Remember when you'd be out in the yard, you'd hear the sweet sound of a two-banger or the growl of an angry thumper, you'd look down at the lawn mower that you were bent over and you'd smile on behalf of whoever the lucky bastard was that was taking their bike out for a blast whilst you were chained to domestics.
That was then - this is now.
Now, whenever the sound of a bike pierces the silence of the foothills, I am confident that what I am hearing is NOT one of my brethren out having fun.
Instead, it's just another bike stolen from some poor bastard I probably know.
"Lock them up better!!" you say.
Well, have a look below and tell me how that is going to help.
It took some local children (yes - children as in grade school kiddies) about 15 minutes to hack through both of these locks with an axe. And get through a steel gate and get through a roller door. All with total disregard for a screaming alarm and a camera they ripped down off the wall soon as looking at it.
At 11am in the morning, on a weekday.
In another instance, two bikes chained together were carried out by a group of 7 slightly more robust young bucks to a nearby park where the chains were then cut off with a battery powered angle grinder.
Any way we look at it, we are damned to concede that the thieves have the jump on us.
Their numbers and their confidence only swells as their fear of reprimand now subsides to nothing. All this as the tools of their trade become whisper quite with lithium batteries aiding to elicit their deceit for hour upon hour into the dead of the night. Or, as it also so often happens, in broad day light.
A very close friend of mine is now going to inextricable lengths to protect his assets by building internal steel door frames on the inside of his already dead bolt lockable roller door.
And, like a except out of some stand-up comedy routine, he was informed by the police to pursue the convicted juvenile through the civil court and make a civil claim for the replacement cost of the bike. His bike was worth $10K with about $6K of bling on it - good luck getting $16K out of a juvenile that has no stable family and no discernable income or prospects for income in the next millennium.
But could it be that, as the victims we are actually creating the problem?
A common theme in the Facebook Posts is the offer of rewards for information leading to the recovery of these bikes. I get that. If your bike is not insured and you have next to no hope of the police ever recovering it and prosecuting the thieves, you are going to be left with nothing. So why not offer a reward?
And these aren't small rewards either. See some examples below. A quick scan of one 'stolen bikes' FB page revealed a number of victims offering rewards up to $2000 no question asked/no police involved.
For me, this begs the question - are we feeding the thieves?
How long is it going to take (if it has not already happened or is happening) until this little cohort of thieves realize that they can turn this into an enterprise?
I see it happening like this:
Little Jonny and his scum mates steal a bike.
They wait until a reward is posted.
Little Jonny tells little Jimmy to contact the victim, and little Jimmy tells the victim "I saw the bike in the scrub at the corner of Smith and Jones Street".
Little Jimmy tells Junior Jackie to place the bike in the scrub at Smith and Jones Street.
Little Jimmy meets Mr Victim down the road and points to the bush and says It's over there. Here is my PayI.D."
Transfer done, cash split three ways.
Now you can all blow piss and wind back at me and say that would never happen, but it took me about 5 minutes to find a dozen examples of rewards exceeding $1000. So, the smart money is on some little turds figuring out an easy way to fleece us.
They are smart enough to find out where we keep our bikes, so I am sure they are smart enough to figure out a scam as simple as this.
Insure your bikes people. I see no other way. Nuff said. I hope it never happens to me (again) or to you.
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