[HN Gopher] My bike was stolen (2017)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       My bike was stolen (2017)
        
       Author : davidhaymond
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2022-12-14 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (schollz.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (schollz.com)
        
       | Karsteski wrote:
       | I could not even imagine the police getting off their butts to do
       | anything about a stolen bike, much less going along with a
       | regular person's investigation. Great work, I wish more police
       | were willing to actually do things when members of the public
       | take the initiative
        
         | mrexroad wrote:
         | Fwiw, the police helped me successfully recover my kid's stolen
         | bike and arrested the thief/seller as soon as I ID'd our bike
         | at the "meet-up."
         | 
         | It's easy to over generalize.
        
           | ProAm wrote:
           | YMMV - I see zero help with home burglaries let alone stolen
           | bikes. Depends on a lot of factors, just sucks you pay taxes
           | for no benefits.
        
             | brianwawok wrote:
             | Depends where you live. SF you are getting a laugh. Tiny
             | rural town you are getting the sherif and his full effort.
        
         | bowsamic wrote:
         | Yeah here in Germany you would be laughed out of the police
         | station or the police would get aggressive with you and accuse
         | you of committing a crime
        
           | JanSt wrote:
           | Ummm no? Two weeks ago I saw a guy trying to steal a bike and
           | called the police. Three police cars arrived within 3 minutes
           | and they tried to find him for at least 30 minutes based on
           | my description.
        
             | bowsamic wrote:
             | Maybe it's a Hamburg thing then. Everyone I know who has
             | tried to report a crime here in Hamburg has been
             | interrogated and harassed by the police
        
               | Tarsul wrote:
               | there's a huge difference between catching the thieves in
               | the act and trying to get your bike back afterwards.
               | Actually, I have experienced both cases: Once my brother
               | saw how thieves were trying to steal a bike and informed
               | the police, who acted. Another time I saw my stolen bike
               | basically 300m next to a police station and went there
               | and everything they said was: We don't have policemen
               | here who have time for this. And all I could think (I was
               | a teenager then): WHAT? You are at the reception and not
               | doing anything... I didn't think about stealing it back,
               | though.... (both cases were in Bergedorf ;))
        
               | Eleison23 wrote:
        
             | rolph wrote:
             | any idea what the price tag on the bike was? im in US and
             | we have a threshold of value, beyond which it is a very
             | serious crime.
        
             | xeromal wrote:
             | Ummm no is randomly sassy.
        
           | 908B64B197 wrote:
           | Accusing the victims or just flat-out covering crime seems to
           | be a common practice over there, at least for things much
           | worse than property crimes [0] [1] [2].
           | 
           | [0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany
           | /12...
           | 
           | [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/cologne-
           | poli...
           | 
           | [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-fn0yCdqHg
           | 
           | Apparently you might get lucky.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | Yeah this is an amazing story. The only bike theft I've ever
         | heard of where the police actually did something.
         | 
         | It does reconfirm just how little they care about bike theft
         | though - literally all they had to do was email the thief and
         | he would come to them! But no even that is too much work.
        
           | boomerango wrote:
           | The frustrating thing is that if the police even
           | _occasionally_ stung bike thieves, theft would likely
           | decrease disproportionately. Something about not having total
           | impunity...
        
             | jacquesm wrote:
             | They do that in NL, google 'lokfiets'. In NL stealing a
             | bike puts you at roughly the same level as a horse thief in
             | the Wild West. We just don't hang them from trees.
             | Unfortunately here too the police is often too busy with
             | more important work to go after stolen bikes but since the
             | really bad days (the 80's) bike theft here has definitely
             | gone down. I still wouldn't leave a high value bike (say a
             | newish e-bike or a nice racer) out of my sight though.
        
         | nabilhat wrote:
         | Police actually often do retrieve stolen bikes! Not most of the
         | time, and not because stealing a bike is a crime, and not
         | because they know it's stolen. In the US, if one or more bikes
         | are in the posession of the (ahem) kind of person that your
         | local police have motivation to shake down, they may be
         | confiscated if they're in that person's possession when they
         | do.
         | 
         | If the bike is valuable enough to be worth the effort, it will
         | eventually be listed for sale by the police, usually through an
         | "unclaimed property" continuous auction system. If the bike
         | doesn't clear whatever value/revenue threshold that is, it'll
         | be scrapped or donated and that's that, or sometimes it'll end
         | up bundled with a bunch of other low value things as a single
         | auction item.
         | 
         | If your bike is valuable enough to generate revenue greater
         | than the expense of auction logitics and is stolen in the US,
         | pay attention to police auctions in your general area and it's
         | likely to turn up. Sometimes they'll skip the sale and give it
         | to you if you have documentation proving that it's yours,
         | sometimes they want you to point them to the police report you
         | filed saying it was stolen. Sometimes they'll lol and you have
         | to pay up anyway.
        
       | MomoXenosaga wrote:
       | 1990: oh darn it not again! Find the nearest junkie and give them
       | fl25
       | 
       | 2022: call the insurance company to explain the EUR3000 van Moof
       | is on it's way to Romania
        
       | SeanLuke wrote:
       | I have an unusual folding bike. It's a Bike Friday Tikit, and
       | basically has a Steal Me sign attached to it. But it also can be
       | folded extremely rapidly and covered with a custom built-in cover
       | so it looks like, oh, a tuba case.
       | 
       | My anti-theft strategy is: my bike has never had a lock. This
       | forces me to fold and cover it and take it in with me wherever I
       | go. Office buildings, federal buildings in DC (really), offices
       | in the Smithsonian, labs. Restaurants nearly universally allow me
       | to bring it in and tuck it somewhere because as long as it's
       | covered no customer is going to complain; they don't even notice
       | it. It's like a Jedi mind cloak. This was the case for Rome as
       | well, when I had the bike there for about a year.
       | 
       | The only place I ever had an issue was the National Science
       | Foundation. I biked to a panel meeting only to discover they
       | wouldn't let me take the bike in. There was a bike cage in the
       | basement but for "employees only". And the guard station wouldn't
       | let me tuck the bike there out of liability concern. However it
       | turns out that the panel meeting was on a second floor room which
       | coincidentally was attached via a sky bridge to a shopping mall
       | across the street with no guard station. The guards hinted that I
       | take the bike to the mall, up the escalator, across the bridge,
       | and right into the room. Which I did.
        
         | hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
         | Rules is rules!
        
         | kelnos wrote:
         | I really like that the guards recognized that the rule was
         | stupid, and sneakily gave you a workaround. It's just a shame
         | that inflexible, arbitrary rules end up existing in the first
         | place, and that (presumably) the guard would have gotten in
         | trouble if they'd let you in directly.
        
       | dahart wrote:
       | Last year I had a very similar story, though in my case the
       | police were not only helpful, at first they encouraged me to make
       | first contact and initiate the sting! This was primarily due to
       | them being short staffed the night I found my bike listed online,
       | but I was pretty sure the police were going to advise that I stay
       | clear of the thief, which is what most of my clear-headed friends
       | said.
       | 
       | Due to a storm I stalled a little, and it was enough that the
       | police went and did the sting without me. They called me to come
       | get it where it went down, and there was a whole team there
       | looking very proud. They said less than 1% of cases bikes get
       | recovered because nobody registers their bikes, and not many
       | people call them. There's a whole warehouse full of unclaimed
       | bikes.
       | 
       | The thief was a serial offender, but also homeless which I feel
       | bad about. He had to go to court and I got several letters
       | requesting I share my story of the financial damage the theft
       | caused me, but since I got the bike back there wasn't any to
       | speak of.
        
       | progre wrote:
       | I like the writing style. Compact sentences. Reminds me of Erlend
       | Loe's first few books.
        
         | rsync wrote:
         | I have been experimenting these past few years with an even
         | more condensed style of writing which I have termed "Iceberg
         | Articles".
         | 
         | Here is the iceberg article on the topic of Iceberg Articles:
         | 
         | https://john.kozubik.com/pub/IcebergArticle/tip.html
         | 
         | I think you'll get the idea, but here is another example which
         | is a work in progress:
         | 
         | https://john.kozubik.com/pub/NetworkSlug/tip.html
         | 
         | ... and yes, I am aware that the opposite of the "tip" of an
         | iceberg is a "bummock" but I decided to just use "body".
        
         | techsupporter wrote:
         | Same here. I must be jaded because every time I click to read a
         | story like this, I am fully expecting:
         | 
         | "Someone stole my bike. Here's how I got it back.
         | 
         | It was an unexpectedly warm day in the hills of Colorado, back
         | in October of 1967. My father--or, rather the person who would
         | eventually become my father, because he didn't yet know it--
         | relaxed on the porch after finally getting to those weeds his
         | mother had been pestering him to work on. My soon-to-be-mother,
         | or at least the soon-to-be-bride to my father as they'd not met
         | as of yet, rode _her_ bicycle along a well-worn trail just
         | outside the woods of rural Vermont.
         | 
         | Did you know that rural Vermont is where Bernie Sanders was
         | born? Except that's not true because he was actually born in
         | New York City some twenty five years earlier. Twenty-five,
         | incidentally, being the age at which someone is eligible to
         | serve in the United States Congress.
         | 
         | [sixteen paragraphs from the Australian parliament to Kevin
         | Bacon later]
         | 
         | So, anyway, I was able to buy my bike back from the thief on
         | Craigslist. I even negotiated the price down a whole $100!"
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | You must frequent the same recipe sites I do.
        
       | theturtletalks wrote:
       | I had the same bike stolen twice and was able to find it on
       | Facebook marketplace both times. The key is to file a police
       | report and make sure you have the serial number of the bike.
       | Without these, the police will not help. Once you find your bike,
       | message the person, negotiate, set-up a meet up, and then get the
       | police involved.
       | 
       | Although we caught the guys selling the stolen bikes red-handed,
       | the police couldn't do anything. The guys just claimed they
       | bought it from someone else and were trying to flip it for
       | higher.
        
         | chroma wrote:
         | So the police didn't do any detective work, didn't help with
         | the sting operation, and they didn't punish the thief. It seems
         | like it'd be more fruitful to get a few of your friends and
         | solve the problem yourself. It's not like the thief is going to
         | go to the cops.
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | > It's not like the thief is going to go to the cops.
           | 
           | That's a rather bold statement. A friend was sexually
           | assaulted in a public bathroom, punched the person who did
           | it, and then my friend had assault charges filed on him by
           | that person. My friend was able to plea to non-criminal
           | charges, but it certainly wasn't a pleasant experience.
        
           | vorpalhex wrote:
           | One of the hallmarks of a justice system is the presence of a
           | neutral judge and a defense attorney.
           | 
           | Mob violence is most certainly not just.
        
             | kelnos wrote:
             | Vigilantism isn't ideal, but what else is a person to do
             | when law enforcement refuses to do its job? Not sure "just
             | let it go" is a great answer to that.
        
             | michael1999 wrote:
             | The police already foreclosed any access to your justice
             | via budget priority. Now we're discussing various flavours
             | of injustice.
        
             | chroma wrote:
             | I agree with you. The legal system's job is to substitute
             | for vigilantes. In this case the legal system doesn't
             | provide certain services adequately, so the incentives
             | favor vigilantism.
        
             | curtisblaine wrote:
             | Also the presence of an executive part of the government
             | which enforces law. If that is missing, the justice system
             | is broken just the same. I don't understand why often we
             | find it unfair when mob justice is administered (and it is
             | unfair) but we don't find unfair that the police refuses to
             | administer justice.
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | What, if you take the GP's comment as true, is very
             | troublesome. But you didn't invalidate the GP in any way.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | mrexroad wrote:
         | Had same story, except at the meet up, the cops arrested the
         | bike thief. It might have helped that the cop recognized both
         | the thief and thief's "back up" muscle guy hanging out ~30'
         | away, ordering him by name to walk away as he approached.
        
         | CodeWriter23 wrote:
         | Convenient how the police just skipped right over how receiving
         | stolen property is a crime.
        
           | rolph wrote:
           | where i am they let small things slide, for a while, then
           | they switch from intell mode to enforcement, and do a crime
           | suppression sweep, that goes right up to the persons that
           | "govern" that economy.
        
           | theturtletalks wrote:
           | It was a different person selling the bike both times. I
           | think the police got their info, but if they didn't have a
           | history of stealing, they let them go. If they are caught
           | again, I hope the police charge them.
        
           | nostromo wrote:
           | It's not so easy -- you have to prove that they know (or
           | should have known) it was stolen, which isn't easy.
           | 
           | People like to blame the cops for everything, but the
           | prosecutors are where the current breakdown in law and order
           | is happening.
        
       | abruzzi wrote:
       | I was waiting for the story to end with "the police impounded my
       | bike for evidence, so I still don't have my bike." Nice that it
       | actually worked out for him.
        
       | Apreche wrote:
       | The cops said they don't have the time or resources to retrieve
       | the stolen bike. But they also have an entire force who has
       | nothing better to do than retrieve the stolen bike after the
       | citizen has done their jobs for them.
       | 
       | ACAB
        
         | FrankieTT wrote:
        
           | raegis wrote:
           | The white supremacist ideology is strong with this one.
        
             | FrankieTT wrote:
        
         | more_corn wrote:
         | They don't have time to investigate. They're happy to show up
         | at an arrest after all the investigation work is done and the
         | thief is handed to them on a silver platter. Especially given
         | the alternative.
        
         | nverno wrote:
         | They seemed pretty helpful in this case. If they had said they
         | were on it, it would have discouraged him from taking
         | initiative- and they would probably fail 99% of the time
         | retrieving a stolen bike- they often get shipped out-of-state
         | in batches by pros.
        
         | germinalphrase wrote:
         | Consider the premise that the primary role of law enforcement
         | is not to prevent crime, but to avoid vigilante justice. In
         | that case, it is perfectly logical to ignore crimes with low
         | probability of identifying the criminal and (relatively) low
         | cost to the victim. If the perpetrator is exposed, it's now in
         | the interest of law enforcement to step in and avoid a
         | (potentially escalating) conflict between victim and
         | perpetrator.
        
       | BashiBazouk wrote:
       | A long time ago I had a bicycle stolen. I had registered the bike
       | with the city as "required" had filled out a police report with
       | license number and serial number. Found the bike locked up in
       | town on a Friday night. Flagged down a police officer and told
       | him about the bicycle theft, police report and had a copy of the
       | paperwork with all the relevant info. Cops reply: I can't get a
       | locksmith out until Monday. Went home and got a wire cutter as
       | the bike had a flimsy lock and stole it right back. Even if you
       | do all the work for them, cops are useless for bicycles...
        
         | nostromo wrote:
         | This is entirely dependent on what city you live in and who you
         | elect to local leadership positions.
         | 
         | My brother's bike was stolen in college when he lived in Logan
         | Utah. As a non-native he was shocked to find that the cops put
         | out a description of the stolen bike immediately and it was
         | spotted and returned within hours. I believe an arrest was also
         | made.
         | 
         | There's no reason we just need to accept that you can steal
         | anything you like and nobody will care. This is a direct
         | response to the people we're putting in power.
        
           | TreeRingCounter wrote:
        
         | blindstitch wrote:
         | I have a similar story - I had a bike that was lost for a few
         | years, then a friend recognized it in a pile of about 50 stolen
         | bikes in a basement nearby. The cops were useless for other
         | than getting me inside the building. Luckily the thief was too
         | lazy/stupid to set the code on the lock (it was still 0-0-0),
         | so I was able to just remove it and take my bike back.
        
         | fknorangesite wrote:
         | > Even if you do all the work for them, cops are useless for
         | bicycles...
         | 
         | It's not just bicycles.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Anyone who thinks cops will help recover stolen items has
           | never had an item stolen.
           | 
           | If you're _really_ lucky you might get a call back someday on
           | a car.
        
             | avidiax wrote:
             | From what I've heard, you usually don't want a stolen car
             | back. The thieves will not be taking good care of it.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | Oh, sure, and sometimes you luck out (if you had
               | insurance) where you get the claim payout and get to keep
               | the crap car (because insurance doesn't want to bother
               | with it). But that's rare.
        
         | jjtheblunt wrote:
         | around 1996 I had my bike, locked up on campus at my
         | University, stolen from a campus bike rack, by the campus
         | police, in essentially a new-employee fuckup. My bike was in
         | the database, labelled, serial number registered.
         | 
         | So i reported it stolen, they facepalmed and said they took it
         | off a campus bike rack (cutting the lock), and sold it, with
         | others, at a campus auction.
         | 
         | I found it locked up at the engineering library some time
         | later, but it was beat to shit by the person who had bought it,
         | whereas i'd taken care of it (it was 15ish years old when
         | stolen) like something expensive that i couldn't even afford
         | when grandparents bought it for me.
         | 
         | Total goofup all around.
        
           | thatguy0900 wrote:
           | So they just take bikes that arnt registered with them? That
           | seems very aggressive and strange to me to begin with. I've
           | never heard of trying to tax bycicles like that.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | University is the key. They're often trying to deal with
             | absolute masses of bikes but even so this sounds like an
             | overreach (and probably should have been handled via small
             | claims court or similar).
        
               | jjtheblunt wrote:
               | Yep it was a mistake, and they admitted such. I thought
               | of small claims but for a then old 10 speed bike no
               | longer made, i figured i'd squander more time and effort
               | than the cost of replacing it.
        
               | Fatnino wrote:
               | Small claims court is self serve, no lawyer needed. It's
               | as simple as filling out a form and plonking down $75 or
               | so. And you can add that fee to the damages so it costs
               | you nothing.
        
               | jjtheblunt wrote:
               | that i did not know at all!
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | And usually it results in either the company completely
               | ignoring you (you get a default judgement in your favor)
               | or they just write you a check to make you go away.
        
             | jjtheblunt wrote:
             | My bike was clearly registered with them. It had a clear
             | sticker on it too, besides serial number. It was just a
             | noob mistake, gone haywire.
        
         | casey2 wrote:
         | Why you wanted the government to live your life for you in the
         | first place is beyond me.
        
       | smm11 wrote:
       | I know of someone who, during the pandemic, noticed a certain
       | homeless encampment that regularly had $8K bikes lying around.
       | Because a homeless person would certainly possess a six-month-old
       | carbon World Cup race bike.
       | 
       | The person went to the camp regularly for a while, with a
       | baseball bat, and retrieved bikes. They had 5 in the garage at
       | one point. Doing so was more hassle, though, once they were in
       | possession, than just letting people with such bikes file
       | insurance claims and what-not.
        
         | dopu wrote:
         | What a sad human being they must be.
        
           | truth777 wrote:
           | Found the bike thief!
        
         | shiftpgdn wrote:
         | Is this in Austin by any chance?
        
       | denis2022 wrote:
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | artbristol wrote:
       | My bike was stolen this year when I visited Utrecht, in the
       | Netherlands. It wasn't even my bike: it was my sister's folding
       | Birdy. They retail for over EUR2000 these days, but I assumed
       | that thieves would be put off by the fifteen years of scratches
       | and dents on it. Also by the EUR135 German lock.
       | 
       | I locked it up next to a bike path, with lots of other bikes. I
       | made sure to fold the handlebar down so it couldn't possibly
       | interfere with passing cyclists. I met my Dutch friend and had
       | wonderful pedalo journey around the city. Utrecht is great, you
       | should visit.
       | 
       | When I got back it was gone. There was a young woman nearby, in
       | tears. Her bike was also gone. My memory's not what it used to
       | be: had I, in fact, left it somewhere else? But I then found what
       | remained of my lock: a cleanly sliced 5cm long section.
       | 
       | It wasn't insured but I thought I'd report it to the police
       | anyway. Always good to have up-to-date crime statistics! And it's
       | unusual enough in terms of model and colour that maybe I'd get it
       | back one day. The police were polite and spoke excellent English.
       | However, a tourist reporting a stolen bike apparently required
       | assistance from a second, and then a third, member of staff. It
       | took over twenty-five minutes of wrangling with computers and
       | ring binders to establish that I needed to have an in-person
       | interview to report the theft. No, none of the three staff were
       | able to do that now. I'd have to book one. When was the next
       | available interview slot? Not until next week, after my departure
       | from the city.
       | 
       | Later that night I was morosely googling "bike crime utrecht".
       | Cheering myself up with bit of confirmation bias. Despite not
       | reading Dutch I was able to figure out from the local
       | government's website that there is a depot to which the
       | authorities remove illegally-parked bikes. Not only that, it has
       | a web interface where you can search for your bike. I do wonder
       | why the police didn't mention this possibility during our lengthy
       | encounter.
       | 
       | My bike was, of course, there. I sheepishly collected it, paying
       | the nominal fee, and failing to dispute the "evidence" that they
       | provide in their computer system (a photo of a sign prohibiting
       | bike parking. I went back to the scene of the crime later; the
       | sign was nowhere near, and was even on the other side of the
       | road).
       | 
       | Moral of the story: use one of the many free municipal bike parks
       | when you're in the Netherlands.
        
       | w0mbat wrote:
       | This should be tagged 2017.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Added. Thanks!
         | 
         | (Edit: if anyone wants to volunteer to add correct years to
         | titles, please email hn@ycombinator.com)
        
       | kraquepype wrote:
       | Glad this had a happy ending. I'm still torn up about my own
       | bike, stolen in broad daylight. It was my fault - it wasn't
       | locked up.
       | 
       | It was an old bonded aluminum frame Trek, it squeaked when you
       | bore down on it but it was upgraded and tweaked just the way I
       | like it. I haven't felt the same about cycling since.
        
         | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
         | > It was my fault - it wasn't locked up.
         | 
         | Pretty sure it's still the thief's fault. (I dunno, maybe you
         | were in Amsterdam at the time.)
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Yeah, it might not be _smart_ to leave a bike or car
           | unlocked, but it is till the thief 's fault it got stolen.
        
         | dahart wrote:
         | > it squeaked when you bore down on it
         | 
         | My old trek commuter just started doing that. Then I inspected
         | the frame and found some cracks around where the cabling comes
         | out. Went to buy a new bike and the shop said, well at least go
         | check if they'll warranty it. So I did, my local shop just
         | happened to have the 15 year old original receipt archived.
         | They sent photos to Trek, and Trek warrantied a replacement.
         | And it was a full bike replacement, even though I stripped the
         | old bike. I felt very sheepish about taking a new bike after
         | the very well used bike frame failed (maybe abused? I was
         | touring on it, a lot, not just commuting). I told the shop I
         | felt like I was cheating, and they said "take the bike and
         | don't even worry, Trek makes it easy and they like doing it for
         | loyalty. Plus, other people have brought back 30 year old
         | bikes, so you're not even on the list of crazy stories." Wow. I
         | definitely feel some loyalty to both Trek and this shop after
         | this... I won't hesitate to buy another Trek from them once I
         | need one.
        
           | kraquepype wrote:
           | That is great, I'm glad they honored the warranty so well for
           | you. Mine was really old - an early aluminum frame, it wasn't
           | welded but bonded together - but now I wonder what they would
           | have done if I had asked.
        
         | deltarholamda wrote:
         | Yeah, I had my bike stolen when I was at university. It was my
         | only form of transportation (other than legging it) too.
         | 
         | (I didn't even try the police. A lot of bikes got stolen there,
         | and they were not going to spend their time on this sort of
         | crime.)
         | 
         | It wasn't particularly great, just an off-brand mountain bike,
         | but I loved it. I had a more intimate relationship with it than
         | I've had with any car I've ever driven. There's just something
         | about getting a bike set up _exactly_ the way you like it,
         | where it fits you and your style of riding just perfectly.
        
       | xrayarx wrote:
       | I was just wondering, wether airtags or similar technology would
       | be helpful in this kind of situation
        
         | ndsipa_pomu wrote:
         | Airtags could be detected if the thief has an iPhone and gets a
         | warning that they're being tracked.
        
         | matsemann wrote:
         | There are special devices like BikeFinder[0] as well. Where I
         | live it give you a reduced price on insurance. Worth it if you
         | have an expensive e-bike for commuting etc that you often have
         | to park outside. It has some more features than an airtag: It
         | can phone home itself without being near a phone, can alert you
         | the moment the bike is moved etc.
         | 
         | [0]: https://bikefinder.com/
        
         | e40 wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33987801
         | 
         | Yes.
        
       | ndsipa_pomu wrote:
       | I wish bike manufacturers would start including GPS devices into
       | the frames of high-end bikes. The devices would need some access
       | to insert SIMs and charge them and then it should act as a
       | deterrent.
        
         | walthamstow wrote:
         | My Van Moof bike has this, they even offer an additional
         | service where they go and get the bike back for you
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Does this service involve very large men all wearing black
           | and ear pieces?
        
             | aidenn0 wrote:
             | There was a post a while back from someone who did this for
             | Van Moof. The majority of the time a simple "that bike was
             | stolen, can you give it back" works just fine.
        
         | subroutine wrote:
         | Something like an airtag would probably work.
        
           | Kalium wrote:
           | Airtags and similar _can_ work, but there are downsides. For
           | one, AirTags specifically have a series of anti-stalker
           | features. That means a thief knows the bike is being tracked.
           | Second, any tracker you hide on the bike can be found by a
           | thief and removed.
           | 
           | Having it integrated by the manufacturer means both avoiding
           | Apple's measures and making it _much_ harder to find and
           | remove. So it 's generally a preferable option when possible.
        
           | mrWiz wrote:
           | I think it would be hard to hide an airtag effectively on a
           | metal-framed bike. Putting it in the frame would interfere
           | with wireless communication and any other location would be
           | easily discovered.
        
             | benhurmarcel wrote:
             | That's correct [1], but there are plenty of accessories to
             | hide one pretty well still.
             | 
             | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLtWN1Mp2Qc
        
         | Kalium wrote:
         | This is such a good idea that a number of high-end bike
         | manufacturers agree with you and do so. VanMoof is one example,
         | but they are not the only ones.
        
         | collyw wrote:
         | Cyclists can get incredibly OCD about weight, they will buy
         | bolts from more expensive material to save tiny amounts of
         | weight. Peron anally I always found this a bit strange as
         | things like cutting your hair would likely save more weight.
        
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