Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Stealing is sometimes Ethical

In Manhattan, in Soho, there is a beautiful bianchi pista single speed locked up in front of this dance studio I go to with my fiancee. After every dance class, I see the bike locked up in the same place. I figured it belonged to our instructor. Even after a late performance the bike was still out there. I was like "wow, it's pretty late to leave a nice bike like that on the street"

This is the exact bike I want to buy my fiance, every time we walk by it, I'm like "that bike is going to be perfect for you. we should buy it." I could tell just by looking at the frame that it is about her size.

Conspicuously, the bike never ever moved. So one day we walk by, and that **** is totally stripped, pedals, seat, head, handles, backtire. Only the front tire and the frame are left, they are attached to the bike stand with one of those kryptonite NY locks.

I said, "whoever owns that is going to be really upset. That is a nice bike". A week later, the bike frame and tire are still there, sadly locked to the bike stand. What happens next in NY is this: people will step on the frame as they crowd in shopping, just destroying it. there must be hundreds of these carcasses all over the city. Obviously, no one gives a **** about this bike, some stupid super model bought it on a whim and then got bored with it.

So I went back with a hacksaw and tried to get through that lock, but man, that hardened steel is tough. I could even get any kind of purchase with the teeth after sawing for a half hour at noon on a sunday. I mean, if the police stopped me, I would have just pleaded my case for the poor bianchi frame doomed to die. but, no one stopped me, even though a lot of people stared, and I couldn't get through it anyway. Now, I guess the only thing to do is get an angle grinder with a long extension cord, so I guess it isn't worth it, but it sure is a shame. I've considered asking the police if they would cut the lock for me. What do you think I should do? Just leave it for dead?

So how long has i been there total? if a month , i say give it new life !

There's probably a video camera trained on that bicycle, which has been taking-and-storing pictures every 10 seconds and streaming them on someone's website. Are YOU ready for your "15-minutes of fame"? :roflmao2:

Hey, you don't have to find ways to justify you stealing other peoples bikes to us, we aren't the theives.

You should have tried stealing it before everyone beat you to it.

That was a joke btw.

One problem with stealing the bike: you might get arrested for theft.

you're going to hell.

true story from around here;

A few of us on the toronto fixed boards noticed a custom handmade lugged fixed gear locked in an area notorious for bike theft. It was there for a week before parts started going missing. Campy drivetrain, real nice stuff, stripped. We freaked, thinking how ridiculous it was that someone left such a nice bike locked out like that.

Turns out, the guy had gotten hit by a car and someone locked his bike up for him while he went to the hospital. Having gotten injured pretty bad, he wasn't able to retrieve his bike.

And I guess the moral of the story is that it's too bad some dude like you with an angle grinder wasn't around. Because instead of being able to salvage the frame when he finally was able to get out of the hospital and pick the bike up, YOU coulda had the chance to just steal the whole bike since it woulda just gotten stolen anyway...

maybe i'm just feeling philosophical tonight, but i think people's thoughts for or against removing an abandoned bike hinge from their own answers to subtlety in definition. is stealing "taking what's not yours" or is it "taking something that belongs to someone else?" by definition stealing can be interpreted either way. theft, however, is "taking something that belongs to someone else". what is property? what is ownership? these become funny words. is something that someone has abandoned still theirs? at what point is it no longer their property? at what point are they no longer in ownership? i think we all agree that nothing abandoned belongs to the abandoner indefinitely, so the question becomes a matter of time. some would say that that question cannot be answered, and so you should never touch the bike. so, then, should all things that are not someone's property become the property of the state? (i.e. the cops come clip it)


i do love how every time this question is brought up, everyone in the forum becomes a blood-thirsty capitalist. not a single hippy dippy native american "we shouldn't put so much emphasis on ownership, man. nothing can truly be owned, only borrowed" no, no. we all think very strongly that what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours and we should all keep our ****in hands to ourselves.

think of it as adopting an unwanted orphan

is it yours? no.

you're just helping the people who stole the **** off of it make the crime complete.

the only ethical stealing is if the pista owner is using it to kill poor defenseless babies and you're going to steal it to use to grind oatmeal to feed poor defenseless babies.

and i'm sorry but there's just no way you will be able to prove that's the case.

Is it ethical to steal a loaf of bread to feed your family? Yes, yes it is.

Maybe he's going to feed the bike to his children. Did you think of that possibility?

take it and leave an I.O.U. for 1 pista frame.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4LUjWulsoA4/SVvmbcrEWTI/AAAAAAAAAAM/pBIeU6Rcbp0/S240/SSL22610_2.jpg

(Sub "Pista" for "Property")

1. Take out the hacksaw
2. Place it against your left wrist
3. Cut off your hand

Since you failed to steal the bike, you get to keep one of your hands.

i do love how every time this question is brought up, everyone in the forum becomes a blood-thirsty capitalist. not a single hippy dippy native american "we shouldn't put so much emphasis on ownership, man. nothing can truly be owned, only borrowed" no, no. we all think very strongly that what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours and we should all keep our ****in hands to ourselves.

You should put a piece of masking tape over your top tube with your address and a note that says "hey, bring this back when you're done if you don't mind" and then leave your bike out for whoever to take. You know, since you wouldn't want to be a "blood thirsty capitalist" and you can't really "own" a bike and all.

wearyourtruth---the difference b/w taking this pista and taking a bike frame from say, a junkyard, is that at the junkyard the owner has intentionally discarded the item. Anything that has been purposefully given up is, in my book, fair game to take. Something that is still locked up while the owner just happens to be M.I.A....that's a different story. Like Twitcho said...you have no idea what the circumstances are surrounding this bike.

+1

Perhaps this person is in a hospital or jail -- no one knows. I'd rather come out of the hospital or jail and retrieve my frame sans components than nothing at all.

would you want someone to take your frame?

well, no matter the circumstances, i feel if i locked a bike in nyc for that long, i'd expect it to be gone.

In Manhattan, in Soho, there is a beautiful bianchi pista single speed locked up in front of this dance studio I go to with my fiancee. After every dance class, I see the bike locked up in the same place. I figured it belonged to our instructor. Even after a late performance the bike was still out there. I was like "wow, it's pretty late to leave a nice bike like that on the street"

This is the exact bike I want to buy my fiance, every time we walk by it, I'm like "that bike is going to be perfect for you. we should buy it." I could tell just by looking at the frame that it is about her size.

Conspicuously, the bike never ever moved. So one day we walk by, and that **** is totally stripped, pedals, seat, head, handles, backtire. Only the front tire and the frame are left, they are attached to the bike stand with one of those kryptonite NY locks.

I said, "whoever owns that is going to be really upset. That is a nice bike". A week later, the bike frame and tire are still there, sadly locked to the bike stand. What happens next in NY is this: people will step on the frame as they crowd in shopping, just destroying it. there must be hundreds of these carcasses all over the city. Obviously, no one gives a **** about this bike, some stupid super model bought it on a whim and then got bored with it.

So I went back with a hacksaw and tried to get through that lock, but man, that hardened steel is tough. I could even get any kind of purchase with the teeth after sawing for a half hour at noon on a sunday. I mean, if the police stopped me, I would have just pleaded my case for the poor bianchi frame doomed to die. but, no one stopped me, even though a lot of people stared, and I couldn't get through it anyway. Now, I guess the only thing to do is get an angle grinder with a long extension cord, so I guess it isn't worth it, but it sure is a shame. I've considered asking the police if they would cut the lock for me. What do you think I should do? Just leave it for dead?


Honestly, if you have to do this much ******** explaining then you, too, know that it's wrong.




Here's how karma will kick you in the nuts:

A year from now your GF goes to register the bike's serial number in some database (with the city, college or whatever) and guess what? DING! The number comes back "stolen". Now she is in possession of the SOLE serialized part of the bicycle. Therefore she gets convicted of the entire crime.

Then you have to repeat that SAME story that you wrote above as it falls on deaf ears. All for a frame that's worth $100 tops.

Yeah, that's a brilliant idea.

Congratulations! You're a ******bag!

http://firstfriday.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/dbotw_sm.jpg

why's everyone so against op taking this frame? i thought i'd at least see a 50/50 in terms of opinion.

anyways, my $0.02, take it.

I'm debating turning part of this into a sig...it's almost surreal in its brazen, confessional nature.



So I went back with a hacksaw and tried to get through that lock, but man, that hardened steel is tough. I could even get any kind of purchase with the teeth after sawing for a half hour at noon on a sunday. I mean, if the police stopped me, I would have just pleaded my case for the poor bianchi frame doomed to die. but, no one stopped me, even though a lot of people stared, and I couldn't get through it anyway. Now, I guess the only thing to do is get an angle grinder with a long extension cord, so I guess it isn't worth it, but it sure is a shame.

I just think that not taking things that aren't yours is pretty much always the best policy, a great example being the scenarios mentioned where somebody gets injured and the bike has to be left. They obviously cared about it enough to lock it with a Krypto NY, at any rate. The owner's lost enough as it is with the bike being stripped, don't make things worse.

why's everyone so against op taking this frame? i thought i'd at least see a 50/50 in terms of opinion.

anyways, my $0.02, take it.


Everyone in jail ALSO had a good reason for doing what they did to get arrested and convicted.


Here's the thing. It's not like finding a $100 bill on the ground. Even then, you are supposed to report the find to the police and wait a certain amount of time for someone to claim it. That's what you do when you find an envelope with $20,000 cash and no contact info (yes, this HAS happened). After a defined amount of time, it's yours. But, you MUST go through the process.

This bike is not abandoned, lost, in a dumpster, on the side of a building, in an alley. This bike is locked to a pole.

If a bike is so much like a car, how would you feel if you locked your car and went away for 2 weeks and came back and found it stripped sitting on bricks?...and the OP was pulling out the last salvageable bits because someone else started the job.

Wrong is wrong.

Unfortunately, the full paragraph of the failed theft was over the character limit, but with a little editing, I got the core idea in.

I guess most people thought it would be wrong. I never thought of someone being in the hospital. it just seems like a shame to me. I saw it today and it is already on its way to being totally crushed. I mean I guess the whole thing is just academic anyway because I wouldn't be able to get through the lock. I thought of leaving my name and number with the bank and taped to the bike stand. It just seems like a real shame.

why's everyone so against op taking this frame? i thought i'd at least see a 50/50 in terms of opinion.

anyways, my $0.02, take it.

Most people who don't take issue with it probably don't feel the need to reply. Those who are very much against it, have a vein that bulges in their head as they mash the keyboard and CAN'T WAIT to tell the OP how wrong he is. Internet.

most people who don't take issue with it are out buying extension cords and angle grinders.

ftfy.

like i said before...you're going to hell if you steal it.

You should put a piece of masking tape over your top tube with your address and a note that says "hey, bring this back when you're done if you don't mind" and then leave your bike out for whoever to take. You know, since you wouldn't want to be a "blood thirsty capitalist" and you can't really "own" a bike and all.

sorry, i didn't mean to come across as so harsh, i was speaking sarcastically. i just know a LOT of hippy peace-and-love-and-sharing fixed gear riders, and i find it odd that no one ever seems to make a point against the absolute idea of ownership... but maybe none of them own a computer?

I think the debate is really this:

1 to 100

1 = NOT okay to steal
100 = OKAY to steal.

The more rationalizing you do, the closer you get to 100. The more you go looking for reasons why it is okay and how you are doing a "service" to society... the faster you get to 100

The road to hell is paved with 100's.

I guess most people thought it would be wrong. I never thought of someone being in the hospital. it just seems like a shame to me. I saw it today and it is already on its way to being totally crushed. I mean I guess the whole thing is just academic anyway because I wouldn't be able to get through the lock. I thought of leaving my name and number with the bank and taped to the bike stand. It just seems like a real shame.

:crash: What is the shame for you? It's not yours, you are not losing anything. Just because you want it and you put value on it doesn't change the fact that you have no right to it. That lingering feeling you have betrays a dangerous streak of questionable character. Get over it. Life is not a door prize, go to work each day and when you have enough money you can buy your own. Then you can worry about people like you standing on the corner wrestling with their conscience as they covet your bike that you locked up for a night.

sorry, i didn't mean to come across as so harsh, i was speaking sarcastically. i just know a LOT of hippy peace-and-love-and-sharing fixed gear riders, and i find it odd that no one ever seems to make a point against the absolute idea of ownership... but maybe none of them own a computer?

OWN a computer, lol. Get it, ownership.

:crash: What is the shame for you? It's not yours, you are not losing anything. Just because you want it and you put value on it doesn't change the fact that you have no right to it. That lingering feeling you have betrays a dangerous streak of questionable character. Get over it. Life is not a door prize, go to work each day and when you have enough money you can buy your own. Then you can worry about people like you standing on the corner wrestling with their conscience as they covet your bike that you locked up for a night.

He probably feels it's a shame that someone else is going to steal parts and pieces who won't appreciate it and will just sell it off. And it's a shame that the frame and front wheel that are left over are just going be destroyed laying there doing no good for anyone. It is a shame because he could put it to better use than the fate of it now.

I do love it when people try to come across like angels.

Has anyone on here ever picked up change...or even a dollar bill...off the ground? Why? It wasn't yours...

:bang:

Has anyone on here ever picked up change...or even a dollar bill...off the ground? Why? It wasn't yours...

:bang:

it also doesnt have a lock around it

Has anyone on here ever picked up change...or even a dollar bill...off the ground? Why? It wasn't yours...

:bang:

On one hand, just because you do it doesn't make it right. On the other, that's not even a remotely good comparison, both in the value of the items discussed and the fact that a properly locked bike shows a lot more intent to retain ownership than a dropped penny or dollar bill.

He probably feels it's a shame that someone else is going to steal parts and pieces who won't appreciate it and will just sell it off. And it's a shame that the frame and front wheel that are left over are just going be destroyed laying there doing no good for anyone. It is a shame because he could put it to better use than the fate of it now.

More than likely, a roving band of vigilante bike appreciators swarmed in with convictions of their own self-worthiness - and lovingly liberated those quality components to build up new bikes that will carry on where this sad orphaned bike could not.

And somewhere... of in the distance, the owner bikes true owner barked.

Steal the bike rack so no one else will lock a bike to it and get their bike stripped/stolen!!!
Typical NY attitude!

He probably feels it's a shame that someone else is going to steal parts and pieces who won't appreciate it and will just sell it off. And it's a shame that the frame and front wheel that are left over are just going be destroyed laying there doing no good for anyone. It is a shame because he could put it to better use than the fate of it now.

I think we are getting closer to 100.

I'd say close to 75 right now.:twitchy:

Perhaps what I said about the dollar bill was a bad comparison and 100% ridiculous, but the dude who said the OP should chop one of his hands off was right on the money!
:thumb:

Bikes are not people. They don't have feelings, and they don't have intrinsic value the way a human (or animal, IMO) does. I hear a lot of people on the forums talking about bikes in a weird way. Talking about keeping a bike going so it doesn't die (paraphrasing). This personification happens a lot when people talk about conversions "give her gears back!" Bikes are just pieces of metal just like a gold bracelet, a stop sign, or a gun. I just had to say that b/c it's been annoying me when I hear people talk about bikes like they are people.

at a certain point some bikes become "trash" to people while others like us still see potential

All I know is that after you build it up for your gf, it's gonna hurt when it gets stolen from her.

I see your point, but, I wouldn't have done that without trying to find out the owner first.

I know people who have adopted abandoned bikes on campus...They left a note on the bike for weeks with their name and number, saying they were interested. Simultaneously, they posted on multiple campus forums (craigslist or flyers could substitute) And after a month of the bike not budging and no calls, they took it. And posted up that they had it if the owner wanted it back, with contact info.

I think that kind of "theft" if you want to call it that is perfectly okay.

Get this- In the Army, we would be required to lock a nylon dufflebag. Some smartass would always quip "That's worthless, any thief would just cut the bag open with a knife!" The standard answer was......"It keeps the honest man honest". Yep, wisdom in those words.

It's locked, real simple- walk away.

Coming from a former not good at all kid, now wiser and a better human being, just walk away, trust me.

you're going to hell.

Sometimes it seems like people on here feel like they will open the floodgates and unleash a tide of bike thefts upon the world if they agree to even acknowledge a shade of grey where this is concerned. This isn't arithmetic where there is only one right answer and an endless supply of wrong answers.

I've looked at bikes that have been sitting the streets for a couple of months and contemplated giving it, or some components off of it, a better home. I'm pretty sure most of the people that have been so quick to judge on this topic have too. I don't feel bad about thinking such thoughts. Do you? If you don't, then why should you feel bad about acting upon them?


Everyone in jail ALSO had a good reason for doing what they did to get arrested and convicted.

Some people have had good reasons for doing what they did to get convicted and incarcerated. I'm sure you weren't implying this with your statement, but do you really believe that everyone matriculated into the American penal system absolutely belongs there?