't say innit or anything... :P

So going from that to a road bike is certainly going to feel uncomfortable and uneasy.

But, that isn't always the case. Unfortunately SOME thieves know about bikes...

I must admit I've often thought it'd be more difficult for a thief to grab my bike and ride off on it. A fixed lo-pro set up for someone who's just over 6"8. Even my 6ft+ mates can't really ride it.

... someone who's just over 6"8...

Mate you are BLOODY tall man!!!

Given that an increasingly high number of bikes in London are now fixed, one would assume that thieves have been clever enough to learn how to ride fixed.

What happened in the theft you saw, RPM?

quotes from 'hoodlums' ive passed.
"oi charge, nice charge"
"them bikes with thin bars are the sick ones now"
"my bredrin has nuff of them bikes for sale"
etc.
Maybe not fixed but the general style of bike i assume we are talking about are fast becoming coveted.

I must admit I've often thought it'd be more difficult for a thief to grab my bike and ride off on it. A fixed lo-pro set up for someone who's just over 6"8. Even my 6ft+ mates can't really ride it.

Amen. I couldn't imagine a generic thief getting on a fixed wheel low pro with no brakes and clipless pedals set up for someone 6'5" and riding away.

Even if they did manage to get some speed on it I'd only have to stand and wait til they crashed it.

I have always thought that Allen Ginsberg personified the Spirit of the Fixie somewhat more than Jack Kerouac, who, after all travelled across America in cars and on railways. Gregory Corso damned himself, of course, by calling one of his Anthologies "Gasoline".

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by

          madness, starving hysterical naked, 
   dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn 
          looking for an angry fix, 
   angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly 
          connection to the starry dynamo in the machin- 
          ery of night, 
   who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat 
          up smoking in the supernatural darkness of 
          cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities 
          contemplating jazz, 
   who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and 
          saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene- 
          ment roofs illuminated, 
   who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes 
          hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy 
          among the scholars of war, 
   who were expelled from the academies for crazy & 
          publishing obscene odes on the windows of the 
          skull, 
   who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn- 
          ing their money in wastebaskets and listening 
          to the Terror through the wall, 

At OP:
Take one look at the stolen bikes thread if you believe that fixed are more difficult to steal, they are not.

It doesn't take any special mythical skill to ride a brakeless fixed-wheel bicycle away down a flat, empty road in Dalston.

If the average bike theft played out like some gritty Police drama and you were able to give chase to the thief through Piccadilly or some busy thoroughfare, then maybe said thief would get into difficulty when attempting to escape and outmanoeuvre the pissed fixie-posse closing in on him.

The only skill in fixed gear riding is displayed when riding your bike at speed through traffic, and talking a gang of shit on the internet about loving the connectedness of the ride.
Oh yeah, and going round in circles, backwards.

Surely if a thieve wanted to get away inconspicuously with his recently "acquired" fixed gear bicycle he would be best to push it down the road whilst drinking a cup of coffee, wearing tight jeans and a cycling cap? No-one would ever suspect him of stealing it then, riding it would be a dead give away that he's not used to fixed gear bicycles...

Thievies love fixies. Factie.

Round my way the local chavs even ride their 20 year old Apollo mountain bikes badly, rediculously low gear, swerving all over the road. Once they've got your bike it doesn't matter if they ride it badly or push it. Unless someone's chasing them nobody is going to bat an eyelid at a kid with a bike, no matter how he's riding/pushing it.