Scumbags - Thieves and second-bikes!

Iron Enthusiast

Ever since the introduction of the 'bike to work scheme' (which is great) there seems to have been an explosion in the number of bike thefts that i've heard of. I've personally had two bikes stolen from two seperate "secured" and supervised locations over the last year. Tonight I was chatting to my mate when we discovered that his bike had just been stolen as well.

This latest theft is an especially serious pain in the a55 as we're scheduled to head off to france next week on a cycling trip. Now instead of having a laugh and planning our holiday we're trying desperately to source a 54" road bike for a reasonable price in just a few days!?

The problem is that when I look on websites such as buyandsell & gumtree etc.. (i'm not implying the websites are responsible) there seem to be an incredible number of decent bikes for sale at knock down prices... The last thing we want to do is perpetuate the circle of crime by unwittingly buying some other punters stolen bike.

What to do? Does anyone else have any toughts on how many of the online bikes are actually 'above board'? Or any suggesstions on where to pick up a decent deal on a second hand road bike in Dublin?

I know i'm having a bit of a rant but i'm sick to death of ignorant f**king scumbags stealing sh*t that doesn;t belong to them. As far as i'm concerned I hope they all crash on the bikes they've stolen. These bikes are expensive and cost a hell of alot to replace. Maybe some day a system of tracking or logging bikes will be sorted out..

Rant over:mad: Suggestions and advice much appreciated!:pac:

Beasty

Iron Enthusiast wrote: »

Or any suggesstions on where to pick up a decent deal on a second hand road bike in Dublin?

Try here

BTW, I don't think it's as much to do with the BTW scheme as much as the current recessionary times. There are a lot more people out there trying to make a few quid selling on stolen bikes

LightningBolt

Just found out a girl had her bike along with several others stolen at a secure location outside her job. Absolute disgrace. It's up just past the IFSC Iron Enthusiast so may well be part of the same robbery.

Thieves, make me sick.

happytramp

Beasty wrote: »

Try here

BTW, I don't think it's as much to do with the BTW scheme as much as the current recessionary times.

I reckon the thieves are having a field day since the introduction BTW scheme though. Gone are the €90 rusty black mountain bikes and in their place are shiny new €600 hybrids. However a lot of them are still locked with these.



A lot of people (my brother and next door neighbour included) thought that all locks were basically the same and that once you have one (no matter how crappy) you'll be fine.

smacl

Great rant, and my sympathies for your loss. If you're buying second hand you can always look for a receipt or similar proof of ownership. I'd tend to do this anyway, as so far as I know purchasing stolen goods is a crime, and it is your responsibility to make sure you don't do so.

Dermot Illogical

smacl wrote: »

Great rant, and my sympathies for your loss. If you're buying second hand you can always look for a receipt or similar proof of ownership. I'd tend to do this anyway, as so far as I know purchasing stolen goods is a crime, and it is your responsibility to make sure you don't do so.

If you knowingly purchase stolen goods you're open to prosecution alright. If you innocently purchase stolen goods you're liable to have them taken off you and returned to the rightful owner, which would be a pain in the pocket..

milltown

happytramp wrote: »

I reckon the thieves are having a field day since the introduction BTW scheme though. Gone are the €90 rusty black mountain bikes and in their place are shiny new €600 hybrids.

I'd agree with this. People (like me) who wouldn't otherwise be dreaming of having a grand's worth of bike, see that it'll only cost €10 per week and means the tax man doesn't get some of your hard earned and jump at the chance. The next couple of weeks will see a huge jump in the number of shiny new bikes parked in my job. It's a secure(ish) campus with badge access and security on the gates but I'd still have concerns. We have a high turnover of contract staff for one. I've asked security to keep a camera on the bike sheds but they can't dedicate one to each shed. I wonder how many bikes will have to be stolen or stripped before they take it seriously.

I definitely think if people were paying €1k out of their net pay they'd be buying better locks and taking better care.

Dubdude

There really does seem to be a lot more bikes being stolen over the last couple of years but is there no way that a tracker/chip can be put into the frame for instance. I mean like there are plenty of dog owners that get there beloved dogs chipped can something not be introduced for bikes??

manwithaplan

Such a thing exists. It's pretty pricey though and I have no idea how well it works.

http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/

There must be a fair chance that your 'light' would be repeatedly robbed, although I suppose you could get it back!

milltown

Dubdude wrote: »

There really does seem to be a lot more bikes being stolen over the last couple of years but is there no way that a tracker/chip can be put into the frame for instance. I mean like there are plenty of dog owners that get there beloved dogs chipped can something not be introduced for bikes??

Actually, there's just such a thing, it's been marketed for motorbikes for years but it's name escapes me. It came as a kit with a couple of uniquely identifiable chips that you would, say, glue to the inside of a chassis rail or inject into seat foam etc. It was very much a passive system, in that the cops would have to find your bike and have the sense and the means to look for and read the chip but it had great success in the motorcycling world in the UK where the bulk of bikes were being stolen to break for parts.

cython

milltown wrote: »

Actually, there's just such a thing, it's been marketed for motorbikes for years but it's name escapes me. It came as a kit with a couple of uniquely identifiable chips that you would, say, glue to the inside of a chassis rail or inject into seat foam etc. It was very much a passive system, in that the cops would have to find your bike and have the sense and the means to look for and read the chip but it had great success in the motorcycling world in the UK where the bulk of bikes were being stolen to break for parts.

That sounds quite like this system for bicycles.

milltown

http://www.datatool.co.uk/consumer/products/products/index.php?product=electronic

Yeah, pretty much the same thing.

Holyboy

I think one step that should be taken by the likes of gumtree,adverts and other online sites,should be to make it mandatory to post the frame number when a person is selling a bike,obviously someone could post a false frame number but at least the potential buyer could check it when viewing the bike.it would make it alot harder to sell bikes,thats if the thieves are selling them online,which I can only assume they are!

listermint

Realistically the guards need to take this crime more seriously, its this low level crime that is the undercurrent for other crimes such as burglary ,street crime,drugs etc etc.

Zero tolerance approach should be dealt out.

Tayto2000

manwithaplan wrote: »

Such a thing exists. It's pretty pricey though and I have no idea how well it works.

http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/

There must be a fair chance that your 'light' would be repeatedly robbed, although I suppose you could get it back!

Works alright but as with all trackers you wouldn't want to be relying on it... Better to prevent the theft in the first place. They're apparently working on a seat tube mounted version which would be nice. I think trackers for bikes might be a bit of a dead end, there's limited places to hide them and if they ever become widespread, they'll be relatively easy for thieves to detect and disable.

I had a look at the immobilise thing but there's a couple of problems. The Gardai don't as far as I know routinely scan things for RFID chips, I'd be surprised if there's even many readers knocking about. The main problem though is that the information is tied into a UK database to which Gardai have no access so no way of doing anything with the tag info even if they do get it.

Registering your bike or at the very least making a note of the frame number is the best thing you can do at the moment. If buyers would check frame numbers with gardai or an open source registration site like bikeshepherd.org before handing over cash it would help enormously in the long run.

spurscormac

You know what, I was just thinking the other night, that the Gardaí could really do more to publicise some awareness on how to prevent crime.

This stemmed from someone I know getting done by a phone scam re fixing their PC remotely. I know its seems obvious to anyone posting on here who would be reasonably tech savvy, but there are many vulnerable people out their who can get scammed.
Having discussed it though, it seems that loads of people I know have received the calls, but all have copped on and hung up.

The cops could do a series on this sort of thing on the 6-one & 9pm news, raising awareness on what you need to do to prevent it happening, or what to do if it you see or hear about it.

1. Internet Fraud scams
2. Bicycle Theft
3. A.N Other crime

Would be more newsworthy than the current filler articles on they have on slow news days.

bogmanfan

Given the numbers of bikes being stolen recently, I reckon there has to be shops involved. 3 mates of mine had bikes stolen lately. They never showed up on any of the usual sites, so where are they all going? My own theory is that there is a shop or shops somewhere that is buying these, either knowing they're stolen, or just not asking :rolleyes: