I received the following email from David Drexler after he sent the photos of the sadly stripped bike at the Expo Line Bundy Station earlier this week.
I registered my bikes today at BikeIndex with pics. I had them always registered somewhere else.
You know — more people should register with pics on BikeIndex.
It was a sobering experience when I took 30 minutes to peruse the listings of bikes stolen. Keeping in mind that the ones listed are not all that have been stolen — many don’t register at Bike Index — and there were a ton. And when I put in my LA zip code and just using a 1 mile radius or 1 mile of Santa Monica beach zip code — the results were staggering.
I took the time to study what folks wrote about where the bike was when stolen and what kind of lock and basically all different locks and places and times of day. There was no safe haven lock or place from what I could see. And it was insignificant if there were cameras around. It is almost as if there are professional bike thieves just on a constant roam of Southern California ready with tools and portable saws at all times. Bikes have been stolen from every imaginable location including one guy that reports that he turned his back on a bike he brought into a convenience store for safety and someone ran out with it, from cars, from bike racks where a person cable and u-locked it to the rack. Thieves just tore apart the rack to get at the bike.
As a matter of fact, there are professional bike thieves roaming SoCal communities on a constant basis. Along with people stealing to support drug habits, homeless encampment bicycle chop shops, and people willing to steal your ride just because the opportunity presents itself.
And quite frankly, the odds of ever seeing your bike again once it’s gone are somewhere on a continuum between slim and none.
But you can raise those odd considerably by taking his advice and registering your bike for free with Bike Index right here on this site, and reporting it to the police if your bike is stolen.
And yes, police do check those listings when they find a stolen bike, and have returned bikes to their owners as a result.
So don’t wait. Take a few minutes to register your bike right now.
You have nothing to lose. Except maybe your bike if you don’t.
Full disclosure: This site does not receive any compensation, financial or otherwise, from Bike Index for hosting their registration and stolen bike listings. We just want to help you fight back against bike theft.
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Cycling Weekly ranks the year’s 100 top cyclists; the top ranked American is Megan Guarnier at #6, while the highest ranked American man is Andrew Talansky down at #84.
Belgian cyclist Greg Van Avermaet describes the mountain bike accident that left him with a broken ankle.
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Local
An editorial in the LA Daily News says the Metro bikeshare system is a good idea, but it costs too darn much.
CiclaValley tells the tale of his Veteran’s Day bike excursion into the Sierra foothills, while Milestone Ride’s Johnny Lam goes deeper into the Sierras for Adventure Cycling.
Long Beach gets a $50,000 grant to put on bike and pedestrian safety workshops.
State
The Orange County Transportation Authority will produce two videos focusing on the leading causes of bike and pedestrian injuries and deaths, once they figure out what they are.
Evidently, craft beer and bike lanes aren’t enough to get Millennials to move to San Diego. Then again, they don’t seem to be sticking around LA, either.
Plans are moving forward for the 50-mile CV Link bike path around the Coachella Valley, though bike riders and wheelchair users could be forced to use the dangerous Hwy 111 in places after two cities refuse to participate.
Ventura County cyclists are invited to take a survey on regional bicycle wayfinding.
This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. San Francisco will install a protected bike lane on a street where a woman was killed riding her bicycle earlier this year.
National
People for Bikes says Americans voted for bicycles in a big way, including passage of LA’s own Measure M.
The Guardian asks if Chicago’s proposed floating bikeway could overcome the doubters and reconnect the city.
The New York Times says blame mobile apps for the largest spike in traffic fatalities in 50 years.
New York police finally arrested a killer hit-and-run driver for deliberately running down a bicyclist as he rode in a bike lane.
An 83-year old Virginia man fought, and failed, to get a red light at an intersection near his home; it cost him his life this past weekend as he walked his bicycle in the crosswalk.
A New Orleans woman writes about ghost bikes in the city following the death of her friend. Yet the website oddly files it under “The Lighter Side.”
International
A writer for Bike Radar says the world may be a mess, but it’s still a beautiful place to explore on a bike.
London’s Mirror says the answer to the question of whether an ebike is worth buying is not quite yet.
London’s mayor kills plans for one of the city’s cycle superhighways, meaning the city probably won’t have any segregated bikeway from central to west London anytime soon.
A British mother is looking for an apology from the hit-and-run cyclist who knocked down her five-year old daughter and just kept going.
A man in the UK says cyclists should be required to carry liability insurance if they insist on riding in the roadway; his petition has garnered nearly 30,000 signatures.
Irish prisoners have refurbished 2,000 bicycles to give to school children in Africa; meanwhile, bikeshare has come to the continent despite a near total lack of infrastructure.
A TV host in Zimbabwe faces charges in the death of a bicyclist who was riding in a cycle track.
Even when a bike lane doesn’t work out, it only cost an Aussie city a total of $20,000 to paint it and rip it out again.
As internet-based bikeshare gains popularity in China, providers struggle for a share of public space.
Finally…
Now you can ride the famed Little 500 on a board when you’re bored. The impetuous, alcoholic and bushy-bearded inventor of the Pedersen bike.
And rising from the dead to ride nearly 2,000 miles, minus an arm and a leg.
Been noticing & chatting with Bike Index folks on their Facebook page, as they often proudly post about helping someone get their stolen bike back & share the story & a photo. They seem to be quite friendly & helpful and the service is free.
I’ve reported suspicious bike sellers around here to the LAPD & they did seem interested but not sure if they did anything. There have been bikes reported stolen at our wonderful Cyclavia events too. Thefts even happen from the bike transport racks on the front of metro buses, kinda rare but happens.
I know some folks have gotten their bikes back after finding them for sale on craigslist. And arrangements to get the bike back range from “oh wow” to contacting the police to assist with the recovery.
Johnny Lam goes deeper into the Sierra’s for Adventure Cycling. delete this comment – but probably should be “Sierras”
No need to delete. Stupid mistake on my part.
“Stripped bike Bundy” link points to wrong article. Delete this comment.
Oops, my mistake. I didn’t scroll down far enough.
It is a good thing that localities have decided to fund more bike ped work. With Trump’s election we can expect less federal dollars flowing back to even do matching. Sadface.
Nice that we blame the apps for the rise in deaths in NYC. Drivers get a free pass by blaming something that is totally within their control.