Stolen Bike Registry - do this when your bike gets stolen

"With all the stolen bike posts lately (and no one thinking "I wonder if there's something under Useful Links for this."), I think it's well past time to make a sticky about the Stolen Bike Registry"

 - Tank-Ridin' Ryan

 

Well said Ryan.

 

 

http://chicago.stolenbike.org/

 

Done and done.

 

And sticky too.

 

 

Cheers - Lee Diamond

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Permalink Reply by E A on July 4, 2012 at 1:34am

Sean - I'm with you! If you want to team up for some street sweeps and getting to bike shops, count me in. I'm also heading to the swaps... 

Sean Struble said:

I would like to get some sort of commitee together with chainlink to find an end all solution to stolen bikes if there is one.  The amount of stolen bikes rises every day and for most of us in chicago they are our cars, our lifestyle, and our recreation.  Some are more expensive than cars, although the chicago police department won't do anything or can't.  I was informed that the CPD is short 3000 officers right now, giving them no room to deal with thefts.  Perhaps city sweeps, craigslist surveillance, get the bike shops involved, a stronger more detailed registry, or any number of things.  I feel like we're fighting this war alone but we need to fight this epidemic together.

Permalink Reply by Vilda on July 4, 2012 at 7:11am

A friend's building has 10 foot security fencing around the back. A guy jumped over the fence last night at 3am and walked with a bike, came back at 4am and did it again. The building has security footage of the guy but is being reluctant to share it. Will do my best to get the footage and told them to register the bikes with the registry.

Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on July 4, 2012 at 7:25am

If any of you have ideas of how to integrate the systems already in place (like the amazing chicago stolen bike reg, this forum, other sites), so the info is in one place on here, let me know.  We would have to deal with some technology and Ning may or may not have the capabilities, but if we can build something on here while not duplicating efforts, I think it would be a huge resource to be more efficient at cracking down on this frickin horrible thefts. 

Sean Struble said:

I would like to get some sort of commitee together with chainlink to find an end all solution to stolen bikes if there is one.  The amount of stolen bikes rises every day and for most of us in chicago they are our cars, our lifestyle, and our recreation.  Some are more expensive than cars, although the chicago police department won't do anything or can't.  I was informed that the CPD is short 3000 officers right now, giving them no room to deal with thefts.  Perhaps city sweeps, craigslist surveillance, get the bike shops involved, a stronger more detailed registry, or any number of things.  I feel like we're fighting this war alone but we need to fight this epidemic together.

Permalink Reply by Sean Struble on July 4, 2012 at 7:50am

I know the guy who had my peugeot in morton grove has a garage full of bikes he buys from the swap, fixes them, and turns them around.  I don't think he does any of the actual stealing but he has a bunch.  I saved his number and have been figuring out what to say to him in order to get in and take a look at his stock.

Today at 5 would be fine with me.

h' said:

In 2010 a group of us made a project out of checking out (literally) all the swaps.

No evidence was found that any significant fencing of stolen bikes was going on at any of them except at 41st and Ashland.  Same with Pawn Shops-- no real pattern of any one of them selling stolen bikes.

There was an incident of around 90 bikes being recovered from a man in Glenview and many of them being found to be stolen-- according to press he claimed to have purchased many or all of them at the Allstate Arena swap.  I spent a few precious hours out there combing over the whole thing one weekend and concluded he probably made that up.

Sean I'm sorry I spaced on the phone call last night; any time today after 3 or so would be fine.


E A said:

Which is / are the best Swap-O-Ramas to scour and when? I know they are all on the weekends, but some are open during the week, too... and they are all over. Is there a better recovery rate for bike stolen in the city at one over another? I'm curious.

Permalink Reply by Vilda on July 4, 2012 at 7:57am

I think the systems in place are great. Chainlink for discussion and the registry for a database. More communication with the community is needed. In a city you deal with "it's not mine so why bother" so a thief can jump a 10 foot fence in a city and no one says anything.

And just for me, working with the Stolen Bikes Crew was disheartening because the worst part of the recovery process was dealing with the community. If we keep telling you there are stolen bikes being sold at the Swap on 41st and Ashland and we're going, then why doesn't an army show up to go?  Apathy? Laziness? Fear?

Or the guy who actually did a registry entry and when his bike was recovered at the Swap he left it there. He never recovered his stolen bike. That tells the Swap that bikers don't care about the issue so why should they?

I could go on and on...

Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on July 4, 2012 at 8:47am

I could too. And will for just a bit...

When we were going to the Swap O Rama EVERY WEEKEND in 2010, a big weekend, we would recover may be 5-6 bikes. During that same week, 50-60 new reports would come into the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry. Why should the people trying to recover your stolen bike care more about your bike than you do? Despite our periodic statistics posted about where and how bikes are being stolen, the message doesn't seem to be getting through. (25% of stolen bikes reported to CSBR are not locked; 35% are locked with a cable lock). The unlocked bikes are typically left in a common area that other people have access to or which other people can leave unlocked or open: like on a back porch (like EA's), or in a basement or storage area (like Sean's), or in a garage, or in the vestibule of your condo or apartment building. The cable lock thefts...I don't even know what else to say about them. Cable locks aren't a lock. They don't even take 10 seconds to defeat, and that's if you cut them. Based on some of the reports we receive, people don't even cut them-looks like a couple swift tugs will defeat a lot of them.

Chicago's bike theft problem isn't particularly better or worse than anywhere else in the world (like Munich, like Copenhagen, like Amsterdam), but we do have bike thieves.

There.

You are hereby placed on notice.

If you don't lock your bike properly to something secure, you greatly increase your chances of being a victim of bike theft. 

Me, I've been riding a bike in the City of Chicago for 30 years. I've never had a bike stolen. Not one. You just need to do one or two more things than what you're doing now.

Oh, and while I was writing this post, another CSBR report came in of a bike locked with a cable lock. And the owner/victim has no idea what could have happened.

Permalink Reply by Sean Struble on July 4, 2012 at 8:55am

I think my guy is different, although similar scenario.  It happened last fall, and he considered it a hobby, because he owns his own printing business.  He had a garage full of bikes, that says he buys, fixes up, and sells.  I found my bike on craigslist from the guy.  His name is Esho Daniel.  The cops wouldn't come with me so I went with some friends and posed as a buyer.  After talking with him for awhile I told him the bike was mine and stolen.  He gave it back to me with no conflict.

h' said:

Er . . .oops, it was Morton Grove, not Glenview. We're talking about the same guy. What was your involvement?

http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/large-quantity-of-bikes?pa...

Sean Struble said:

I know the guy who had my peugeot in morton grove has a garage full of bikes he buys from the swap, fixes them, and turns them around.  I don't think he does any of the actual stealing but he has a bunch.  I saved his number and have been figuring out what to say to him in order to get in and take a look at his stock.

Today at 5 would be fine with me.

h' said:

In 2010 a group of us made a project out of checking out (literally) all the swaps.

No evidence was found that any significant fencing of stolen bikes was going on at any of them except at 41st and Ashland.  Same with Pawn Shops-- no real pattern of any one of them selling stolen bikes.

There was an incident of around 90 bikes being recovered from a man in Glenview and many of them being found to be stolen-- according to press he claimed to have purchased many or all of them at the Allstate Arena swap.  I spent a few precious hours out there combing over the whole thing one weekend and concluded he probably made that up.

Sean I'm sorry I spaced on the phone call last night; any time today after 3 or so would be fine.


E A said:

Which is / are the best Swap-O-Ramas to scour and when? I know they are all on the weekends, but some are open during the week, too... and they are all over. Is there a better recovery rate for bike stolen in the city at one over another? I'm curious.

Permalink Reply by Patrick Dowd on July 5, 2012 at 5:55pm

Some help on bike searching: Don't just check the chicago craigslist! Check them all! Go to google and search "your bike" site:craigslist.org it will give you results for all craigslist which is helpful for people selling your bike elsewhere to try and avoid getting caught!

Permalink Reply by Duppie on July 6, 2012 at 2:57am

A better way to do that would be using www.searchtemptest.com. On top of keywwords, it allows you to search on distance, thereby filtering out irrelevant results, and it can search eBay and Amazon as well. All in one go.

Patrick Dowd said:

Some help on bike searching: Don't just check the chicago craigslist! Check them all! Go to google and search "your bike" site:craigslist.org it will give you results for all craigslist which is helpful for people selling your bike elsewhere to try and avoid getting caught!

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on July 8, 2012 at 2:36pm

+1

This is an excellent idea.

h' said:

If there was a way to have a list of just the make and model of the 20 most recently reported thefts at CSBR on here in some unused sidebar space, I think it could be an interesting addition to chainlink and help maintain an awareness of the CSBR. 



Permalink Reply by Lamar on July 15, 2012 at 5:50pm

After 7 weeks,
We too recovered a bike stolen from our building's parking garage May 25.
We urge all Bike Theft Victims to check SwapOrama.
Ours was found at the Alsip location Flea Market from a seller with 3 previous stolen bike incidents.
Cops told us the 41st and Halsted swapOrama is the #1 location for stolen bikes.

Great thanks to STOLENBIKETREGISTRY &  Cyclist's Gerry and Marsha from Mokena for emailing us with the tip.
it's truly unbelievable it is back with us and unscathed.

Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on July 15, 2012 at 6:16pm

Cordless angle grinder can have that lock cut in just about one minute.

Daniel G said:

Had no idea theft was so bad here. Bought a NY Fahgettaboudit mini, here's hoping most bike thieves cannot pick a lock, which seems a damned sight easier than actually trying to saw this steel brick.

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