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Old 08-31-10, 10:53 PM
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cyclokitty 
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Bikes: KHS Town and Country 100 & Jamis Durango Femme 1.0

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Originally Posted by Roody
So instead you let the criminals determine where you live.


Millions of cars are stolen every year, but the cops will look for a car thief and even keep an eye out for a stolen car, and phone the owner if it's found. But they can't be bothered with bikes.

I called 911 when my bike was stolen, waited an hour for a cop to show up and the first words out of his mouth were, "We really can't help you with that." The thief left another bike where mine had been. When I pointed out that that bike was undoubtedly stolen also, he said, "As far as I'm concerned, It's finders keepers when it comes to bikes." Then he watched as I rode off on a stolen bike. "It saves me the trouble of putting it in my trunk and taking it to the impound lot."

The funny thing was, the bike that the thief left was a nice road bike, and my bike that he took was an inexpensive mountain bike, so he lost money by stealing my bike. This shows that it doesn't always help to ride a beater or to disguise your bike. To a lot of poor city kids, a mountain bike is the fanciest bike they know of, and more likely to be stolen than an expensive road bike.

So continue your usual moaning about how horrible cities are, but bikes get stolen in the country too, and in small towns and fancy suburbs. Anywhere you go, people will steal stuff. If you make it harder for them to steal your stuff, they'll take somebody else's stuff instead.
I wonder if the road bike the thief left behind didn't fit him?

Toronto has quite a few bike thefts so I lock mine with a couple of different locks. But I bet it's because my bike looks geeky so it's probably not interesting enough for a thief to work at taking it. I agree if I had a nice, nice bike I would plan my rides to never have to lock it up. I know this plan would fail swiftly since I have the bladder of a hummingbird.
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