Enforced Separation

Your other half has been snatched away and you’re left alone in the world again, wondering how it all happened. It's heart wrenching and makes you livid, you didn’t see it coming. Maybe it was you. But more likely it was them.

The bike thieves.

The London Paper is reporting that bike theft is up 75% in London in the last four months with Central London, unsurprisingly, the worst hit. Obviously the last four months have been summer (ish) and so more and more people have been riding bikes as the weather is marginally better than in winter. More bikes probably mean more thefts just through basic numbers, and, as the esteemed free paper says cycling is more popular so there are both more bikes around and a bigger market for them to be sold on. One side of this can surely be stopped by encouraging people to not buy bikes they believe to be stolen, but it’s hard to see how it can be stopped entirely.

Although massively tempting fate I can say that I’ve been lucky in London so far. Admittedly I’ve been careful, and my bike lives inside at home (unless you’re my landlord, in which case it’s definitely not in the flat) and now inside at work in a converted meeting room. However, the meeting room was only converted after a number of bikes had been stolen from the racks outside. These racks were close against a window with security guards looking out, next to the door, and watched over by CCTV. Several bikes were still taken from under the noses of the guards and popular opinion forced the company to find somewhere safer. I was lucky and mine was never taken, although I did lock it carefully every day and I cultivate a less-than-pristine image with stickers and worn paint. We even had a fair idea who was taking the bikes, but there was apparently little the Police could do without catching them in the act. Now all the bikes lack is a TV and a sofa in their comfy, carpeted work home.



Secure bike parking (with artwork)

It might be tempting to keep your bike shiny and new-looking, but bear in mind it’s probably harder to sell on a dirty frame with obscure stickers and chipped paint and your well-worn partner might be passed over by the thieves.

In the past I’ve caught someone trying to steal a bike from the back of my car in a secure work car park (they ran away) and had a bike stolen years ago from a garage so I remember the feelings, although not as strongly as my co-author who’s experienced the loss first hand from a major railway station where the bikes are watched by CCTV, which is apparently nowhere near enough to stop the theives. Stay safe out there and don’t let a third party tear apart a beautiful relationship, between you and your bike. Remember, if it’s a choice, the NHS will pay for you to get fixed (whatever Right Wing America thinks), but you’ll have to pay for a new bike.


How much of this bike will be here in the morning?

I've often thought another answer is to booby trap a bike (perhaps with a non-lethal electric current running through the frame?) and I can't work out if having a wooden bike amounts to pretty much the same thing...?

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