CastIron

They tried--twice. Thought I'd share the experience.

madscot13

Sorry Mike,
I live in st. paul also (grid 45). I din't think it could be so dangerous. I am a wee bit of a college girl, so I guess it is a goodthing I don't head out at night. Do you bike a lot around SP? I just started and would love some where to go hints ( hillless ones too!)

ps what are thugervals

CastIron

You're a matter of blocks from me. I ride mostly out of STP into the sticks. Try the TCBC rides (a few leave from your doorstep at Erik's bike shop). If you wan't mostly flat and scenic head north and circle Bald Eagle Lake.

Thugervals are a sardonic take on Spinervals.

tulip

Bummer. I'm glad you're okay. I often think of the possibility of getting jacked since I ride through some rough areas of town. So far, so good. But I don't ride at night for a variety of reasons, the main one being that I can't see very well at night, and the other one having to do with the neighborhoods. But even in the good neighborhoods, crime has picked up here.

Thanks for the reminder about varying the route. I've gotten pretty slack about that.

squeakywheel

Wow. I'm speachless.

nitroRoo

My friend and I were chased by a pretty scary dude about 3 blocks screaming "GIVE ME YOUR BIKE!" one night on our commute home. The guy ran pretty fast too... nothing like that to get your heart pumping. Luckily we got away fairly easily (being on bikes), but we never rode down that road again (pretty bad part of town)

swwhite

Thank you for that note. I live in Minneapolis, and getting mugged while on a bike is the last thing I would ever worry about. I will have to re-evaluate.

LilSprocket

Thanks for the reminder Mike... glad you are ok and called in the incident

I've been in a coupla situations that in that moment it occured to me..."uh-oh..."
was able gather my wits and moved on....
I carry pepper spray, but am concerned about being able to think fast enough and use it effectively

commuting in darkness concerns me

mihlbach

I once winessed a bike jacking in NYC...the idiot jacker pushed some guy off his bike in the middle of a street fair, packed with people and he ran straight into two cops. What a moron.

I've never been jacked...but it seems to me that if you stay further to the right of the bike lane and keep your speed up through the trouble areas, they would have a very hard time catching you on foot. Or am I just not envisioning this properly?

-=(8)=-

Do you have a big crack problem in St. Paul ?
I had to go through a section like this in PA.
The crackheads made comfortable travel impossible.

Cyclist0383

Once in the early ninties I has a bunch of teens lock arms across a road to try to steal my bike. It was a very dodgy part of town. I raised my U-lock above my head and charged them. They scattered like the little punks they were.....

Doggus

What would happen if you cap them? Are you allowed to use deadly force to protect yourself?

Ladidah

Scary. I don't live in St. Paul, but sometimes I bike there (I haul my bike and park at Harriet Island, ride to Fort Snelling, then up to Minnehaha Falls, cross at Ford Pkwy. and ride back down to Harriet Island, either crossing back over at 35E or via the Wabasha St. bridge). I don't do it alone or at night, though.

Be careful.

tacojohn

That would be a little dicey. You can only respond with an appropriate level of force. To use deadly force (any firing of a gun is deadly force), you need to be threatened with deadly force. In many states, you also need to show that you had no reasonable chance to escape. That's hard when you're on a bike and they're on foot, and they're behind you.

If you're going to carry a gun, make sure you have all your proper permits, that it's loaded, and you know how to use it. I'm just a law student, so I AM NOT GIVING LEGAL ADVICE. This is merely informational, is only to the best of my knowledge, and should not be acted on by anyone. Consult your lawyer about your state's laws. You might even pay him or her for a few hours of research to find cases in your state about cyclists defending themselves, or do some research yourself.

The most important thing when confronted with a situation like this is to trust your instincts when defending yourself, armed or otherwise. The fight or flee response is one of the most powerful your body gives you, and it's usually right. But keep your head up, vary your route, and watch for things that don't seem right to avoid getting in these types of situations.

krazygluon

Call me crazy (and I know this doesn't solve all situations) wouldn't a quick sprint or two get just about any pedestrian thief off your case? I don't know many people who can maintain 10+mph for very long on foot.

Congratulations on getting out of the situation unscathed though.

EnigManiac

Toronto is the bike-theft capital of North America, but bike-jackings are pretty rare, I think. At least, I've rarely heard about them happening. That said, I did witness an attempted bike jacking last summer and thought the cyclist reacted brilliantly (pun fully intended), as the guy attempting to pull the bike out from his hands just after the cyclist unlocked it, received a bit of a surprise: the cyclist clicked on his catseye healight that he was just about to attach to the mount, put it in strobe mode and held it right in the robbers eyes and then clocked the guy with his lock when the robber winced and turned away. The thief dropped like a stone and the cyclist muttered something about the robber being an anus and left the dazed fool there as he calmly rode on his way. From across the road, I took it upon myself to call the cops and report the attempted robbery, but never heard whether they found the guy or not.

sgtsmile

For some reason, this makes me chuckle Did you happen to hear the 5 part story on bike theft about 3 months ago on Metro Morning ? (cbc radio 1) Might be worth looking and seeing if you can get ahold of it on the cbc website.

mechBgon

Here's a tactic I use sometimes:

if there are dark street corners where it's scary to stop & wait at a red stoplight at night, try to adjust your speed so you arrive when the light is green. Creeping up to the light at 5mph for a block leaves you enough distance ahead of you to punch it to 15mph if someone jumps off the sidewalk to grab you, and allows you to hit the intersection at cruising speed or higher, in case someone's hanging around it. Of course, if the light is triggered by your arrival, this isn't a help.

tacojohn

If you don't feel safe, and traffic is clear, just go. What's the worst that's going to happen? A cop will pull you over. If an intersection doesn't seem safe, chance are it's deserted as well, and cops aren't around.

cooker

I'm too ignorant to comprehend what happened from that sentence - can you dumb it down for me?

EDIT...in fact I was too stupid to realize it was two sentences, not one.

mechBgon

But what if I don't feel safe and traffic isn't clear? The intersection I'm thinking of is one where you can't tell if there's traffic coming until you get there, so if I'm not feeling great about stopping at the red light, I can plan ahead and crawl towards it at a pace that's calculated to let me hit it on the green.

But yeah, if I had to blow a red light to get away from a questionable situation, I'd do so if there were a safe opportunity.

Cosmoline

Remember, a bike lock is lethal force too. Be careful when you deploy it. The best choice is almost always avoidance by using your advantage of speed vs. peds and agility vs. cars. And avoid getting into yelling matches or anything of that sort.

protegechris

Someone about 15 or 16 tried to get my bike when I was 13 or so. I'm almost seventeen now, for reference. I was riding a BMX bike down the road (rode whatever I could find back then) and he just walked up and started to grab it since I wasn't really going fast. I hit the guy in the head and took off. A week later it disappeared from my back porch. I took another bike and started riding around, an afternoon later I saw a different kid riding it to a different house about 2 miles away. Quick pay phone call home and had a parent there stealing it back with me.. after talking to the kid's parent. As if that did any good

It's sad that we all have to worry about getting bikejacked. Law should equate that to car theft, in my opinion

krazygluon

Sadly, the law takes priority over the theft of monetary value as opposed to the theft of ontological value (cars and bikes are both transportation...but unless you pedal some ungodly carbon-fiber or ti frame with ungodly components, the monetary value of a bike allows the law to laugh in your face)

This is another reason I think somebody needs to go on a limb and offer cycling insurance. like anything of value to people, I'm sure the premiums would more than make up for the actual value in claims. think of how paranoid you may/may not be about getting your car stolen...then think about how paranoid the bike community is about getting theirs stolen...

mechBgon

I'm pretty sure renter's insurance or homeowner's insurance would cover loss of bike by theft.