Originally Posted by
indyfabz
0 and 0.
In fact, the only place I have had a bike stolen is from inside my house while I was home and awake.
I enjoy finding neglected, unloved machines and bringing them back to life I try not to pay more than $100 and over time I've a large collection of parts. My workshop is in Berkeley Ca a hot spot for thieves.
I've returned to BART to find nothing but a brocken U lock and chain, they got a POS GMC Denali leaving higher end machines behind, the GMC had no decals the frame was just highly polished aluminum and with black spoked wheels it looked the ****. Fast forward 12mths after a hard days work I get on the BART in S.F. strap my Schwinn Curcuit with cool white Sante gear set to the rack on the train and fell asleep, I woke in Richmond with no bike. I don't remember what I paid for it ,thats irrelavent, it had been a basket case and I spent hours lovingly restoring it. I was gutted.
Third times a charm,reading in the sun on campus I fell asleep in the grass, plenty of people around . It was chilly and the sun was going down when I woke.My unique looking Bianchi was gone as was my back pack containing an extremely heavy duty chain and combination lock, open to the combination.
At this point I lost my **** and turned green. On the corner of Shattuck and University outside the MacDonalds was known ground zero for homeless tweakers and bike thieves.
I made it very clear to them and anyone else that would listen I would find my bike and remove the hands of whoever was unlucky to be in possesion of it. I also offered $20 NQA for information. I hit a few more spots ,no luck.
Three days later leaving Downtown Berkeley BART I found it chained to the bike rack with my padlock.The offside pedal had been stripped (retap $35 Missing link) but the combination was unchanged. That was 5+ years ago. I now live downtown SanFrancisco and still have the Bianchi. I take it for granted that I can't turn my back on any bike but that is not going to stop me enjoying the fruits of my labor. I tried the beater angle,loosing a Mongoose and a Giant I locked to itself.
My bike comes with me unless theres one of the manned bike parking places that are popping up.
OK I realize falling asleep was dumb please don't rub it in.