Treadly and Me » bicycle theft

Speedlinking 29 November 2010

Treadly and Me — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:18:52 +0000

No longer acceptable

Streetsblog San Francisco asks Why are we building bikes lanes that are hurting people?

It is no longer acceptable to lure people onto bicycles with a network of bicycle lanes that look inviting, but in reality can cause injury or death when used as directed. Our bicycle infrastructure design and our bicycle safety curricula should complement, not contradict, one other.

Indeed. [twitterer]

Time to get seriously scientific

Sara Phillips on the ABC Environment Blog:

Cycling advocates want more bike lanes. They want more people riding more often. They tell us that life is better on a bike; that we’ll be fitter, we’ll emit less carbon dioxide and our cities’ air will be cleaner.

But unless they gather hard data to present their case to government for funding, they are going to struggle to make their point.

Furthermore:

Currently, Australia’s biggest cycling advocacy group, Bicycle Victoria, doesn’t sponsor any research into the health or environmental benefits of cycling. Spokesman for the organisation, Garry Brennan says they try to remain focussed in their approach and target activities to encourage more cycling.

Ride, kid, ride

Carlton Reid reckons kids have an insatiable appetite for cycling, and I reckon he might be right. [twitterer]

On that subject, teach your child to ride, an extract from Carlton’s Family Cycling. We think it works.

Ride first, then drive

And here’s an idea: learner drivers should cycle first. [twitterer]

Off the presses

Treadlie magazine is on sale 17 December.

Witnessing a bike theft

In the Guardian, James Walsh asks what would you do if you saw a bike being stolen?

My advice: it ain’t worth having the shit kicked out of you for a bike.

Sucking and loving it

Letter of the Week in Surfing Magazine on converting from surf snobbery to bike snobbery:

I’m filled with pride at the top of a modest incline, or when my cleats clip in successfully at a stoplight, or while admiring a nascent thigh tan naked in the bathroom mirror. Sucking at something, it turns out, is great fun.

[twitterer]

Doin’ the eagle rock

Swooped by a magpie? Pfft! Try a bloody great big wedge-tailed eagle! Seems possible, but there’s a faint whiff of bullshit about that story. [via Audax Australia Google Group]

Design

The Seoul Cycle Design Competition 2010 produced the ‘horsey’ bike, guaranteed to squish your goolies if you brake heavily or have a crash. Design fail, IMHO.
The Mutandem: Whoa! [thanks woowoowoo]
Wood and Bamboo [thanks woowoowoo]
Cool bike hands…until you need to ditch quickly. [thanks tom]
A bike rack that sucks—in a good way [thanks tom]
Bicycle lock climbs lamp post to escape thieves. Cute idea but the cyclist can’t fit anything else in his bag… [thanks tom]

Repair

iFixit’s Self-Repair Manifesto [via monkeyphoto]

Liability

According to the New York Times, a 4-year-old can be sued for negligence following a bike collision. You know, sometimes accidents do just happen.

Schadenfreude

Wend Magazine brings you a cyclocross crash collection. (Yes, inevitably, Yakety Sax…)

How to…

…fall from a bicycle. Ouch. [twitterer, via treadlie]

Nice shots

Autumn riding pictures.

Utility

Recreational and/or transportational

We need real bike paths for real bike transportation—shared paths are problematic, dangerous and occasionally deadly.

I’ve certainly noticed that shared paths in Melbourne are rarely engineered with transportation in mind.

Fashion

Safe and shiny, the way to combine fashion and safety. [via LikeCool.com, thanks tom]

Buy space, make space

Shepparton riders buy space for awareness in local paper, and the message they shared. [twitterer]

Register here. Or not.

Grist on why an additional road tax for bicyclists would be unfair.

Pothole? There’s an app for that

In the UK, FillThatHole.org.uk has released a pothole-spotting app, which is pretty cool.

And, thanks to nikdow for the tip-off, in Australia there is Neat Streets:

What Issues Can Be Reported?
Anything important to you – road obstructions, vandalism, potholes, fallen trees, abandoned trolleys, litter, and graffiti.

Mistakes, I’ve made a fwe

Endurance Cycling: Five mistakes to avoid.

DIY

Simple bike computer
Sewn bike innertube chainstay protector
Specialized RC turbine jet powered rocket mountain bike hack—I have never, ever understood why anyone would want to put a rocket anywhere near their genitals… [twitterer, thanks tom]

Bike lane appears

According to the Cycling Embassy of Denmark, when riding in Copenhagen, “The trip continues through a high street, and a cycle track appears”.

Melbourne bike share tours with MELTours.

Epic tour

13 epic Australian trails.

Speedlinking 30 July 2008

Treadly and Me — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:21:32 +0000

Hysterical moments in bicycle design

I want to see someone take that rowing bike up Mt Buffalo in January… [via LigfietsPlaza]

Tell ‘im ‘e’s dreamin’

The Dreams on Wheels Exhibition is coming to Melbourne. Must mark diary.

Bike as weapon?

According to the policeman’s report, this is a cyclist “using [his bike] as a weapon to run down the officer”:

What the hell? I’m neither here nor there on Critical Mass, but that is just a stupid and thuggish way for a police officer to behave—even in the face of extreme provocation, which seems unlikely here. What an idiot. Excessive and pointless violence aside, did he really think that he wouldn’t get caught on camera doing something like that at such an event?

For his trouble, the cycist was “charged with attempted assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct and spent 26 hours in a police lockup”.

Update 31 July

The Smoking Gun has a copy Officer Pogan’s sworn statement. At the bottom, the following boilerplate text can be seen:

False statements made herein are punishable as a class A misdemeanor pursuant to section 210.45 of the penal law.

Oh dear. That’s not going to look good on the young officer’s record, is it?

Where do all the stolen bikes go?

An interview with a stolen bike dealer, the backstory to the bike-stealing bike shop owner in Toronto, that I mentioned a few weeks ago. Hmmm, illuminating. [via MetaFilter]

Ride a mile (or ten) in my saddle

Yellow Brick Road has another thoughtful article, this one on the topic of cycling and urban planning, a key message being that educators and students of urban planning should jump on their bikes and ride:

By riding through the urban environment, planners can come to experience the city in new and exciting ways that reveal the potential of bicycles to facilitate mobility needs. By gaining a more grounded understanding of cycling, planners can begin to understand the many physical and cultural barriers that prohibit cycling as a more sustainable transport practice.

But sadly in our culture cycling remains a marginalised (even deviant) activity:

Within societies of mass automobility, bicycles are often regarded as a children’s toy, a middle-class sports fad, or a form of transport for those who are too poor to drive. Within less that three generations, cultures of everyday or utility cycling disappeared. Those who continued to cycle are often regarded with suspicion.

A little ‘academic’ in tone, but quite readable and interesting as always—Adrian gets the recommended read of the week nomination (again).

Slow news day

A 30 km/h speed limit for Melbourne?

Melbourne City Council will today launch the final report of its Future Melbourne Plan, which is expected to scale back initial recommendations for a new city congestion toll, in favour of better public transport. With a strong focus on environmental ideas and liveability, the final report is believed to advocate a 30 km/h limit to reduce the number of pedestrians hit by vehicles each year, from 230, including six deaths, to zero.

DIY bike rack

BikeHacks.com calls this home-build rear rack spectacular, I’d say “pragmatic” or “sensible” but I like it just the same. In fact, I’ve even considered the plastic box myself on occasion.

Have trailer, will travel

Trailer hire scheme in Canberra::

the Jamison arm of the organisation plans to hire out bicycle cargo trailers and children’s trailers to local residents for three to 12 months after which they will be sold for reduced prices…

The bicycle-towed trailers will have odometers attached so the organisation will be able to measure how much carbon dioxide emission they have saved.

Speedlinking 10 March 2008

Treadly and Me — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:29:51 +0000

Yehuda Moon

: Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery—looks like this bike cartoon has been online since January. A few good chuckles to be had.
Cheap bike as theft deterrent?: Having just completed a full year of commuting on The Bike of Doom, Steve George reflects on the cheap bike as theft deterrent and wonders if he should replace it with something similar when its days are over.; One vote here for Bike of Doom II.
Bike lanes are all well and good…: …until some bright spark does something like this:

Perhaps designed by someone with a pathological hatred of cyclists, or maybe even humanity in general, this path can be found on the MOD site at Abbey Wood and that gate that the path runs directly in to is designed to stop suicide bombers getting into their car park!

Compare bike headlights: A visual comparison of LED bike lights.
Look after pedestrians: Buffalo Bill says look after pedestrians, in response to an opinion piece by James Daley [via velorution]
getacross Campaign: The Auckland harbour bridge is about to be upgraded and cycling and pedestrian advocates are making the case for the addition of pedestrian and cycling lanes.; In the meantime, it sounds like Auckland cyclists have to defend themselves against the same old, tired arguments and abuse.
Persuasive about sportive: How to ride a UK cyclosportive—it’s getting popular, apparently.
Does my bum look big on this?: Discover magazine reports on a new super lightweight frame material, a kind of “see-through lattice woven from a carbon-fiber composite and bundled in Kevlar string” (but as they suggest, at $7k a throw it would be cheaper and easier to lose some weight off your body):

The resulting gossamer web may look delicate, but pound for pound this quirky construction—called IsoTruss—is stronger than steel, aluminum, and titanium. It’s even stronger than solid carbon composites, the current front-runners among ultralight bike frames.

Lucre: Twenty-Five Ways To Make Money With Bicycles: “A Bicycle business can be profitable, satisfying, and fun. Learn what it takes to turn a hobby into a business.”
“Up your bum”: Finally, I’d just like to wish readers a pleasant stick it up your arse day. Let’s get together and have fun…

Mugged for my bike

Paul N — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:15:24 +0000

Some days start out way too well…

After adding to the How to Steal a Bike post, with some of my story, Treadly and Me invited me to tell the rest. I’m not looking for sympathy, just take it as a cautionary tale.

Sunny day on a suburban street in Adelaide (not Paul's street)

The last day of October, sun shining, forecast mid 20′s, and committed with a work meeting that could last all day. And all I want is to go for a ride to nowhere in particular, before taking the kids to a friend’s Halloween street party.

Headed off to my meeting—In the car with heavy things to carry. Had a dream run with the traffic, not that Adelaide actually has traffic, and got where I was going in record time. The meeting went the way meetings never do, and finished by 11 a.m. Right, time for a bike ride this afternoon!

Headed home full of enthusiasm for an afternoon on the bike. Got home just before 12, pulled the bike out of the garage, added some air to the tyres and parked it at the front door, same as every other day. Left the front door open and went to fill up some bidons and get by bike gear on. My wife walked in the door having just got home also, carrying lunch. Excellent, no need to find my own!

Much less fun

After 10 minutes eating my lunch, and now ready to leave, headed back to the front door…

Errr… did you move my bike on your way in?

No, it was just outside the door where you always leave it.

So some $@#@%’s stolen it then?

Suddenly the day seemed so much less fun.

Nice area, quiet street

Let’s put in perspective where I live, and why leaving the bike outside unlocked seemed like a good idea. My street is a short U-shaped one, near the end of a group of streets (are they groups, gaggles, flocks, herds—who knows really) with only one way in or out, by car at least. My end of the street is relatively isolated and the only people you ever see who don’t live here, have a reason to be there: Couriers, postmen, locals heading down to the reserve accessible from the bottom of the street to walk the dog.

My house is below street level, the front door is quite a way from the road, and on the day required a walk past my two closely parked cars to get to it. In general, you will find ours and/or our neighbours garage doors open, kids and adults bikes outside, whatever, you get the picture. Nice area, quiet street, rarely any strangers, nothing stolen or broken into nearby in living memory. And the next door neighbour’s a cop.

And now my bike was gone. The new one I’d only had for 8 weeks.

Three big mistakes

I got in the car to go and report the theft to the police, wondering if my insurance was going to cover this. My wife headed out as well, thinking that maybe someone had just ridden up the hill to the shop and left it outside.

I decided a quick circuit of the block on the way might a good idea in case the thief was still nearby.

BIG MISTAKE NUMBER 1.

Ran into three school kids, in (sort of) school uniform, 16-17 yo, walking up the hill with my bike. Thought to myself that being a public area, with people about, passing traffic, and these being school kids, a bit of an Oi, that’s my bike kind of approach would see them drop it and run.

I guess that was MISTAKE NUMBER 2.

Instead I got abused, and they tried to run past me. I grabbed the saddle of the bike on the way past and got a reaction along the lines of It’s ours now, so f… off or we’ll bash you. I still hadn’t gotten loud or abusive with them, there were 3 of them and I was at least a bit cautious, and told them I wanted my bike.

That was MISTAKE NUMBER 3.

Punched by one of them, and restrained by one or more, I managed to knee one in the nuts before some brave soul hit me from behind, knocking me unconscious (briefly).

I opened my eyes to find myself on the road. I couldn’t move or feel any of my limbs. I could hear a car approaching and hoped someone might help me. No. The car slowed, moved into the other lane and drove around me. Some sensation started returning which took away the fear I was going to be quadriplegic at least.

Slowly got up off the road and could see the friendly thieves further up the road with my bike. I yelled out for help and started staggering towards them, noticing 3 Council workers or contractors standing beside the road—I think they had probably seen the whole incident. Of course none of them did a thing, although later the police said one of them may have phoned 000. Getting to the nearby cross road I saw my wife in her car, and pointed at the kid on my bike, who had separated from his mates.

Vague

From there the next few minutes are very vague. Somewhere in there I phoned the police, and got back to my car and drove it over the intersection to find my wife. The bike was with her. Apparently on his own, and being pursued by a car, the little angel wasn’t so brave. He’d dumped the bike .

Paramedic-to-patient

Sample cervical spine (not Paul's x-ray)

Collapsed again, had terrific pain in my shoulder that I had surgery on a few months ago, and my neck felt weird. I told my wife to call an ambulance. Listened to her getting frustrated with the call taking algorithm I normally manage to bypass (I’m an ambo when I’m not riding my bike). Got taken to a local hospital, where I know most of the staff, given enough drugs to stop an elephant, and X-rayed till I glowed in the dark.

Turned out no-one was really sure if there were any fractures in my shoulder because of the recent surgery. What they were sure of was the fracture to my spine at C6. Back in an ambulance for the ride to the Royal Adelaide for a thorough spinal review.

By just before midnight I was on my way home. I have a broken spinous process on C6. C6 is just above the lump you can feel at the base of your neck (C7), and the spinous process is the bit that sticks out the back, as shown in this example x-ray:

Instructions were no lifting for 6 weeks, spend lots of time laying flat until the pain gets less, take these drugs and come back in two weeks to see if I need any other treatment. The bone will probably never rejoin, but it’s not structural so shouldn’t cause any problems once everything heals. OK, that explains the transient quadriplegia, a violent shock to C6 obviously temporarily upset my spinal cord, and I won’t go into the physiology of that here.

Two weeks later…

Back for review 2 weeks later—more X-rays—Oh, look at this, C5 is broken too, but not as badly as C6. Great. Ta. Thanks for sharing the good news Doc.

Still off work for 2 more weeks, then OK for modified duties—no lifting until at least the 6 week mark. Considering I like my job almost as much as cycling I’m not impressed. And if it’s not structural why can’t I lift anything? Why is it called a clay-shoveller’s fracture? Because in the old days people would LIFT TOO HARD shovelling clay, and tear them off. So it sounds kind of important to me.

Lucky for me I have a very understanding employer, and I’ve been offered quite a good training job for the next few months. Should give everything time to heal properly anyway. And with the 9–5 routine in place of shift work commuting by bike should work out better. If I can find somewhere secure to keep it in the building that is.

Riding again

Started riding, gently, this week. Suddenly 20km hurts after a month of doing nothing physical at all; looks like I’ve got a bit of work to do. To get back on the bike though, cost me nearly $350 to put right the damage the mongrels managed to do in the 10-15 minutes they had the bike.

Persons of interest

The Police have taken things pretty seriously, but I don’t expect much. It’s already a month since this happened, so it’s less likely they’ll catch anyone as time passes. They have been pushing the case on Crimestoppers, with video of some persons of interest so who knows? Besides, underage offenders will only claim they didn’t understand what they were doing and just get told to apologise.

Now all I need is to figure out how to combine cycling and ambulance work without leaving Adelaide, but that’s another story…

Adelaide Street 2004.10.17 by natmeister.
X-ray of cervical spinal from U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Bike theft and bystanders

Treadly and Me — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:29:21 +0000

And here we go again: in Portland in the USA someone has repeatedly stolen their own bike without being challenged, as reported by Williamette Week:

If you saw a man on Hawthorne liberating a bike with 2-foot bolt cutters, would you intervene? Say something? Call the cops? You may think so, but we say fat chance…

That’s right, we committed seven bike thefts in broad daylight in busy, public places and no one tried to stop us or even called the police.

The first two were staged just around the corner from each other:

Unbeknownst to the bystanders to this theft, Silverman had done the same thing less than 15 minutes earlier one block away. If one of the people who watched him steal the bike outside Lincoln Hall at the corner of Mill and Broadway had called campus security or the police, maybe the second theft could have been thwarted.

The article also includes a pretty good overview of the Bystander Effect.

From the comments to the article, a few interesting thoughts emerge:

If an Hispanic or African-American young man had been told to just meddle with bikes…the results would have been quite different…Portland is a city in which white, middle-class people can do pretty much anything they wannt. The rest of us have to be very, very careful.

Quite. How different would this be? I reckon it’s only a matter of time before this variation is put to the test.

I really don’t see the point of putting myself in harms way for a possession. Even in police classes, which I have attened for defense, they teach you to let them have the replacable thing. Helping a human to me is toatally different.

Yeah, you’ve got to concede the sense of that point.

If anything, you’ve just shown potential theives how easy it is to steal bikes in broad daylight: just fiddle around, look and act like it is your bike.

Bollocks. If bike thieves don’t know this already, they could work it out pretty easily without help from a newspaper article or video.

He stole his own bike so he gave off no “nervous tension” that a person can pick up on.

This theme comes up repeatedly in the comments and it’s rubbish. Do people really think thieves go around looking nervous and shifty? And do they all look like strung out crackheads? I’d suggest not. Clean-cut middle class uni students nick stuff too (they just don’t go to jail because their parents hire expensive lawyers to defend them).

Comparing bike theft to murder? That’s serious hyperbole.

The story doesn’t actually compare bike theft to the murder of Kitty Genovese, the point is that social psychologists argue that the bystander effect is at play in both. I didn’t read that they were putting bike theft on the same degree of severity as murder.

And there’s an anecdote that supports my earlier suggestion on how to act in this situation:

I actually stopped some kids from stealing a bike once…I pretended it was my bike and went ape-shit on them, saying I was calling the cops and that they better run. They were just stupid teenage kids, they ran off, and I asked around about the bike at the bar. The owner was so happy that he promised me a reward, but no reward ever came.

How about that, hey?

[via C.I.C.L.E.]