| Shaw, sorry to hear the bad news... It's stories like yours that give me
the fuel to give hell right back to all the folks who think I'm nuts when
I 'strip' my bike down to carry it around on my car! Growing up in NYC I'm
rather paranoid about theft in general and it's incidents like this that
keep me thinking that way...
Personally, I try not to leave anything worth value attached to the bike,
but I would never have thought to take the seat! What some people will do...
Craig
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| Once upon a time, I left a guitar in it's case in the back seat of my
car. A friend riding with me asked if I was going to leave it like
that. I replied that the car was locked, so what was the problem? To
which he replied something like, "If I saw that guitar in a car, I'd
break the window and take the guitar, because the idiot who owned it is
too stupid to deserve it." This guy was dead serious, and it looked
like he was debating whether or not to ditch me and steal the guitar.
I put it in the trunk, and we weren't friends too long after that.
He didn't even play guitar - that's when I realized that there are
people out there who think differently than I do. I strip my bike when
it's out of sight, and I lock it up even when I stop for 30 seconds at
a convenience store. Every time I'm tempted to be lazy, I get this
picture of somebody saying, "look, some jerk left his bike unlocked!"
I've been commuting (on and off) for about 20 years, and still have my
original road bike and all it's pieces, thanks to that lesson. I have
a quick release seat post (like we really need that, eh?) and I've
actually worried about the seat being stolen. Thanks for the info -
I'll put a bolt on it.
ciao,
Mike
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| Some food for thought here. I ride long rides on the weekend and
often have to stop at convenience stores to buy food or drink. I have
nicely fitted road bikes but don't use a bike computer, I do leave my
wallet in a bag attached to my bike ( I keep money in a plastic bag
in my shirt after having my wallet fall out of the open bag a couple of
years ago - a teenager found the wallet then contacted me at home, I
had cancelled all the credit cards but was happy to get my drivers
license back - I gave the kid all the money that was in the wallet
because I figured that he could have had it anyway ).
I remember one time I had stopped at a store and had a guy come
up to me. He seemed to have known a lot about bikes and asked me
several questions about mine. I am not normally suspicious but I did
not feel good about this guy so I stayed at my bike until I saw him
get into a car and drive away.
Based on what I read here, I will probaly start leaving my wallet
at home and just carry an ID tag with my name, blood type, allergies,
and home address.
Abe;
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| I admit it's been a number of years since I've lived in the big city of
of Portland (Maine, not the other place :')), but bicycle thefts were
very prevalent, even then. I never left my bicycle outside of stores,
and walked it into and around the store when I went stopped to shop.
I got strange looks from some of the merchants but never got a complaint.
I assumed that they wanted my business and realized that I didn't want to
lose hundreds dollars while patronizing their businesses. Leaving
a bicycle outside and unattended IS asking for theft.
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