ravenmore

I commute to and from work pretty much everyday. Every once in a while I'll notice someone has messed with my lock - like the numbers are all lined up '1111', '2222', and so on. This morning I was coming in and went to put on my brakes for a light, and my bars rotated straight down as soon as I put weight on them. About put me over the bike. I got off my bike, rotated the bars by hand (easily) and then grabbed my multi tool. Each bolt took quite a few turns to tighten up.

I work in an office park that is in a good part of town and that doesn't have much traffic (plus has security patrols), so I leave it on the rack all day. My gym is right next door and I also leave it locked there for 15 minutes twice a day while I change/shower. I don't want to think someone was messing with the bolts on my bike but I have a hard time believing the bolts got that loose on their own. Needless to say I'm going to start checking more often.

KiuBWhy

Certainly wouldn't be the first time to happen. Any chance there is a closet in the office you can store it in?

tagaproject6

Gremlins?

Defintiely someone messing with your bike...I've seen this in action before. The jerk would go and pretend to have a bike on the rack, mess with the target(move combo lock, and try to figrue it out) for a while, then leave. Looks around, comes back and tries again or loosen stuff some more. Does it for a few times until they liberate the stuff they want. I observed this before and called the cops on the bastard.

Gluteus

Definitely somebody has been messing with your bike.

Accordion

Have you seen The Blair Witch Project?

JoelS

Someone is prepping to steal it. Better find someplace else to put it.

ravenmore

Yeah, I guess I could put it in the empty cube behind me. If someone's trying to steal it from the office though it would be real ballsy. The bike rack is in a covered building enterance. Anyone who doesn't belong stands out like a sore thumb. The lock thing doesn't happen often - maybe once every couple of months or so.

Thing is - taking the handlebars off really wouldn't help them steal anything. I more wondered if some jerk was just trying to sabatage the bike to get me to crash on my commute.

mmmdonuts

There are quite a few BF members in Austin...

...just sayin'

Pug

Any quick release clamps on your wheels or seatpost?

MrTuner1970

Um, your shifters are not on your handlebars?

tagaproject6

Or maybe someone at work doesn't like you...are you anything like your internet persona?



I keed, I keed!

ravenmore

wheels - but I run the cable through both wheels.

himespau 

You recently break up with the secretary?

ravenmore

I work in the IT dept - if I find out its one of my co-workers they are gonna get caught with a large amount of pornography on their workstation.

ravenmore

True, although they are crashed 6600 Ultegras - plus they'd have to remove the bar tape and cut the cables.

MrTuner1970

OK. Last year I sold my old (crashed but unbroken) Ultegra 6500 shifters for around $80.00.

I'm not a thief, so probably couldn't do it quite as quickly. But I bet I could have your bars removed and cables cut within 20 seconds. Bar tape and all. A thief would then go unwrap and sell those shifters.

Velo Gator

Are they.... baby bike bolts?!

Accordion

Somebody should throw a base-layer on you and toss you down the road a bit for bringing up old threads.

tagaproject6

fify

Velo Gator

If it wasn't locked I'd bump it... x2...

Seattle Forrest

I read about someone who's stem was loosened up, cables cut, and bars and shifters stolen.

Pug

Yes, the same one's you use to dial it up to 400watts and 19mph . . .

Accordion

I forgot about "stollen"...it's funny how some of these trolls can write stuff that becomes legendary and is that funny. There's a keyboard music forum I've belonged to for over a decade and some clown asked for "piano tablature" for songs and a poster replied with his own chicken foot notation that STILL comes up about four or five times a year.

Good stuff.

spunkyj

Any students/schools near your workplace? My first year in university, my beater bike was locked up outside of an engineering lecture hall and someone thought it would be funny to loosen the front quick release while I was in class. I only got about 10 feet before the wheel fell off. I bet some immature engineering freshmen thought it was funny.

If time weren't an issue I'd want to stake out the location and try to catch whoever is messing with your bike in the act. Alas, it's probably easier to just take your bike inside if that's allowed. Or... I've seen these cheapo chinese bike alarms on ebay that start screaming when your bike is disturbed. That ought to give any would-be prankster quite a start!

ravenmore

It's in the middle of a large campus of an extremely large corporation that is pretty much isolated from anything else. We do have a lot of scientist and engineers running around though.