Originally Posted by
Saintly Loser
There's a bike locked up outside my office building that would make a perfect commuter bike for me. It's a Schwinn World Sport, in my (hard to find, large) size. A switch to upright handlebars, a rack and fenders, and I'd be good to go.
It's locked with nothing but a long cable (through wheels and frame). I could practically go through that with a garden shears. It's been there for weeks at this point. I know it never goes anywhere, because the rear wheel is nearly tacoed, and there's no way it could make a full rotation.
I don't know if the owner has abandoned the bike, or is unable to ride it, or can't come up with the bucks to fix/replace the rear wheel.
Tempting . . . but I'll try to be ethical about this. Should I leave a note?
Around the end of spring semester most colleges put tags on bikes. The tags are a bright color so anyone that is walking to class can see that all of the bicycles have tags on them. The tag says that either students register their bike for the summer or it has to be removed from the bike rack by a certain date. If they don't remove their bike, it gets disposed of by the city. This date is typically a couple days after the semester ends and the students are all moved home already. If you wait until the night before all the bikes are removed and snag one, I don't think thats stealing. The property is obviously abandoned and going to be repossessed anyways.