Trolls on the bridge.
Late at night as I was crossing on the north side of the Lake street bridge, two young punks, one with a gun, tried to pull me off of my bicycle.
I was aware of something amiss before they approached and managed to quickly turn around and head the other way to call the police.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on
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I keep my ear to the ground in terms of bike theft, ride a lot of buses, and talk to a lot of drivers, and I can't say I've heard more than one first-hand account of a bike being stolen off a bus in the decade or so we've had the racks.
When I ride with my bike on the rack I certainly make an effort to stay close to the front door, stay awake, and eyeball my bike constantly, but I don't have a strong sense that this is a very likely occurrence.
Can you say more about spring being top bike theft season? Is there some data to support that?
Haddon said:
Spring is top bike theft season. (in economic terms if you steal a bike now you get the most utility out of it before winter.) A bus driver said 'now' is the time bikes get ripped off the front racks of the buses -so if your that type put on a lock. Now more than any other time of year lock up your ride.
Someone tried to do the knock-me-off-my-bike thing 8-9 years ago in philly and rather than trying to dodge I steered into him and totally decked the guy. Your instinct is to dodge and turn away but really, once you get pushed down that is the end of since your ride will be gone before you get your wits about you.
But thanks for the alert, will watch for stairwells and the like, thanks, stay safe everyone - as if all the cars weren't bad enough.
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Permalink Reply by Haddon on
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Data no, for the bus swipe thing have had 2 drivers say as much and it may depend on the neighborhood you take the bus through.
There probably is some stronger data but at the moment I'm short on dig time, I thought this was a known occurrence (spring=prime theft time)
http://elevennews.byu.edu/2013/04/35-increase-in-provo-bike-theft/
https://corinthcycling.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/bicycle-theft-and-p...
This may well be more of opportunity (more bikes out in warmer weather than in cold) than anything. Unknown. Either way stay safe.
h' 1.0 said:I keep my ear to the ground in terms of bike theft, ride a lot of buses, and talk to a lot of drivers, and I can't say I've heard more than one first-hand account of a bike being stolen off a bus in the decade or so we've had the racks.
When I ride with my bike on the rack I certainly make an effort to stay close to the front door, stay awake, and eyeball my bike constantly, but I don't have a strong sense that this is a very likely occurrence.
Can you say more about spring being top bike theft season? Is there some data to support that?
Haddon said:
Spring is top bike theft season. (in economic terms if you steal a bike now you get the most utility out of it before winter.) A bus driver said 'now' is the time bikes get ripped off the front racks of the buses -so if your that type put on a lock. Now more than any other time of year lock up your ride.
Someone tried to do the knock-me-off-my-bike thing 8-9 years ago in philly and rather than trying to dodge I steered into him and totally decked the guy. Your instinct is to dodge and turn away but really, once you get pushed down that is the end of since your ride will be gone before you get your wits about you.
But thanks for the alert, will watch for stairwells and the like, thanks, stay safe everyone - as if all the cars weren't bad enough.
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Permalink Reply by Justin B Newman on
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It happens I have the CSBR's still-in-beta stats generator handy. For 2012, monthly report counts to the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry were as follows.
Jan: 26
Feb: 31
Mar: 42
Apr: 56
May: 84
Jun: 144
Jul: 191
Aug: 155
Sep: 154
Oct: 103
Nov: 62
Dec: 33
h' 1.0 said:Can you say more about spring being top bike theft season? Is there some data to support that?
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Good data, nothing like your anecdotal evidence getting burnt out by hard facts. I was always believed there was a spike in early spring but there seems, rather, to be a very high correlation between warm days and theft and, in fact, none to support my early-spring-high-theft notion, alas.
Does anyone want to line this data up with an average temperature graph? My guess is there is a close to relation between temp and theft.
h
Justin B Newman said:It happens I have the CSBR's still-in-beta stats generator handy. For 2012, monthly report counts to the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry were as follows.
Jan: 26
Feb: 31
Mar: 42
Apr: 56
May: 84
Jun: 144
Jul: 191
Aug: 155
Sep: 154
Oct: 103
Nov: 62
Dec: 33
h' 1.0 said:Can you say more about spring being top bike theft season? Is there some data to support that?
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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on
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Warmer weather usually means more people riding, which one would assume to relate to more bikes being locked up outside -> more thefts.
Justin B Newman said:It happens I have the CSBR's still-in-beta stats generator handy. For 2012, monthly report counts to the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry were as follows.
Jan: 26
Feb: 31
Mar: 42
Apr: 56
May: 84
Jun: 144
Jul: 191
Aug: 155
Sep: 154
Oct: 103
Nov: 62
Dec: 33
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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on
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Bike theft is fueled by the reselling of stolen bikes. Only a few stolen bikes are kept by the thieves for personal use (although a few are, reading stories here and elsewhere about recovered bikes.)
It stands to reason that the high-demand months for bikes in general are when thieves are most motivated for stealing bikes for resale. The CSBR data posted above seems to jibe with my seat-of-the-pants feel for "movement" on craigslist of legitimate bikes. The more people want bikes, the more the prices go up and the market heats up. It stands to reason that thieves are also on the pulse of this. Supply & demand.
Most thieves want to turn around the bike as soon as possible. Best case scenario is to sell it within minutes or hours for whatever price they can get so they can go steel another one and do it all over again. The risk of stealing a bike is pretty low in this city. The risk of getting caught with one or two is not a big deal. Getting caught with a whole bunch is a bit more dire. Warehousing bikes might be OK for larger pro-theft organizations and higher end bikes but this takes what is originally a VERY LOW RISK endeavor and turns it into a much more risky business keeping lots of hot merchandise around. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but thieves want to move the stuff out fast and steal more -not screw around storing bikes, renting storage, keeping track of what they have...
If they wanted to do that they could be in a legitimate bike business rather than in a criminal one. Those in the legitimate side of things know how tight the profit margins are and how expensive it is holding onto too much stock on hand. Steal and sell right away is the way these crooks operate. Low risk, low profit, but a LOT of turnover.
Also, during these months there is more supply of bikes available as more people are riding and there are more newbies leaving bikes out that are not as well locked (or not at all locked.) One would think that the time when these folks start getting bikes out to ride would also cause a spike in theft as it became even easier to snatch them.
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Anecdotally, but based on reading several thousand reports as they come in, there is certainly a trend of folks who don't ride daily digging out and airing up the bikes on "nice" days, and these folks tend to not own appropriate locks. Very frequent picture on these days: bike locked to fence with thin cable lock stolen from a lakefront park. If anyone here wanted to kick some bike thief butt I'll bet you could catch at least one in the act in such a place on such a day, with a couple-hour time investment.
(these sort of thefts are going to be likely to be undereported as well, since to these folks it's more of an annoyance than a real problem.)
Anne Alt said:Warmer weather usually means more people riding, which one would assume to relate to more bikes being locked up outside -> more thefts.
Justin B Newman said:It happens I have the CSBR's still-in-beta stats generator handy. For 2012, monthly report counts to the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry were as follows.
Jan: 26
Feb: 31
Mar: 42
Apr: 56
May: 84
Jun: 144
Jul: 191
Aug: 155
Sep: 154
Oct: 103
Nov: 62
Dec: 33
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Agree across the board. I would add, having made it a point to collect info on thieve's asking prices when available, is that we tend to underestimate how well casual thieves are able to estimate the actual value of their booty, especially more recently as bike theft has become more of a staple of thieves.
Typically a thief with a Cannondale, Specialized, etc. is going to ask at least a few hundred for it
Even Junkeros for the most part are able to tell a department store level bike from a bike-shop level bike, and set the value accordingly. These folks survive by knowing what things are worth down to pennies.
James BlackHeron said:Bike theft is fueled by the reselling of stolen bikes. Only a few stolen bikes are kept by the thieves for personal use (although a few are, reading stories here and elsewhere about recovered bikes.)
It stands to reason that the high-demand months for bikes in general are when thieves are most motivated for stealing bikes for resale. The CSBR data posted above seems to jibe with my seat-of-the-pants feel for "movement" on craigslist of legitimate bikes. The more people want bikes, the more the prices go up and the market heats up. It stands to reason that thieves are also on the pulse of this. Supply & demand.
Most thieves want to turn around the bike as soon as possible. Best case scenario is to sell it within minutes or hours for whatever price they can get so they can go steel another one and do it all over again. The risk of stealing a bike is pretty low in this city. The risk of getting caught with one or two is not a big deal. Getting caught with a whole bunch is a bit more dire. Warehousing bikes might be OK for larger pro-theft organizations and higher end bikes but this takes what is originally a VERY LOW RISK endeavor and turns it into a much more risky business keeping lots of hot merchandise around. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but thieves want to move the stuff out fast and steal more -not screw around storing bikes, renting storage, keeping track of what they have...
If they wanted to do that they could be in a legitimate bike business rather than in a criminal one. Those in the legitimate side of things know how tight the profit margins are and how expensive it is holding onto too much stock on hand. Steal and sell right away is the way these crooks operate. Low risk, low profit, but a LOT of turnover.
Also, during these months there is more supply of bikes available as more people are riding and there are more newbies leaving bikes out that are not as well locked (or not at all locked.) One would think that the time when these folks start getting bikes out to ride would also cause a spike in theft as it became even easier to snatch them.
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It's hard to get data on unreported thefts. I've talked to people who have told me they have had bikes stolen and who didn't know about the CSBR and didn't want to talk to the police. There is a whole lot of folks who wouldn't call the police under any circumstances -much less to report a cheap BSO being stolen.
But again, that is all anecdotal. We don't even know if the unreported/under-reported bikes track with the reported data seasonally, or with the types of bikes stolen.
There is just no way to know. What we do know is there is a lot of bike theft in this town. It's an easy crime that carries very little risk and there are plenty of victims to steal from and plenty of folks willing to buy on the other end. Even with marginal profits these guys can make up for that in volume. And since the risk is nearly zero and supply and demand nearly bottomless they can make a killing with volume even when each individual job doesn't net a lot of cash.
I think this is why so many low-end bikes get targeted. A quick $30-50 bucks isn't bad for 5 minutes of time invested at near-zero risk. I just wonder how many times some of these low-end BSO's get stolen, sold in back alleys, and eventually re-stolen over the course of their short service lives?
h' 1.0 said:Anecdotally, but based on reading several thousand reports as they come in, there is certainly a trend of folks who don't ride daily digging out and airing up the bikes on "nice" days, and these folks tend to not own appropriate locks. Very frequent picture on these days: bike locked to fence with thin cable lock stolen from a lakefront park. If anyone here wanted to kick some bike thief butt I'll bet you could catch at least one in the act in such a place on such a day, with a couple-hour time investment.
(these sort of thefts are going to be likely to be undereported as well, since to these folks it's more of an annoyance than a real problem.)
Anne Alt said:Warmer weather usually means more people riding, which one would assume to relate to more bikes being locked up outside -> more thefts.
Justin B Newman said:It happens I have the CSBR's still-in-beta stats generator handy. For 2012, monthly report counts to the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry were as follows.
Jan: 26
Feb: 31
Mar: 42
Apr: 56
May: 84
Jun: 144
Jul: 191
Aug: 155
Sep: 154
Oct: 103
Nov: 62
Dec: 33
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Sure, but no need to throw our hands up-- we're intelligent and reasonably analytical people, and we can make a pretty solid guess as to how the reported data represents the whole picture given enough time spent immersed in the subject, and a reasonable amount of time spent gaining familiarity with the reported data.
James BlackHeron said:It's hard to get data on unreported thefts. I've talked to people who have told me they have had bikes stolen and who didn't know about the CSBR and didn't want to talk to the police. There is a whole lot of folks who wouldn't call the police under any circumstances -much less to report a cheap BSO being stolen.
But again, that is all anecdotal. We don't even know if the unreported/under-reported bikes track with the reported data seasonally, or with the types of bikes stolen.
There is just no way to know. What we do know is there is a lot of bike theft in this town.
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