Search results for:

Just read something interesting on my club's forum written by a clubmate's colleague. Does this happen very often, do you guys know?

I locked my cycle-scheme paid for Brompton to a rack at Borough Market at the weekend while I went shopping. I returned a little later to find that someone had put an additional (and much meatier) Kryptonite D-Lock through the frame.

Initially the police didn’t want to know. But the market management realised immediately that my bike had been targeted by thieves (my wife’s cheapo bike, secured to mine, wasn’t affected). Their aim had been to immobilise my bike and return later when the market was closed to remove their lock and cut through mine with bolt cutters.

The market staff couldn’t have been more helpful, the market manager himself locating an angle grinder, and cutting through the thief’s expensive lock…though it took him half an hour to do so. The police later admitted that a “theft was in progress”, and took a statement from me.

I hope this doesn’t happen to any of you, though looking on Google it (and the similar crime of “accidentally” locking another bike to your frame) does seem to be a growing problem.

Lessons learned.
• Use as good a lock as you can afford/carry. The thief probably wouldn’t have targeted my bike if it would have taken him half an hour to cut my lock off.
• Be pushier with the police, and insist that they, or a community support officer, attends.
• Be confident that Borough Market is a safe place to leave your bike. Doubtless fearing reputation risk, the management were determined that the thief was not going to get away with it. To rub his nose in it they left the mangled remains of his £80 lock in situ, as a warning.

Amsterdam, thieves is not much of a problem (it does exist though), as everyone and their mums have bicycles, so who are the thieves going to sell it to?

Theft is a MASSIVE problem in Holland. It's no different from here, where there's a market, there are thieves. Why do you think most people ride the crappiest rustiest most wobbly-wheeled bike they can get? I lived there for 3 years and the only reason my bike never got stolen is because it was an old 80s Batavus racer with ugly flat bars, i.e., something no junkie could sell quickly for €20 because nobody wants one. But typical Dutch bikes go missing all the time. Nearly every Dutchie I knew had had a bike stolen at least once in their lifetime.

People with "good" bikes pay to lock them up at the "bewaakte fietsenstalling" (guarded bike parking). It's something like 50 cents a day, or €60 a year for people who ride to the station and lock them up every day. It's a good system but requires the underlying infrastructure and space to put them. Seeing how hard it is for the Boris Bikes in NIMBY London to get space for the docks, I don't see protected and paid bike parking happening in the near future.

Hey Oscar why don't you return the stuff and your reward will be not getting the piss kicked out of you. Call it karma.

That's awful. Might not do much to help people who are already cycling through there late at night, but could they not put up a few visible yellow signs like they do for other crimes? Generally to make people aware of what's going on. Fifteen similar incidents?! Did they sound like they were taking it seriously?

The reaction of the police is absolute crap. According to the bike blog, these kinds of attacks have been happening for well over a year now in exactly the same spot. How can the police not be doing anything about this? If it were muggings of old ladies or carjackings of BMWs they'd be pulling out all the stops to catch those scrotes. Infuriating.

From the comments:

**goldin **

                     18 August 2009 3:30PM
                                                                                            Not De Beauvoir Square by any chance? Luckily me bike was crap so they decided just to nick the bag from my basket instead... i know at least 3 other people had the same problem at exactly the same spot withing the next month, one being pulled to the ground while at speed.

**PeterKimpton **

                     18 August 2009 4:31PM
                                                                                            Goldin -

You're very warm with De Beauvoir Square - it was actually just a few yards to the west of it - before a tree-covered pedestrian entrance where De Beauvoir Rd crosses Northchurch Rd/Terrace. I'd used this route many times before, but never since. Sounds like the gang, or others with the same idea are at it again. No CTV there still?

A friends bike was stolen at the weekend.

They even cut through another bike to steal his one.

2007 Condor Leggero Prototype

Rapha/Condor team colours

Size 61cm Sloping

Full 2007 Dura Ace groupset

...

"locked to a bike rail on St John’s Street. 2 bikes locked together with 3 locks, mine was on the inside. Locked witch an Abus cable lock through outside bikes front and my bikes rear. Kryptonite Mini D through my bikes front and outside bikes rear. And Abus big D through outside bikes frame, through my (but not actually across any of the tubes) and on to the bike rail.

Cable lock was cut with big bolt cutters, undid quick release on my front wheel and cut through the frame of the outside bike to get rid of the final lock. All in all would have taken less than 20 seconds to do."

I feel for him (I know who he is) but I have to ask myself why on earth would anyone leave such a bike locked anywhere in public! What is it worth, 2-3 grand? Ouch. :(

Re. the 10 mile TT, anything between 21 min (if you're really good and on full TT gear on a fast course) to 30 min (for road gear, or slower, or "sporting" aka hilly courses). BC won't have times for TTing as it's a CTT thing. But here's the National 10 champs from 2008 for example:
http://www.ctt.org.uk/Competition/NationalChampionships/WomensResults/10m/tabid/386/Default.aspx

Not sure about teams in the Kent area but if you just want to TT, have a look here for clubs affiliated to CTT: http://www.ctt.org.uk/Clubs/tabid/118/Default.aspx

For road racing, there are a number of clubs with female riders. The club finder should help you, http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/clubfinder

Or join one of the London-based clubs if you are really keen, as you'll have more teammates in races,

Get the seller to give you the frame number, call up the police and find out if it's ever been registered.

Considering that's the only way they can return a recovered stolen bike to its rightful owner, if the coppers have no record of the serial number, then there's no way to know it's been stolen.

Smaryka, I'd considered Islabikes a while ago but didn't do a full check. That plus the fact I'm closer to 50 than 40 made me think a child's bike was a step too far............. then I saw sense :-) plus my now 14yo, taller than me, niece riding my bike with so much ease.

I'm not ashamed to say I ride an Islabike Luath 700 small bike for cyclocross (bought secondhand for 200 quid from a club member's son who had grown out of it). And I've seen quite a few ridden by other women as well.

If you've got the money to upgrade any parts you might want to upgrade -- for example, it's only 8-speed, the stem is really short, the gears are tiny, etc. -- then by all means get one! It's really too bad they don't sell frames only as I think they would do great business amongst the smaller ladies out there like you and me.

Cervelo P1, 2, 3 in 48cm size takes 650c wheels. All have horizontal track-type dropouts.

P1 (used to be called the P2SL, it's the alu version) is not available new in the UK but I've got one built up as a road bike and it's awesome. Highly recommended if one is available second-hand.

P2 and P3 are carbon fibre frames, a bit overkill for kicking around town but super nice frames in any case.

Edit: Islabikes makes a road bike with 650c wheels for kids. Great little bike, can be used for road, cyclocross, commuting, etc. Swap out stem, cranks, cassette for an adult, but the frame is really well-made. Price is right at 350 quid too.

Some of those sellers read this forum.

PMing each other info is the way to go.

Yep I'd say that Gumtree ad was a little test to see how "hot" the merchandise was. E-mail and number completely faked.

PM is the way to go.

Not sure why you didn't get the cops to come with you to get the bike back in the first place? Now all you've got is a thief who got away with it who will continue to steal bikes and just get better at not getting caught. So the next guy's bike he steals, it'll be gone forever and that #$%& thief will still be walking around free. All because you showed him how to do it.

Am I missing something here?

@crimsonape I made my ridiculous comparison with house break-ins, rape, etc. to show how far we have gone in accepting that each rider needs to carry 10 kg and £200 worth of locks as normal required anti-theft behaviour.

In a city where pretty much every bike theft (public) is captured on CCTV, bike theft is rampant and it's not slowing down. Nobody seems to care though. People who cycle to work -- this is their mode of transportation for their means to make a living -- can't even have safe work bike parks? And we all just meekly accept this and say "carry more locks". It's not right. Yes, some bikes are always going to be stolen, but the way that thieves have increased their thieving power recently (carrying cordless power tools) means that the rate of bike theft is going to increase, not decrease. What's "reasonable" to protect your bike from theft has now become nearly untenable.

Anyway, I was just pointing out that if cars were getting stolen at the same rate, or houses being broken into, there would be much hue and cry about it. Instead we get apathetic cops, Brick Lane market, and dopey Boris announcing awesome blue cycle lanes or some such shit like he's every cyclist's hero. Hey Boris, solve the bike theft issue and maybe people will actually want to use those bike lanes.

Been reading this thread lately with interest... and while I agree it's everyone's responsibility to look after their things (lock them well, etc.), it starts to get a bit ridiculous. Is it also every woman's responsibility to wear full-body armour because if you leave anything exposed, some guy will come along and rape you? If car theft were as rampant as bike theft, you could be sure the police/gov't would be doing something to stop it. We should all have heavy bars on non-opening windows on our houses too, because lord knows just a splinter of daylight shining through is the go-ahead for a thief with his pocket dremel to cut through the hinges.

Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? Yet here we are talking about bicycles in the same way, blaming the victim if he/she doesn't lock the bike securely enough with £££ worth of NY locks. In a country with an obscene number of CCTV cameras, it strikes me as pretty pathetic that bike theft (and resale a la Brick Lane market) is so rampant.

Not sure what can be done about it, just felt like ranting a bit... it's a loser's game really, owning a nice bike.

Not sure why I've been moderated on this thread but I posted the Google cached link to that bike, here it is again.

disapppeared - worth c and p'ing all the details when these are spotted so the ad can't disappear.

if people post an actual photo and agree to meet you at their house then i'm reasonably happy buying off gumtree. obviously there are other factors to take into account as well, but.

Always worth putting the cached link to Gumtree ads as they come and go so quickly.

http://66.102.9.132/search?hl=en-GB&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.gumtree.com%2Flondon%2F62%2F54161862.html&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enNL237NL238&ie=UTF-8 or http://bit.ly/dBnrNJ

Googling the mobile reveals many listings for (stolen) bikes under different names, same number. :(

Here's another, http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:48UhrmCTRQQJ:http://www.gumtree.com/london/60/53919860.html+07552984116&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk

I wonder if some Robin Hood type started making appointments to meet at a tube station then showed up with a few burly buddies to kindly relieve these thieves of their stolen goods, and then word got around that that was happening... would it change anything? Or would thieves just find another outlet. It's a nice thought anyway.

Just noticed this thread while I was googling some of the more suspicious Gumtree phone numbers (this one for starters, different e-mail address for every bike).

About a month ago, my partner lost his Giant SCR 1 road bike, which he had been using to commute while his regular commuter was getting a new fork. It's a distinctive yellow colour, 56cm, with after market Easton aero wheels, SPD pedals, cut-out saddle, compact drop bars and Ultegra crank. Also had a silver pannier rack on the back.

He was pretty gutted -- it was stolen during the day right from under the guard's nose at the BBC at White City here. Not locked with a great lock, so lesson learned there.

Anyway, I've been scouring Gumtree and ebay ever since, hoping to catch it being sold. Noticed a hell of a lot of dodgy-looking sales like this one and this one (my interest being mainly mid to high end road bikes). I'm googling a bunch of them hoping I can help someone else get his nicked bike back if possible. What I'd prefer to do is call every one of those Gumtree assholes and "meet" each of them down at ABC tube station with a large truncheon, but hey... vigilante justice not quite legal. :)

Anyway, if anyone sees my guy's Giant, please let me know!

cheers.

jsabine, my SO in his internet dealings got a hold of a set of Dawes forks from a guy whose frame was otherwise wrecked, but they turned out to be a 1" threaded steerer (190mm including threads) so we can't use them. They're yours if you want them, PM me if you do. Fwiw, Dawes used 1" steerers until 2004 when they switched to 1 1/8" on those tourers. Then in 2006 (?) they switched to threadless headsets. So the fork we're looking for appears to be somewhat rare.

Anyway, I was trying to avoid going the threadless headset route as that means taking the bike in to get it pressed, etc. But that might be how we need to go.

Pretty ridiculous that Dawes doesn't stock spare parts or even keep track of serial numbers. It's not like they sell cheapo bikes either...

Thanks Skully. Sadly SJS didn't have anything. Spa is going to call me back. The other option is sending the current forks away to Argos to get new ones made and painted, though that's going to be pretty £££ and take some time to get done. More £££ means more fighting with Mr. Smidsy to get him to cough up the cash. Brand new custom forks seem a bit overkill for an ordinary Dawes tourer anyway.

Anyone else have some forks or know where I can get some?

Some dufus made a right turn in front of my fiance a few weeks back and forced him to skid to a halt -- not quite making it, running into the guy's door and bending the forks at the crown of his Dawes tourer. Wheel is surprisingly ok.

Since then I've called around and can't get any new ones, apparently Dawes doesn't stock extra. It's proving harder than I thought to find a replacement anywhere. For whatever reason, that year's Galaxy had an oversized steerer. I'd like to stay with threaded so I don't have to mess with buying and pressing a new headset.

So what I need:
-- 1 1/8" threaded steerer ~170mm including threads
-- Reynolds 531 or similar with canti, rack etc. bosses
-- BRG would be a nice touch but any colour will do
-- new preferred, GC second-hand also fine

The driver at fault is paying (within reason) so name your price.

Cheers.

Thanks, will give the guy a shout and see. These small frames are sure hard to come by :-( Good idea about trying to get a 2nd hand junior one, will let you know if i come across anything. You racing this season then..?

Yep, I'm gonna give it a go this winter once I get back from Ironman Hawaii and recovered from that. Thinking it'll be good post-race motivation to try something new! CX looks like a lot of fun.

There's a 49cm Tricross frame on the British Cycling classifieds site here, http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/membership/article/bcst-Classified-Adverts

But I'm thinking I'll go with one that takes 650c wheels as the toe overlap on such a small frame will be terrible with 700c wheels. Thinking I'll hit up some of the kids' races and see if there are outgrown ones for sale. :)

Anyone looking for a 43cm (650c) Fuji track? These aren't being imported anymore into the UK (I got my 2005 as a new old stock from a local bike shop), only the 49cm size (700c) and up.

From http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/mem/classified_ads/classified_ads.asp :

Ads Posted 2 Feb

FOR SALE: Child's Fuji track bike 43cm 650 wheels £220 ONO. 07866 900915

I'm not the seller or affiliated in any way, I just know how much effort I put into finding this same bike for myself and thought I'd post it here for anyone looking for one. It's a great little bike.

Not a fixie, but posting this one as it falls into the suspicious category (i.e., possibly stolen) in case anybody knows somebody who got theirs nicked. Apologies to the ebay seller if it's the real deal.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Cervelo-P3-Carbon-Bike_W0QQitemZ170294123712QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Bikes_GL?hash=item170294123712&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1298|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

There's a Pearson ~49cm track bike for sale on the British Cycling classifieds site:

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/mem/classified_ads/classified_ads.asp

If anyone has or knows of where i can find a large silver/chrome cog as mentioned above please let me know asap.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/cycling-PAIR-OF-FIXED-WHEEL-SPROCKETS-15TOOTH-22TOOTH_W0QQitemZ160302445237QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_sportsleisure_cycling_bikeparts_SR?hash=item160302445237&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1298%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318 for a 22T but in black.