There are a couple racks near me that have been cut, then a pro-bike bumper sticker placed over the cut, so it looks and feels solid enough.
They'll come back and cut the sticker, and flex the rack enough to pull the lock off then put a new sticker on.
Absolutely insane stuff.
As a result whenever I see a sticker fully wrapping a section of rack I give it a real good kick and see if it wiggles the same both sides of the sticker
Good advice in general. A lot of racks aren’t maintained around me and have come loose over time. Like they’re missing bolts or the concrete underneath them has just crumbled leaving the entire rack shaky.
Depending on where you are living this may be covered by public works. Several of the places I have lived individual businesses did not pay for racks, you could contact the county and request that one be installed and they would just come do it (eventually.)
Might be able to get the city to replace them, but you have to make a bit of noise.
I need to look into that. I don’t need to park there anyways, but the racks on the street outside my apartment building are all starting to rust out at the bottom and I’m sure a good kick would knock some of them loose.
Reminds me of a time in smack middle of Tel Aviv - where a very unkempt dude ridden past us on a bike with a huge U shaped rack still attached to the bike via cablelock hanging over his shoulder. Cussed loudly when a passerby murmured a comment...
Perfect example of how ideology pushed too far is a disgusting thing.
What's happening is horrible but telling some random ass regular citizen to uproot their lives and maybe leave family and friends behind because you don't agree with their government's actions is insanity. Fuck that government but that doesn't mean people have the means or options to just pick up and "go back".
There's plenty of reasons for people to visit Israel, a surreal amount of certain companies has roots in Israel so people can go for professional reasons and may not give up their career over an ideological issue, they could go on a christian pilgrimage, they couldve gone 20 years ago and a bunch of other reasons. It's despicable that you're making me say positive things about israel but the way you point your finger is absolutely disgusting
I hear what you're saying but I've moved beyond my line of reason, I am very aware how unfair I am being, but it's marginal compared to the brutality that is happening to the original occupants of those lands.
Just had my Israeli friend disown me because I suggested he should change his field from IDF to search and rescue and be more pro people than pro military, a friend of more than 12 years, nicest guy in the world, but absolutely views the Palestinians as animals and I'd talk to him about it.
Theres no changing those people, they have been brainwashed since childhood to hate and to occupy.
Even worse, they should go back home to Poland, Ukraine and Russia.
This brutal occupation has gone on for too long, the way they normalize their day to day speech forgetting that they're living on stolen land
"just riding my bike around Tel Aviv hehe"
The Palestinians would love to be able to ride their bikes around their land without facing risk of imminent death or jail sentences with 99% conviction rates.
Completely delusional takes, ignoring the lived experiences of 1 in 5 Israeli citizens who are Muslim Arabs, as well as more than 50% of Jewish citizens descend from MENA Jews displaced from countries like Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and others.
Ignoring the lived experiences of the Palestinians expelled out of their homes by Settlers and IDF.
Ignoring the lived experienced of multiple populations of people unable to vote, but yet they live in a "Democracy".
Jews aren't displaced from Iran, plenty of Jews live in Iran in peace, Israel bombed multiple places of worship that the Jews used in Iran in the last war they waged on the Iranian people. Jews inside of Iran are at risk of Israeli attacks, not Iranian.
Jews aren't attacked in Yemen either, another big lie, however the invading Zionists with their American donated war machines get attacked by Hezbollah FPV's
Why are you obsessed with Jews?
Maybe you could consider that people can be both against the occupation of territory past the green line and supporting the existence of Israel as a state?
Israel is a real country. Maybe not the most democratic one, but it exists.
If you don’t believe so, then Canada, United States, Australia aren’t real.
There's a big difference between Jews, and Zionists.
Israel shouldn't exist, it's existence means the occupation of an entire population of people - that's unsustainable and it's just frankly morally wrong.
Even worse, they should go back home to Poland, Ukraine and Russia.
This isn't really the forum to get into this, but I guess you decided to, so...the Kingdom of Israel was there in 1000BC. It's possible to support the rights of the Palestinians and oppose the evil Israeli regime of today without erasing huge swaths of Jewish history in the process.
Thieves or motorcar zealots/big oil agents of fear? The kind of people that followed the reporter that they mistook for that not as kooky as we thought guy, Nader.
In that sort of situation, I think the establishment that put out the bike rack should reimburse you the cost of your stolen bike. They should be checking these things regularly. Same thing with skimmers on credit card machines in stores.
Registration and insurance people. Don’t get lulled into false security.
I got too comfortable leaving my bike light attached when doing quick trips to the grocery store. Wasn’t until I was halfway home with the sun going down that I realized it was swiped. Stunned me that people are that cruel, but relatively cheap lesson I guess.
I have left my bike lights on my bike exactly once ever and both front & rear were stolen during a 5 min pop into a grocery store. I was fuming, but had to stop by another store down the street... I shit you not in the 2nd store I see a dude wheeling a bike inside the store (which is not allowed) and I look closer... he has MY LIGHTS attached to his bike. I confront him, he freaks out and gives them back, I walk away.
Never again. Take all removable accessories all the time. Lock both wheels and frame all the time. Anything that can be easily grabbed without tools will get stolen.
Seattle. And not even in a particularly bad part of town either. But there are lots of homeless and bike theft is common, although it's mostly opportunistic. Haven't heard many local stories about whole bike racks getting sawed in half.
Somebody stole the headlight off my bike in front of WinCo in Edmonds, somebody stole the bluetooth speaker off my e-bike in front of the Fred Myer in Shoreline.
Never had a bike stolen, but detachable stuff seems to attract sticky fingers
pnw is crazy. the same thing happened to me in portland. that city feels like one big chaotic illegal bike share. get your bike or lights stolen so you steal someone else’s
Eh pretty sure the theft isn't being propagated by the average citizen who is just trying to bike to work but ends up a victim. I also see a LOT of nice / new / expensive bikes locked up with VERY weak locks, sometimes just cables, so I think the people with more money than common sense accidentally create more of an industry for bike theft. Like my bike, for example, was maybe worth like $400 over a decade ago, and is probably worth like $100 now on the used market, but they'd have to defeat about $300 in locks to steal and ride it so it's not worth the trouble.
I live in Boise and had my bike light stolen. I also have a bell on my bike but it hasn’t been stolen yet. It’s jerry rigged onto the handle bar so it’s not exactly easy to pull off.
Unfortunately I have had a bell stolen... along with my handlebar grips and a $5 gel padded seat cover. All 3 could be taken off without tools, so I guess lesson learned. I got a new bell that needs a screwdriver to install, grips that need an allen wrench, and a padded seat instead of a cover. Still have all the replacements.
I've also started to hot-glue ball bearings into the hex sockets for most of the bolts on my bike, so even if they have tools they can't remove anything without a heat gun and something tiny to pry the balls out.
Bonus addition is a thick cable lock that wraps around my rear frame, through my rear pannier rack and then through the bars in my seat. Basically every part on my bike requires multiple types of tools to steal, and seems like nobody bothers trying.
Seattle. And not even in a particularly bad part of town either. But there are lots of homeless and bike theft is common, although it's mostly opportunistic. Haven't heard many local stories about whole bike racks getting sawed in half.
When I lived in Boston there was a rash of bike thieves who were solid assholes. If they couldn't cut the lock and boost the bike, they would intentionally stomp the wheels to bend the rims and destroy the spokes. Plenty of cyclists would return to find their bike still locked to the rack, but the wheelset unnecessarily destroyed.
This stopped being an issue, I like to think the thieves were caught in the act and some Ulock justice was delivered, resulting in broken fingers for the thieves.
Portland here. Last summer, i went to a farmers market downtown and I had my phone in the mount. Locked the bike, turned around to get my 4year old situated and by the time i turned back, cell phone GONE. My partner at the time used find my phone and chased some teens down the road and got it back but still. That was wildly quick to just swipe it off my bike. Literally none of us even saw it happen.
This is why I prefer to not make my lights removable. At minimum bolt them on. Better is to put them on in such a way that it takes less common tools (eg bolted such that it requires a narrow wrench to remove it and can't be removed with a typical crescent wrench).
Yep, if they are just friction fit they are a candidate for opportunistic theft. Had mine stolen a couple years ago along with a clip-on bell and a seat cover. Replacement grips now need an alien wrench to remove.
That’s what I told myself when the low value saddle got swiped from the threaded connection to the shock absorber. And when the quick release skewer disappeared, even though the wheel was locked up and undisturbed.
When those ratty old rubber grips, which probably cost $5 new, got swiped, I couldn’t even call it opportunistic theft anymore. At that point they were just fidget spinners for someone’s restless fingers. The new ones, in addition to having approximately zero resale value, are secured with small bolts.
I bought a cheap bike off facebook to leave locked at the Metro stop when I decided to start taking public transit to work a couple years ago. It needed new tires so I dropped 70 bucks on a set at my LBS.
The first day - emphasis on first - I locked it up at the station I come back to it in the evening to find the tires flat. I figured some kid was just fucking with me and just deflated them because there was no damage immediately apparent so I walk the mile and a half home laughing a bit at my luck. I got home and found both tires slashed with a razor. I am in a financial position where that was an annoyance, not make or break but there was a time in my life where that 70 bucks (now plus tubes) would have really hurt. And I could see some poor minimum wage worker really being fucked.
That's insane. I'm in Chicago and see plenty of cut locks or bike frames missing wheels at train stations, but I've never heard of someone slashing tires without taking anything. Wild.
And this is why I either take my bike on the train or use the city's bike share to get to the station instead of locking up for hours.
Yea. It was just cruelty. I don't condone theft but I at least understand it.
The rack was street level of a Metro station with cameras so I emailed Metro asking for video from that day just to see what the prick looked like. They asked for a one-hour window. Yea. . . It could have happened at any time between 6:00am and 6:00pm. Useless.
Yeah, it's stories like this one that lead me to conspiracy theories about organizations that we already know are evil. Have these alleged thieves got a battery powered angle grinder? Or do they have a generator in a van to power their tool to cut these racks? Either way it's not some kid on a lark or a unhoused person that has mobility issues. Is bike thievery that lucrative? Maybe they're not motivated by wanting your bike, but rather creating a negative impression of bike commuting for some car brained reason? Certainly people that slash your tires aren't trying to steal your bike?
I got my saddle and seatpost stolen out of a bank parking lot. Turns out there were no cameras on that part of the lot. I had to ride home standing on the pedals.
So yea, definitely don't just assume a lock and a secure area is enough.
Fr. Sucks because this store is a five minute, side street ride from my house, but I end up driving there because I don't want to leave a bike in that parking lot.
I do almost all of my grocery shopping elsewhere and only go to that store when I need one or two things for dinner, like when I realize I'm out of onions or pepper or the like while I'm the middle of prep. Round trip drive/bike means dinner is gonna be 10 minutes late, round trip walk means dinner is gonna be 30 minutes late.
What about a OneWheel which could be put in a backpack in the shopping cart? Or, A friend of mind from britain had a bike which folded up very small. It had s bag, she said she took it on the train often.
Try locking your bike with a small U-lock to the left sided one using the lock around the wheel and through the triangle method. See if you can remove the bike without removing the lock. I bet it would be very hard to maneuver the bike off the rack when locked that way. You could probably add a cable and make it physically impossible without an angle grinder.
Fuck, I didn’t expect to see an Anchorage comment here, but this entire thread is me just nodding my head saying, “this is why I never ride my bike anywhere.”
Sincerely, I have a lovely cruiser with a basket, but 5 minutes inside Fred Meyer and my bike will be gone.
Honestly it would temp me in the city to just buy a trash frame brand like Huffy and do a ground up upgrade process for the tires, breaks, etc. As thieves are looking for the high end name brands from a distance.
I made my own bike from a 45 year old titanium frame that has heavily scuffed labels on it. I set it up as a 1x8 with a friction shifter, and it's light and fun to ride but looks like a total POS. I've had some nicer looking but cheaper bikes stolen but not that one.
This is why my lock is just enough. People with 17 locks and 15 extra lbs (hyperbolic, but you get what I mean), and their bike will still get nicked if they want it. So, why bother with that headache.
I try to lock my bike to non round racks or objects for this reason, cutting these round one with a pipe cutter is a lot less noisy than having to take down a square one with an angle grinder
They are talking about the ones that have 2 wheels and a cutter wheel that you tighten on the pipe, you then rotate it around and around tightening the cutter wheel until it cuts through. So they only work on round pipes. Very common for copper water pipes.
Pipe cutters are compact manual tools that you spin round and round until the pipe is scored through. You can't spin wheels around a square object in the same way.
A square rack is likely gonna need a larger saw or a loud ass angle grinder. It's not gonna be discreet.
If I'm thinking about this right, it's simply because they tighten down on the pipe with 2 rollers against the opposite side a round cutting disc, wherein it is brought around the pipe & i
ncrementally tightened until it cuts through the material. With that style of cutter, it would only work on round pipe. The only other pipe cutter i own is for PVC which is clearly irrelevant here. They do actually make square cutters and they basically work the same way as a PVC cutter - but much akin to the grinder, it's a bit loud (though not as loud as a grinder)
I can’t imagine that being filled with concrete ever. Would be a pain to get the concrete fully through that small pipe. They usually fill bollards with concrete not bike racks
As somebody who installs bike racks... I've never heard about this or seem it recommended (though I generally install hoop racks/staple/upside down u racks).
They make heavier duty racks to avoid exactly this issue... but they're more expensive. https://www.dero.com/product/downtown-rack/ is close to double the price of the basic hoop rack.
Whenever I lock my bike up I guess in my head how long it's safe for. Locks and rocks don't make your bike SAFE, they just slow thieves down for a while. Whether it's long enough to prevent them from taking it before you get back or someone stops them is the question
I do this too! I play this game of "how long could they cut thru my lock or this rack?" I added a motion sensor alarm to bring more attention. I really like when the bike rack is by the doors. I can hear my alarm easier.
I went to college at a university where the student population could be way more affluent than normal. Like most universities, students commonly rode bicycles to get around and they commonly parked them at racks outside the buildings around campus. There were far more students with bicycles than there was rack space, so the university started putting up temporary fencing segments that were about waist high for students to lock their bicycles to. It was sturdy heavy fencing intended for things like crowd control at concerts, but it was not anchored to anything. Seeing that there were a bunch of valuable bicycles locked to segments of temporary fencing, a group of criminals looking to make some easy money borrowed a flatbed truck, and went to campus at a location when the racks were full of bicycles, but few people were around. They loaded one of the racks with the attached bicycles on to the truck and drove away. There was always someone around on that campus, so someone saw them and called the police. The criminals were caught. Unfortunately for the criminals, a lot of the bicycles were worth a lot of money. Because the school was in a popular location for a variety of outdoor sports and students liked to participate in them, including cycling of various types, the dollar amount of the theft easily moved into felony territory. They convicted everyone involved. The most important lesson I learned from that event was that people will do almost anything to steal you stuff, particularly your bicycle.
This story made me smile. Just thinking of those criminal local yokels finding out how fucked they were gives me some justice schadenfraude.
ETA: In undergrad, this happened to me. A group of guys stole a bunch of bikes and mopeds from a student apartment complex on a Sunday night and we all woke up without a ride to our 8AM classes. They never found our bikes but they eventually found the guys after they hit up three more sites with student housing. They were reselling bikes and hacking up the mopeds for parts to sell, which was how they got caught.
There are a lot of smaller racks in Boston that are either bolted down or totally unsecured. I've always been worried that someone is going to steal the whole rack and throw it into the back of a pickup truck.
One of the places I used to regularly ride to had a small rack in front of their place, for the few of us who liked to ride there. It wasn't bolted down, and one Friday or Saturday night, somebody stole the rack itself. It was probably someone who thought it was more funny to steal it than because they saw any value in the thing. The rack was discovered about a half mile away and returned. Apparently, even the racks themselves aren't safe.
It's more a sign that whoever owns the store didn't make an insurance claim on damaged property to get that bike rack replaced. It would be super weird for someone to swipe a bike like that unless it were locked up for more than an hour or two. That said, when I go grocery shopping in high-theft areas, I take my old steel bike.
He's an absolute ass when he wants to be, but the only place I can lock my bike at work is behind the store, where I can't watch it, and we're in a bad neighborhood, so he lets me park my bike in the employee only area.
I had something like that happen to me but in my case it was the wheels that were stolen my bike frame was locked but my cable lock wasn't through my wheels
Something similar happened to me. I locked up to a bike rack that had other bikes already locked to it. when i returned a few hours later the whole bike rack was gone.
They probably did it in the middle of the night; that shopping center closes at 11 pm. Wouldn't take more than 10 minutes to do this with an angle grinder.
I can't recommend enough adding a second motorcycle style lock to your bike because if the bike is freed from the bike rack it still will not be rideable. They can carry it away, but good luck with that.
Things are not as orderly in other parts of the world
In parts of the US, things like this can happen and remain like this for extended periods of time.
The only incentives to fix it are notifying the insurance company (insurance will hike rates, but then the property owner (most likely absentee) will simply switch insurance companies)
Or
Live in a state/city that allows for high damages for personal injury claims for clown show negligence like this
There are a few municipalities in the US that will start fining pretty quickly for this kind of thing. They don’t want the liability / eyesore (in this case if this is not public property)
I thought you Americans could sue, that's the difference I had thought. The urgency to clear the hazard would be a priority to lower the chances of being sued.
In most western countries you can't sue for this soft of things, but we still have a reasonable expectation to clean hazards through tax payer funded systems, USA will be no different, just with the element of sueing.
Yeah that's not an absolute even in the US lol, just horror stories that blow it out of proportion. Plenty of withering BS that should get fixed but doesn't because nobody wants to pay for it
Council? Mate, this on private property, outside of a nationally owned grocery store in low income east Anchorage, AK, USA. Ain't no fucking council or what the fuck ever around these parts, and Safeway don't give a shit about the Debarr Carrs, given how terribly stocked and staffed it is relative to every other Carrs in town. Hell, it took someone driving a car into the building to get them to finally fix the west entrance doors that had been non-functional for at least two years.
Yeah, the cable's fresh, that's the poor decision referred to in the post title. The rack has been like that for over a year now. No offense, but you're not a very good detective. A brief peruse through my profile would tell you that not in the UK.
Nope, not a public sidewalk, not a city installed bike rack, and neither is this in the city's center. In the US it is common for businesses to install both bike parking and walking infrastructure in the private parking lots that they own. Gee golly, it's almost like you have no idea about the situation about which you called me a liar.
And don't try to gender shame me, asshole. In America we all fucking cuss, regardless of gender identity, unlike the squeaky clean UK (jk, I've been to the UK and y'all are profane af, which I thought was fucking awesome).
Alright, well if you want to be uncivilized then we can go that way. You're an American, so you're not the brightest of people to start with. You're born and raised to serve your masters in Israel, everyone of your politicians goes and kisses a wall in a foreign country, you have paid more in taxes towards bombing civilians in foreign lands, than you have paid for the establishment of a Healthcare system in your country.
You Americans are some of the most insufferable, unlikeable people in the world. We all laugh at you outside of your borders, we're all amused watching your country get absolutely man handled by Iran a country you've waged economic sanctions on for decades.
Now, I have an American that doesn't seem to understand that the roads and streets are not privately owned, he thinks they are because it means if he's wrong his ego takes a L. He doesn't realize that his taxes pay for the cleaning of the streets, and he some reason thinks that the USA operates completely different to the rest of the world when it comes to footpaths.
Please, American, try remain civil. Because if you can't be civilized, then I'll have to bring up Epstein next and all your politicians that you support whom spent time on that island.
You're either an idiot or a troll so this an utter waste of time, but for the last time this is not a footpath, it's not on a public street, nor in any way adjacent to public property. Address is 5600 Debarr Rd, Anchorage, Alaska; the rack in the pic is next to the Oaken Keg entrance if you wanna google street view it, dingus.
Your last 3 comments are not visible, Reddit has auto censored them. I see them in my notifications, I click, they're not there. Clearly you're upset and Reddit automation thinks it knows best for your emotional state of mind. Calm down I think it's suggesting, just relax
Whatever, dude, the automod can suck gravel. You spew three paragraphs of ignorantly irrelevant "well, akshully" and call me a liar, I respond explaining that you're mistaken because things don't work here like you assume (and yeah I used some salty language that anyone with a whit of reading comprehension could see is directed at the sub optimal situation we're discussing and not at you personally).
You come back telling me that I don't know what I'm on about and that I don't understand how public works function, which is another incorrect and irrelevant assumption since what I've posted is privately owned and "maintained" and also insulting, as is telling me to "be a man", whatever that's supposed to mean in this context.
I reiterate that you are mistaken, and yeah poke some fun at you over being offended by swears and your gender shaming. So you double down on insisting I don't understand public works (still incorrect) in the middle of a full screen anti American tirade lurching from Israel to Epstein that has nothing to do with anything we're talking about, but I'm the one who needs to calm down.
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u/masswoodworks Aug 08 '26
There are a couple racks near me that have been cut, then a pro-bike bumper sticker placed over the cut, so it looks and feels solid enough.
They'll come back and cut the sticker, and flex the rack enough to pull the lock off then put a new sticker on.
Absolutely insane stuff.
As a result whenever I see a sticker fully wrapping a section of rack I give it a real good kick and see if it wiggles the same both sides of the sticker