Comments

1
I really don't understand why bike theft and dismemberment isn't taken as seriously as auto theft and dismemberment.

I mean, actually I do understand. But it's fucking stupid.
2

Got any spare webcams.

(No, why would you..you're using them all...)

3
I hate to blame the victim, but how the hell do you "inadvertently" leave your bike on the street overnight?
4
@3 Biked to a bar to hang out with friends, walked to another bar, then a friend's place. Didn't feel like walking back to the bike so late and thought it would be easier to pick it up at a later time.
5
1. One word: Slog Drone
2. Why o why did Velo move... that is sad to me. They were so usefully located. Now we have very little right on the hill.
6
Any progress on the rumors that Metropolitan Market is going to move into the Velo and Value Village space? Between that and the apartments being built across the street there will be eyes galore on that corner.
7
@1 in part it's because we have accepted the bizarre cultural notions that it's somehow okay to go absolutely ape-shit crazy if someone messes with your car and the insurance industry and legislatures and police will back you up, but bikes are toys, so get over it!
8
This is why I love pin-locks. You can lock your bike up in a much more crime-y place with no worries. $50 for installable wheels, handlebar, and seat locks. Plus, there is no way to break them.
9
Way to offer a detailed analysis of a few bike racks closest to the offices of the stranger.
10
Why not just bring it upstairs and leave it in the office?
11
I rather doubt that was a good spot to leave a bike overnight even when Velo was still there.
12
Time for investigative journalism! Stake out the corner after leaving some bait.
13
you live in a "city"

deal with it
14
Invention idea: Bleeding bike seat. Bike seat leaks blood red dye into seat cushion unless you press a button to reset it once a month.
15
There has to be a better way. It's pointless to complain that they do things differently in Amsterdam or wherever (and no, bike theft is rampant there as well). it's also pointless to ride a fancy lightweight machine if you have to carry a 20-pound lock -- which still doesn't protect you against stripping off parts, or just plain vandalism (cut cables, stove-in wheels). And even the best lock in the world, the heavy "Faggettaboudit" chain from Kryponite, is defeatable in a few minutes with an angle grinder -- and if you think a guy working away at your bike with an angle grinder on the street would attract the attention of the authorities, you are mistaken.

That pinhead lock, @8, can be nipped in a few seconds. The seat and wheel locks are great -- your seat and wheel will indeed be permanently secured to your bike, which will be gone.

Not to mention the security of your bags or baskets, lights, etc. Having to spend fifteen minutes stripping your bike of all removables, and then carrying around a bunch of panniers or other luggage, defeats the purpose of the bike's instant mobility.

@10, not everybody has space in their shop or cubicle farm, and even if they do, in winter a mucky bike is not very welcome in a carpeted office.

There has to be some kind of bike parking available, either manned storefronts or a better version of those boxes they have at some park-and-rides.
16
@4: That's not "inadvertent". That's lazy.
17
@14, thieves can press buttons too.
18
@17 Obviously it would be hidden. It would look just like any other bike seat.

More theft revenge than theft deterrant.
19
Have many bikes been tinkered with at the big rack that occupies a car parking space near NWFF (and down the street from the precinct)?
20
@15 I'd love to see a trend of our parking garages saving some space (on the first floor) for bicycle parking. Many towers have these available for free for their employees, but I'd like to see places charging a buck or two per day for good bike parking facilities.
21
(continuing from @20) Maybe the city should take the lead with the parking lots it owns.
22
You're lucky the entire bike wasn't gone after one night.
23
@20, there you go. You see locked cages in downtown garages. There should be many more of them, in more neighborhoods.
24
@20 Agree.

Leaving your bike on the street unsupervised for any length of time is a calculated risk. I would never leave a bike overnight, only park on relatively well trafficked sidewalks, and I consider myself lucky I've only had to replace three seats in the last few years. I also stopped riding to bars at night, but for a handful of reasons.

And you can forget about some investigative sting—it's been done plenty, and bikes end up exactly where you think they do. You can only hope the police occasionally pick off the most prolific thieves and the trend-line dips for a short amount of time.
25
Wait, if I leave things of some value outside, unattended, for hours at a time in the middle of a city, someone may take them?

When the fuck did this start happening?
26
@1, 7: Actually, call the cops about your stolen or vandalized car and see how seriously they take it. You can go in and fill out a report, but that's about it.
27
@26, quite so. I had my car stolen, and a report is exactly what I got. and for good reason; there's no chance that investigating car theft (or bike theft) by looking for the car makes any sense at all, unless you think we should hire 100,000 more detectives, which still probably wouldn't work.

What does work, and what worked in the case of my car, is from the other end: look for thieves. They tend to be prolific; the guy who stole my car stole a hundred of them in a very short period of time, for drug money. But stolen cars have to be dealt with somehow; and good police work broke the case by finding the chop shop. My car was returned, minus most of its body panels.

The answer is to make bikes as unstealable as cars. It's pretty hard to steal a car, actually; you have to have some skill. Also, cars have insurance.
28
I feel for you, Christopher; but no matter what New-York-Krypto-hub-lock-security-screw-lo-jack-what-not-security-thing-a-ma-jig you've got on your bike, it's going to be ripped off and/or generally abused if you leave it outside overnight in most public places in this (or any other) metro area. Hell, you're taking a chance leaving your bike locked up for more than two hours during the day anywhere in the UDistrict.

Take any complaints about city life to Charles. Then ask him about your kitchen.
29
Better bike parking needed. Noted.
30
Good to know your bike is safe at all the other bike racks. Just not this special one that The Stranger has uncovered.

Also, google "how to lock a bike" for the secret of how to lock a bike, revealed only those special few who have googled "how to lock a bike".
31
Ok... I have to address the elephant in the room.
Is there ***REALLY*** a black market for used bike seats?

I get that scumbags will pretty much steal anything that isn't under armed guard, but a bike seat?
Have I led *that* sheltered an existence?

32
I snickered at "face picking station"

:)
33
@31

Yeah. Go to a flea market in Kent.

The point of not wasting your money on a Brooks seat is not "nobody will steal my cheap seat". Crackheads and other down-and-out desperadoes will steal anything. Any. Thing. The point of a cheap seat is "if they steal my cheap seat I'll just get another one."

The other reason not to get a Brooks is so you won't look like a yuppie douche.
34
@31 - Yeah, even cheap bike seats are $40. If that can be turned into $5, or $3... gone.
35
Excellent! The more bike-riding Seattle fuckwits who get their wheels stolen, the happier the rest of us are!
36
By the way, the reason bikes are so "stealable" is because bicyclists are perfectly willing to buy stolen goods. They're a pack of freeloaders to begin with, so why not screw each other?
37
@36 - I get that you're just trolling, but you should be aware that 3/4 of a million cars are stolen every year. Three times that are reported broken into. Is it also because of the collective bad nature of automobile owners that these crimes persist?
38
Sounds like a job for the surveillance state - CCTV cameras watching high-theft bike racks.

I assume, Chris, that like a good citizen you reported these thefts to SPD, so that their crime-mapping and "preemptive policing" strategies will be up to date?
39
#37, 80% of the cars are stolen by jealous bicyclists.
40
#39 - At that rate, within just over a year every bicycle commuter in America would be driving a stolen car instead of bicycling. Why would they then need to buy a stolen bike, or are they doing it just to screw the newly carless?
41
#40, because once they steal the car, they realize that they can't afford to operate it, so they take it to a chop shop and sell it. But with bikers stealing bikes, they just ride 'em. One way or another, to be a bicyclist is to be a freeloading criminal hipster fuckwit.
42
The streets are 8th and Pearl you fucking moron

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