A timely post?

Yesterday I was whining about the discomfort my neck feels from the head-whips I still do, years after my semi-beloved Trek was stolen. And what do I see this morning in my feed, but Yehuda Moon about to know the same pain.

Followed by THIS over at CycleDog.

Good wishes to anyone who has gone through this.

And if you haven't been reading Yehuda Moon & the Kickstand Cyclery, what's wrong with you?

Post Bike-Theft Trauma

So my actual bike theft happened a while back - better part of two years I think - but that hasn't lessened my annoyance. It hasn't lessened the whiplash-inducing head wrench that I engage in every time someone goes by on an even remotely similar bike. I've now moved across the country, and I still spin my head.

Let me back up a little so this all makes sense. A few months after I moved to Baltimore (call it March of 2006) my Trek 930 Singletrack (green/black/green, outfitted as a commuter bike and tweaked over a year of travel back and forth across the Oakland hills) was stolen out of my pick-up. It was my own fault since a camper shell isn't all that protective, but I was still irked at whoever did it. I made a brief tour of the closer pawn shops just in case, but mountain bikes are popular transport for the unlicensed pharmaceutical industry in Baltimore so I didn't have much hope. From that point on I took a look at every bike I saw going by to see if it was mine. For as long as I've been a serious commuter I've had swivel-head for bikes passing me by. After my bike was stolen I became obsessed. Any mountain bike got scoped out, if it was green I would stare.

I've now moved from Baltimore to California, there is no way my bike made the same trip, but I still find myself hunting for it. That being the case I've decided that I'm suffering from the bike-theft equivalent of PTSD, I just need a better name for it. Any ideas?

Bike commuting in the Bay Area 3

I mentioned that some BART stations have lockers that you apply for, and some now have first-come lockers. The last option for bike storage at BART stations is only available at a few stations, and is supervised bike parking.

Three stations (Fruitvale, Downtown Berkeley, Embarcadero) have bike parking. Fruitvale is operated by Alameda Bicycle and is located in the back of a small shop (great for getting new tubes). The others are in the BART stations themselves, and are operated in partnership with Bikestation. Unfortunately, all of these stations are on the wrong side of the hills for me.

I need to do a little legwork (har har) and check out the area around the stations at my end of the commute to see if there are options. If I had the money to ride a Rivendell (sigh, someday) I would stop by the shop and see if there was a way to park there, since they are walking distance from the Walnut Creek station.

Note - this whole set of posts was actually inspired by this article from the NY Times blog. The blurb that showed up in the reader irked me because it sounded as if the article was arguing that there should be government-sponsored bike valet parking set up, and I couldn't figure out why there needed to be government involvement. Then I read the piece and saw this:

The city (or perhaps a third party like Transportation Alternatives) should license the valets so people would be be confident that their valet isn’t a fly-by-night bike thief. The city has already used its licensing power to increase the availability of fruit and vegetable vendors in poorer neighborhoods, why not use it to increase parking valets?

Government licensing could be necessary, especially if the parking area is not right where the bikes are dropped off. The only one of these I've ever used is the one at Fruitvale, and you can see them wheel the bike into the back and place it on the rack. Plus, the fact that there is an obvious brick-and-mortar facility makes it a little easier to know who you would "go after" if your bike went missing.

Bike commuting in the Bay Area 2

My last post on commuting in the Bay Area was full of hill-love, this will be a little more of a downer. I mentioned last time that I liked to ride home over the hills rather than take the train. Even on those days I usually took the train partway, I just went over the hills first. The full trip is about 30 miles, one way, which is why I usually multi-moded it.

Where I worked before (Alameda) was a short hop from a BART station, about a 10 minute ride. That meant I needed my bike at both ends of the trip, which meant getting up really early. BART is semi-liberal with bikes, but excludes full sized (non-folding) bikes during commute hours which are ~ 7:00-9:00 AM and 4:30-6:45 PM. The issue I ran into before was that I would have to leave work really early to catch a train I could fit in (no bike-specific cars) which meant having to start really early so I could get my full 8 hours in.

The new office is across the street from a station, which means that bringing my bike with me is pointless unless I plan to ride after work. That means I'll be locking up at the station, which gives me the heebie-jeebies. Some stations have lockers that can be applied for. I have no idea how long the wait list is for the station near my dad's place, but the last time I was there I counted maybe 10 lockers. Apparently, some stations now have electronic, first-come/first-served lockers that can be registered for. The station near my dad's house is on the "coming soon" list. If I can't get a locker it means locking up outside which is something I've never had to do and I'm not at all comfortable with.

My plan is to check out the electronic lockers at one of the other stations (about twice as far away, but a locker would make it worth it), and time my ride to it. Hopefully I'll be able to do all that before I start working. If not, I'll check out the lockers by driving to that station for a couple of days during the week (to judge the usage) and time the ride on the weekend. The other option is to buy a folder, and as much as I'd love to do that I don't know how practical it would be. Given that my office is almost on top of the station at the other end of the trip, leaving the bike at the "home end" just makes more sense to me.

Is there anything worse (for cyclists)?

Not to get into a philosophical debate about the nature of evil, but the gentleman below must fall pretty high (low?) on the list of the worst. His name is Igor Kenk and he is believed to be responsible for the theft of 2,396 bicycles in Toronto.

I'm not going to repeat the whole sorry tale, which you can find at the Toronto Journal, but here is one part I found especially disheartening:

Oddly enough, the police and many bicyclists were aware that Mr. Kenk’s little shop, the Bicycle Clinic, appeared to be a black hole that consumed stolen bicycles. Bike theft victims regularly discovered their missing bicycles there, and were often able to recover them, either through vigorous argument or a payment of $30 or $40.

I've had a bike stolen, I think most cyclists have at one point or another. I lost mine because I was an idiot and left my bike in the back of my pickup (under a locked camper shell, but still) on a street that was not highly traveled at night. But to think that there was this sort of organized system operating in a city with as many cyclists as Toronto, and that no charges were successfully brought is just depressing.

Hopefully this time something will stick.

Why I have three bikes for just me - or - why I'll be paranoid all day.

I normally commute on my '72 Schwinn Speedster. It's a semi-zippy little tank, banana-yellow, with a 3-speed internal rear hub and a drum brake/generator front hub, a nice NOS Schwinn rear rack and some Wald folding baskets, a a nifty little OYB 5 way bag on the handlebars. In other words, a great city bike. Unfortunately, I couldn't ride it today because sometime between getting home last night and trying to get on it this morning all of the air decided to evacuate the rear tire. Since I was already pushing the late end of heading to work I didn't have the time to fix it. I debated driving and then decided to bring the Trucker instead.

It should go without saying that this is not what my Trucker currently looks like, but I don't have any other pics available online. That actually shocks me, because it means I didn't do a gooey post after it was finished. Anyway...eventually (as in, when I get the rest of the rear) the Trucker will be a touring rig. As of now I don't have racks of bags for it. That meant wearing the mess bag. Thankfully the weather has taken a turn for the cool today and I didn't end up with a monster sweaty back.

The problem, and the reason I'm going to be twitchy all day at my desk is that we don't have the most secure bike parking around. We have a few police barricades to lock up to, in a semi-obscured corner of the garage. There is no reason anyone not affiliated with the building would be in there, but this is a pricey and well loved bike.

Oh well, I'll just make a lot of trips up and down the stairs...

jp

It happens to everyone

Having your bike stolen really bites. I had my super-solid Trek 930 commuter bike stolen from my pick-up because I figured it was secure enough under the locked camper shell. Today I saw this - the British Conservative Party leader David Cameron had his bike stolen when he headed into a grocery store to pick up some food. From the article it sounds like he had locked up, but to a post that was short enough for the thief to just lift the bike off. I've heard of this happening to people when they lock up to gumball machine style parking meters as well.

A couple of interesting things for me in this. The first is that this serves as yet another reminder that locking up right is always important. The second appeals to the libertarian in me and involves the nearly ubiquitous CCTV cameras that the UK is known for:

Asked if there was CCTV in the area, (a police spokesman) said: "That's not something we would discuss on the theft of a bike."

So they won't even look at the cameras (if there were any there)? One more reason for me to dislike 'em.