Great, car damaged !

Probably a case of "if it can be stolen, it will be". I had an axle skewer stolen off my mountain bike - a new pair was only =A35 but the inconvenience it caused was incredible.

peter

Many years back, oppotunist theft of the passenger side rear plastic bumper cap off a Mk2 Fiesta. A**eholes.

PDH

I had the skewers stolen from mine a good few years ago. That was a=20 theft attempt though. Quite a lot of bikes were being stolen from bike=20 parks on the Surrey-London line. I cycled from home to West Byfleet=20 station every day and locked my bike up. One evening I got home and=20 found that the skewers were gone and that there was a second bike lock=20 in place. The second lock was a cheap one, but obviously I couldn't get=20 it off. My own lock showed some signs of being attacked. Quite a few of=20 the other bikes on the rack had two locks and missing skewers or bent=20 wheels. I pondered it for a while and decided that it was likely that=20 the thieves would be back later in the night to collect the bikes they=20 wanted.=20

Surrey police weren't particularly interested so I called SWMBO with a=20 carefully thought out plan. She came along with my cutting torch to free=20 my own bike, some printed sheets, a couple of sheets of stickers and a=20 roll of insulting tape.=20

The sheets told of my own problem, that I was able to cut off the extra=20 lock and that the person afflicted should mark up the lock they wanted=20 off with the insulting tape and write a phone number on the sticker and=20 put it on their saddle. I did hourly checks on the bike park up to=20 midnight and made about 40 phone calls over 4 hours. Quite a few bike=20 owners came out to see me free up their bikes and the venture was highly=20 profitable in terms of nice bottles of wine and whiskey. Plus a bunch of=20 scum failed to steal a lot of bikes and lost out on quite a lot of locks=20 they'd bought.

Warwick

I had the skewers stolen from mine a good few years ago. That was a theft attempt though. Quite a lot of bikes were being stolen from bike parks on the Surrey-London line. I cycled from home to West Byfleet station every day and locked my bike up. One evening I got home and found that the skewers were gone and that there was a second bike lock in place. The second lock was a cheap one, but obviously I couldn't get it off. My own lock showed some signs of being attacked. Quite a few of the other bikes on the rack had two locks and missing skewers or bent wheels. I pondered it for a while and decided that it was likely that the thieves would be back later in the night to collect the bikes they wanted.

Surrey police weren't particularly interested so I called SWMBO with a carefully thought out plan. She came along with my cutting torch to free my own bike, some printed sheets, a couple of sheets of stickers and a roll of insulting tape.

The sheets told of my own problem, that I was able to cut off the extra lock and that the person afflicted should mark up the lock they wanted off with the insulting tape and write a phone number on the sticker and put it on their saddle. I did hourly checks on the bike park up to midnight and made about 40 phone calls over 4 hours. Quite a few bike owners came out to see me free up their bikes and the venture was highly profitable in terms of nice bottles of wine and whiskey. Plus a bunch of scum failed to steal a lot of bikes and lost out on quite a lot of locks they'd bought.

Warwick

Brilliant, just the sort of thing I like to see happen.

..or, you helped the scum steal the bikes as they pretended to be the bike owners :-)

No, we were pretty aware of the dangers of that. I recognised quite a=20 number fromt he morning commute. The additional locks were all flimsy=20 cheap ones and these were the ones that were tagged for removal. Plus=20 the additional ones were all new and seemed to be identical. Most of the=20 phone numbers were land lines and were local West Byfleet numbers. If=20 someone had asked to get more than one bike I'd have called the police.=20 If someone had asked to have a different lock than the flimsy one=20 removed I'd have called the police. If someone had turned up in a van to=20 take a bike away I'd probably have called the police. It was pretty=20 blatent.

In some cases they'd strung a series of locks around a few bikes that=20 were extremely unlikely to be owned by related people. On one trip to=20 check things I found a very annoyed and sweaty woman hacksawing away at=20 the wire. She was in her 50's and her little sit up and beg was locked=20 to =A3500 worth of moutain bike. She wasn't bike thief material either.=20 Her little combination chain probably wouldn't have slowed the thieves=20 down much when they planned to come back but by locking her bike to the=20 mountain bike they probably prevented that from being removed.=20

These days if I was confronted by that situation I'd probably get myself=20 home, get the gear out, get back to the station, cut my bike out and=20 probably remove all of the identical second locks without checking.=20

It was that blatant. Somewhat akin to someone going into Tesco carpark=20 and chaining all of the cars together so they could lift them onto a=20 transporter a bit later in the night.

Warwick