Yes. It is ethical to lock MY Sterling with MY lock to a post or a rack that is designed to be used for keeping bicycles from being stolen by alleged liberators. It is ethical to lock it there for weeks or months or even years.

Some places have procedures to clear bike racks every so often or tag bikes that are there too long. In that case, it is the responsibility of the proper authorities to decide what constitutes "too long". It is damn sure not the OP's right to decide whether MY Sterling has been there too long for his tastes.

Dude I know how it feels to lose the key to your lock.

Anyone who saw my thread before knows what I say: take the bike (and just make sure the owner isn't there to shove your bolt-cutters up your ass).

I just did the same exact thing last night - see this thread, the 21st post down.

There is a point when it becomes abandoned in the eyes of the law. I know this because our local police go around once a year and take abandoned bikes. They leave a tag explaining the situation on the bike a few weeks in advance.

So yes, there is a point when legally it is abandoned. But I don't think it's up to you to decide where that point is.

If no one sees or knows its not considered stealing right?? Haha.

GO ahead steal the bike i dont care.

Where was the thread where the guy was gonna teach someone a lesson about locking up their bike wrong by stealing the front wheel?
That one was funnier.

Someone stole my bike thinking it was abandoned.

The story goes back over a year when I spotted a Peugeot mixte sitting in someones (fenced in) front yard unlocked and obviously neglected. I had no front wheel and was covered in cobwebs. It sat that way for a couple of months and I finally decided to see if I could buy it off the guy to build a single speed for my wife. I stopped about 15 times to ask about it, but the owner was never home. When I finally talked to him, he said I could have it. YAY! I walked with my bike and my new peugeot to the lightrail station a few blocks away. I did not want to carry the bike all the way home, so I locked it up at the station. I was trying to surprise my wife, so I was waiting for a chance to grab it when she wasn't home so I could dismantle it and hide it in the garage. I didn't think anyone would **** with an old girls Peugeot, and left it there for a couple of days. When I went back for it, it was gone.

FF 6 months (last Friday) and my friend was at a party at some guys house when he spotted a little peugeot mixte in corner. He asked the guy about it and the dude told him he "liberated it" from a lightrail station. My friend called me up and asked for a description of my missing bike, and when it matched precisely, the guy agreed to return it. He dropped it off last night stripped of derailers with some new tires. The moral of the story, don't steal people's **** just cause you think they don't care about it.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64...r/P1020481.jpg

Are there stealing forums?

I think its funny how there are two threads next to each other this new one and "Found my stolen bike. Now what?

wow. this one never gets old.

Why doesn't anyone consider the honest possiblity. Tie a note to the bike shooting a low ball price say $5.00 with a phone number. If after 24hrs no one claims it report it to the police as an abandoned and problably stolen bike. When you report it state that if no one claims it after the period of time you want it. They will call you and usually in most cities its yours. Then not only will you problably get it , you've done a good deed too!

I was breezing through campus the other day and saw a nice old Raleigh chained up to a rack. I'm not sure how long it's been there but it had some frost on it from last night's chill. Here's the thing... the rack is not bolted down. The bike is now mine, right?

Lol.. this helps me, and it's probably what I'm goign to do.

I felt the way most people do in the thread. Leave the bike, I don't know it's story. But it's in an odd place and no one rides in this city. 200 people in the whole ****ing city. 140 of them are homeless. I knew where I stood on this topic just not everyone else.

It becomes abandoned but this has nothing to do with ethics does it? Is it ethical to buy a pair of socks and not wear them?

to a bunch of sock fetishists it wouldn't be.



I feel like the internet isn't half as wild as tokyo. tokyo is probably the closest real place to the internet though....

you won't go to jail for stealing a frame. that's just silly.

It's stealing. Just like whoever stripped that bike of it's wheels, brakes, handlebars, etc.

That said, I've found frames in the garbage on the street. I don't see any problem with that...

If you want to "liberate" and donate it to a co-op or a do-gooder organization that fixes bikes up for kids, that would make for good motivation. If you want a frame for yourself, it's not that hard to buy one on the cheap or rescue one from a dumpster. Hell, go to a police auction and pick up one of the other gazillion abandoned frames.

Now thats funny.

I say steal it, strip all the paint off, give it a new paint job and build it up... but that's just cause I couldn't care less about a bike locked up in another city that isn't mine. If its stripped and just sitting there for a month then whatever... just make sure to strip and paint it so its not as recognizable

dogs rule

I like the Minneapolis city policy I just read about. If you see an abandoned bike you report it to the city. If it is locked in a place legal for bike parking they tag it and give the owner 24 hours to move it. No move? They cut the lock and remove the bike. If it is unlocked or parked in an improper location it is gone immediately.

More aggressive than most cities are with CARS!

Of course, this doesn't help anybody who covets a bike that isn't theirs. I'd doubt the city then gives the bike to the caller.

import, next time you're in the bronx (if you go there) tell derek his brother said what's up.