Touring - Ever Have Bike Stolen While on Tour?

As the Title asks, I'm curious to see how many people have experienced their bike being stolen from them while on tour?

never had my bike stolen, but i just found a website today about a guy who had his stolen in mongolia:
<url>http://www.2wheels.org.uk/return/mongolian-horseman-stole-my-bicycle.asp</url>

steve

I had a good sports watch stolen from my bar bag - the irony is that I found it on the shoulder a week before!

I was camping along a rail trail. I'd call it stealth camping but I had to leave my bike near the path so it wasn't all that stealth.

I rig an alarm on the bike in cases like this and sure enough in the middle of the night it went off. It woke me up and I panicked, I didn't know what to do. I started barking like a mean junk yard dog. In a couple of seconds I heard feet running down the cinder path. I checked the bike and nothing was missing. I didn't sleep all that well for the rest of the night.

Once almost, I was doing the laundry in my garage and left the door open and went inside my house for a minute, when I came out there was this person holding one of my bikes and a tire pump. I then motion up to him and said what the hey. Well his bs was I just came by to borrow my pump, yeah right. The funny thing that got him caught was while holding one of my bikes he got caught up mesmerized by my other two bikes and was trying to decide which was the better one to take. Well I knew at that moment that I could have had him arrested, but being too easy going I took my bike from his hand and pump and moved him on his way. Big mistake because a month later the same person stole my neighbor bike out of his garage. Well that particular person did eventually got arrested for the thievery he was committing around our area.

I rig an alarm on the bike in cases like this and sure enough in the middle of the night it went off.

What is your alarm system?

What is your alarm system?

Two tin cans and a string! :lol:


That sort of reminds me of one of the very few times that I ever did "stealth" camping. It was in Jordan and I decided to head a bit into the hills off the side of the road. Got woken up past midnight by a group of Jordanian undercover police who were alerted to my presence by my bike's reflectors while they were driving by. :eek:

<< What is your alarm system?>>

I don't have one, but I've thought this device from Cy-curity looks pretty good:

http://198.173.79.221/prodinfo.htm

What is your alarm system?

In Canada we have Dollar Stores (same merchandise as the Pound Stores in Britain, but everything is half the price). I purchased several 85 Db door/window alarms. There are two parts. One is the alarm the other a magnet. When the magnet is not in contact with base, the alarm goes off. I attach the base to the bike somewhere. My favourite spot is the pannier rack. The magnet I either just leave loose or attach to a string and wrap around something that might be moved during a theft such as a pannier flap. Anyone moving the bike or opening a pannier will trip the alarm.

So far, this is looking to be a relatively safe activity! :)

I had my bike stolen once by an airline. I was flying from the USA to Germany and I never saw my bike again after I gave it to the airline. It was, unfortunately, at the beginning of my trip. My bike was packed in a box along with a few other items including my sleeping bag and handlebar bag. My intention had been to bike to a small town in SW Germany where friends lived, and then my friends & I were planning on biking and camping together mainly in France. There happened to have been 3 other passengers with boxed bicycles on my flight, and their bikes all arrived. There were several other passengers, however, who each had a piece of checked luggage stolen. (we all filed our claims together in Frankfurt) I'll never know for sure where my bike was stolen, but I have been told that Frankfurt airport had a serious problem with stolen luggage at that time. It could also have been stolen in the US airport, of course.

What did I do? I took a train to my friends' town. I thought I wasn't likely to ever see my bike again. One of my friends had an old bike which I borrowed for our trip. It worked out fine even though the frame was far too large for me. We didn't camp since I had no sleeping bag. We biked across the Massif Central, the Dordogne region, and the Pyrenees over the next month. Despite having lost my own bike, it was one of the best trips I ever took.

There was an almost unbelievable postscript. At the end of the trip, the SNCF (French railroad) managed to lose the bike I had borrowed from my friend. They found it 3 days later. I couldn't believe I had lost 2 bikes on 1 trip, and after 3 days in Strasbourg, I was going to leave whether or not my friend's bike showed up. It reappeared, and I quickly biked down the Rhine valley to Frankfurt, then shipped my friend's bike back to his hometown on the Deutsche Bahn (German railroad).

2 years ago I had a small shortwave radio stolen from my panniers in Spain. I haven't had a problem with theft during my trips in developing countries.

Really curious as to where and how that person lost more than two bikes? :(

It might have been "or Something Else". That's how the poll question was worded.