Soapbox

I took my lad and four of his mates down to Burley in that New Forest on Monday. Took their bikes too as they planned to spend four days camping and biking.

This is five 16yr olds, we're talking about, on their own - bikes, New Forest, a few cans left with them. Should have been a great trip.

Some thieving gits stole all their bikes on Tuesday. All bikes chained together, and to concrete post outside cafe, disappeared in a trice.

Bastards. Bike theft should be treated the same way as horse theft in the wild west. Hangings too good etc.

Seriously, if organised bike theft is loose in the New Forest it will kill half the tourist revenue. I hope The Law does something useful .

Yep - but read the small print. £250 excess + loss of £50 renewal bonus + increase in premiums = price of second hand bike. Not much point in claiming in my case. One of the lads had a month old Specialised bike which is worth claiming for and one other lad's crosses the threshold, the others will have to lose out.

And I'd let the lad take my bike instead of his - I can't ride his full suspension rig. Anyone got  a half decent mountain bike for sale?

The real bummer is this was their first Lads Away Alone holiday. Now being the boys they are they went hiking instead for one day, dammed a river next day, found a local source of underage booze (makes yer proud), generally made the best of it. But that isn't what they had hoped for.

Yeah bad luck little horrors..Did remind me that having camped for 100s of nights all around the world ive had things nicked twice from my tent.Both times at Holmsley in the New forest 3/4 miles from Burley.

Yet the locals were all decent chaps - they all said they have trouble with outsiders 'passing through'. Burley itself is in a great location for family holidays. Not many mountains though.

Hope your losses were not too extensive. Bloody infuriating at the time isn't it? I was all for starting a lynch mob if I could have found the thieves. Calmed down a little now

> I hope The Law does something useful .

Very little chance the police will do anything, other than give you a crime report number for insurance purposes.  Bike theft constitutes 10% of all property crime in the UK, but very little is done about it, compared with what could be done without too much effort.

Thing is, while some bike theft is opportunistic, a lot is down to pretty well organised crime.

I had a pride-and-joy bike that I'd more or less built from scratch stolen a year or so ago, from a city centre [and, yes, it had two locks on it, both to the appropriate standard].  When I reported it, both the police officer and the insurers said that it was likely that, within 12 hours, the bike would be in a van, on a ferry out of the country.

Big, heavy locks will deter the opportunist.  Nothing is going to stop the organised thieves.

Indeed - it does seem these thieves were organised. It is even possible they followed the lads until they stopped. Thayt sounds a tad paranoid but the road they followed leads to a cafe on the main A road, so it was quite likely five lads on mountain bikes but riding on tarmac were headed there. Otherwise they would have been off-road.

Also, sometimes grinders are used, not bolt-croppers, to cut locks. Not that either tool is really an opportunistic carry. And five bikes chained together - only the cable securing all bikes to the post was found - lifting that lot takes two thieves and a bit of practice. Probably easier if the bikes are still chained in one group.

Does stop and search apply to vehicles? I can imagine two cropped heads in an unsigned van cruising when they would normally be working would be the sort to look for. Or am I stereotyping the thieves? 

Grumps wrote (see)

 Anyone got  a half decent mountain bike for sale?

Check out secondhand bike shops and other places like that. You might get lucky. If any of them are distinctive or unique then that helps but it is always best to get your bikes tagged either with the simple postcode/security code you can often get done at events to combat cycle thefts that some police do or with a chip bike shops can put in your frames that is unique to your bike. IIRC the chip gets placed in your bike and each bike might have it in different places so the thief can't always find it.

These only help IF you find it again to prove it is your bike. A fancy bike could of course be split into components. Afterall if you have built up a bike from frame and components then those same components would earn them as much separately as in one bike anyway.

I do like the idea that they made up for the lost bikes by doing other stuff. It's funny how they managed to find cheap alcohol source. They probably found it easy.Good on them I say, not letting the bike thefts get them down.

I only have old or cheap bikes (only because I have spent toooo much on backpacking and walking gear to get anything really good). however my road bike would never get left out of my sight for long. Having said that I regularly use a cheap cable lock to chain it up outside a pub on my weekly group ridesbut that is one cheaper and older bike among so many that are so much better anyway. Plus I'm usually one of the first ones to the pub so get the best spots to chain the bike too and there are usually a few other bikes chained to mine or the same fixed point using separate locks. All in all it would take a determined bike theif to get mine.

BTW were the bikes chaned ot a signpost? It is always possible to lift bikes off signposts. Choosing a good fixed point to lock to is always important. I have seen a pretty good bike dangling from the top of a signpost. Some toerag was nicking it but couldn't quite get it over so nicked the saddle and wheels instead!

> but police said they didn't want the list as "they can't go round accusing people". WTF?

I think it used to be called 'making enquiries'...?  Judging by the comments by 'off duty' on a recent UKC thread, they seem to have forgotten how to investigate crime.

My daughter works in one of the tearooms in Burley at the weekends - I'll warn her to keep her eyes peeled.

The chances are that these low-lifes deliberately targetted Burley as it is probably the most popular place in the whole New Forest for cyclists. On a Sunday morning the tearooms that she works in regularly get up to 100 cyclists in. Most of them take their cycles into the garden with them where they can keep an eye on them.

With a van and a pair of bolt-cutters, they could probably get hundreds of pounds worth of bikes in a very short time. I suggest you keep an eye on eBay too - they will have to shift them somehow

> they could probably get hundreds of pounds worth of bikes in a very short time.

Multiple thousands of rrp value in the back of a van, certainly (a half-decent MTB or roadie costing about £500, rising easily to £5k).

Bartooon wrote (see)

The chances are that these low-lifes deliberately targetted Burley