Inside the mind of a bike thief — learn how to protect your bike

Interesting comment he made about dogs being no deterrent.   I had a friend with a truly huge and terrifying Rhodesian Ridgeback that would attack any legitimate guest, the postman, people walking past the house etc...  Had to be chained up when anyone came to visit, lest they be ripped to pieces.  It would snarl and pull at the chain the whole time you were over.  Would pray the chain was not going to snap.  Yet, his house was robbed with the Ridgeback inside.  The dog would spend the whole night on the doormat inside the front door, however, the front door was the point of entry and the thief or thieves must have carried everything out of the house whilst stepping over the dog.  Dogs seem to like lowlifes.  Dog was in the dog house after that, as it was not cheap to feed the blighter...

I had my bike stolen last May.  From inside the bike storage room in the 4-apartment building where I live (centre of Brussels).  They broke in at night and cleaned it out.  We have them on cam but it was the usual: 2 guys with hoodies, caps, outside cam showed them putting the bikes in the proverbial white van, fake license plates.  My canyon grail was attached with an Abus D-lock to a fixed point.  They took the lock too, simply opened it in 3 seconds, reataached it to the frame and wheeled my bike out.  Police came and when I queried about the lock, one of them pulled up an alibaba page offering keys that would unlock ANY Abus lock of a certain model.  Luckily, my home insurance paid up.  Neighbor lost a Pinarello Dogma, other neighbor a Brompton e-bike.  Our errors:  camera system but no alarm on the bike room + the entire area saw relatively expensive bikes entering and leaving from the building every day.  We invested in extra security but nevertheless, my new bike (7k Euro) stays in the apartment overnight, I ride it daily for my commute, it stays in my -heavily secured- office building and I never, ever leave it outside and out of my sight, not for a single second.  My conclusion is:  forget locks and stuff:  don't leave the bike outside and be sure to take full theft insurance.  If for some reason it needs to stay outside:  get a cheap bike.

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What would put you off? Is there anything else that would make you change your plans?

Seeing the police at the start of the night, if it looked like they were around the area as opposed to driving through.
...
It would take a lot otherwise

So, visible policing works, who'da thunkit?

Moreover, it takes a lot of alternative measures to make up for an absence of visible policing - not only does visible policing work, but it is cost effective compared to alternatives. Who'da who'da thunkit?

"...but usually I wasn’t found."
So sometimes he was found. How come he's still at large. Even if there was not enough evidence to convict, it would be pretty obvious what his game was, so keep tabs on him until there is enough evidence.

PS - the article claims to have been "updated on 17 Aug 2020". So not simply republished. Would be good to highlight what exactly has been updated. Clearly the photo showing the out of circulation £5 is not updated.

My good competition bikes reside in the cellar, along with my son's. My old hack is in the garden.

I've said this before, but it's easy to build a scruffy looking MTB or roadbike using an old (but still very serviceable) steel frame for commuting. Letting the frame get scratched and have surface rust plus some tatty bits of tape in places makes it far, far less appealing to a thief. A decent set of wheels and a decent mech can be obscured by general road crud and oil. Just make sure the bits that need lubricating are lubricated. I lock my old hack up at the station and there are always shiny new bikes that will get the attention of a thief. It may be an old banger but it's really nice to ride.

Yes I have quick release wheels so the front one comes off and is d-locked through the rear of the frame and rear wheel to a nice and sturdy steel post.

I've had bikes nicked, but not for a while.

How about getting a cheap cable lock and spend the money saved on a couple of baseball bats?

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D locks are the thing you should have...

Sure, but I know from experience that it takes less than 30 seconds to cut through a 15mm shackle with a portable axle grinder

My question would be:

Would you prefer your balls removed with your own bolt cutters and smashed on the pavement or straight up angle grinded off ya little s***?

I'm really surprised they didn't ask the s*** about the consequences for his victems.

I managed to slow a guy down stealing a Giant MTB (outside a pub on the high street in broad daylight!) such that loads of people took photos / videos of the incident. Advice from police afterwards (when giving statement) was not to directly confront them as they may be high or armed with sharp implements.  However they did say that if I had injured the guy that I would be covered by the bit of the law which states that I was trying to prevent a crime.

FYI, the lock was one of those cheap £10-20 rubber coated cable locks with the twisted steel strands inside.  Easy to cut through strand-by-strand after you've got through the rubber.  I always use double d-lock if i'm parked in the open.

anyone ever accosted a thief? confronted bone the other night angle grinding a friends lock. brazenly continued until robustly challenged for id, we chased him for a bit but the angle grinder meant we couldn't get close enough to catch him. got his bag and phone, and a poor photo, but the cops indicated little chance of forensics. anyone had more experience of a citizens arrest, or use of 'reasonable force' in detention of an armed individual? not the first time our club has lost bikes, and not the first time ive stopped a theft, but would like to reduce the criminal population....

or we could try to force gumtree, ebay etc to have frame numbers compulsory on adverts. if it doesn't match when you buy it you'll know it's stolen. we do this for cars, why not bikes, cameras etc?

2 pronged approach:

1. Lock it up properly.
2. Devalue the components by means of permanent marking, datatagging, smart water or other security marking.

I've read another interview with a bike thief who specifically targeted high end carbon bikes. The guy had no issues hack sawing through a frame then selling the groupset only. He'd often make more for the groupset than the complete bike.
You can have the worlds best locks but they're only as strong as the weakest part, if that just so happens to be the frame it still might be stolen.

Its really quite simple. The reason bikes are stolen is because people are buying them. People buy these cheap bikes and dodgy sites pretending they are above board and they have a bargain. If people had to buy these bikes with a receipt, a photo of the seller and proof that the serial numbers were OK then the market wouldn't exist

I thought that locking using the seat tube was a no no as it allows leverage - i.e. using the frame to break the lock like this : https://youtu.be/NDOk3cnUKdY?t=40s

Instead, I believe it's better to lock it through the rear wheel, inside the chainstay, seatstay, seat tube triangle. You can't force the lock (trying destroys the wheel), but you also can't get the wheel out of the triangle due to the lock.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html

A few years back I picked up a Colnago from the local recycling centre for £10. No front wheel or saddle, and it had been really well-used. Checked the serial numbers on the various databases, not marked as nicked.

Stripped it completely, cleaned up all the bits, and made about £300 on eBay.

If I were criminally-minded, I'd nick top-end bikes and flog the bits. Very few if any serial numbers, top dollar paid by eBayers. Why sell a £5k bike for maybe £1k to some bloke down the pub, when you could get two or three times that for all the bits? And no chance the serial number will incriminate you.

Of course crims know all this. My point being, the toughest lock in the world won't mean squat if they are willing to hacksaw or just snap your frame to get the bike away with all the fruit attached. And most of that fruit is an allen key away too. Always amazes me to see D-A bikes locked to buggery around the frame/wheels, but there's £1k worth of carbon stem/bars/Di2 shifters held down by nowt but a visible 5mm bolt.

On the rare occasions I have to leave my bike out of sight I try to lock it next to a fancier bike. Always use two locks too, d lock and a chain with its own padlock.