STOLEN BIKE for awareness

[Gw0175]

I am sorry for your loss; that is such a great looking bike. I hope you have many great rides on it to reflect on.

"I'm hoping I'm allowed to still post this for folks awareness." - To this comment I will say that I think it is not only okay for you to have submitted your post, but we should appreciate it. This is a difficult lesson learned by you, that some terrible people will leverage Strava to hunt for bikes to steal; we should all learn from this. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Thank you for the kind message. Not even a year old but yes, plenty of great times on that bike fortunately.

 

[Gw0175]

Put a saved search on ebay.
I got my ellsworth back like this.
Hide a smart tag in the next one, not 100% accurate but it'll give you a chance.
Good luck

I've been trawling the Internet for the bike/parts of the bike. My friends Santa Cruz turned up on Facebook 6 months later so you just never know! Thanks mate.

 

[Labrador29]

It’s always difficult to hear about these events.
I’m private on Strava and I still hide my location with the settings. We had an issue in our neighborhood with porch-pirates so more cameras (door bells)were installed.
Our garage doors can easily be opened with a simple technique but almost impossible when a dead-bolt is used on a roll-up door.
View attachment 96370
I installed this dead-bolt on my garage door and helped a few neighbours install theirs. $14 from Home Depot.
On some automatic garage door openers an electrical activated dead-bolt is available but the install is a bit more difficult, but it works. I used one of those on my previous home.
Motion sensors, motion activated lights or motion activated cameras may help. I’ve only been broken into once…it’s not a nice feeling.

Thanks for the tip

 

[Trom]

v sorry to hear that mate, but echo other's comments on the strava issue, just allow only followers to seee your acivity, and blank out a mile radius of your start and finish points.
I bought a sold secure Oxford motorcycle thick chain and lock from M/C dealer, and concreted a ground anchor into the floor. my lad also uses a disc lock from oxford or similar for £50, screams like hell if moved. cameras now fitted allover as well.
Hope you get it back soon.
T

 

[Gw0175]

v sorry to hear that mate, but echo other's comments on the strava issue, just allow only followers to seee your acivity, and blank out a mile radius of your start and finish points.
I bought a sold secure Oxford motorcycle thick chain and lock from M/C dealer, and concreted a ground anchor into the floor. my lad also uses a disc lock from oxford or similar for £50, screams like hell if moved. cameras now fitted allover as well.
Hope you get it back soon.
T

Cheers mate, defo upping the security next time around

 

[MrSimmo]

Sorry to hear this, hope you get it back or youre properly reimbursed.

This is why the FN57 was invented

 

[Sapientiea]

A couple of years ago my wife bike got stolen in the city. Police said we are probably not going to find it. Could not let it be. Set-up searches in all second-hand websites in Europe. From Sweden down to Spain and to the east like Polen. Got hunderds of hits, but after 4 months , I woke up and opened my search results; first picture was my wife's bike. Even had the local bike shop sticker still on it. Almost gave up.

Contacted police in Netherlands.....nothing they could do. So I tracked the guys location via his phone number he gave online to some-one else. Easy search brought me to his small village in Polen....Contact the local police station......did not speak English...so found a translater and they arranged a search and caught this guy with over 70 stolen bikes in garage Eventually the Dutch and Polish police rolled up a very large organization selling stolen bikes.

Eventually 5 months after finding the bike I got the OK from the Polish police to get my bike back. Made a short holiday out of it and pick up my bike. They were so surprised I was willing to drive 1100km there to pick up a bike Hahaha. And they were very ashamed this was my first experience with Poland. They gave as a tour of the region and explained a bit about the area. I thanked them and we drove back home

F*ck thieves and stay away from my bikes!

 

[Gw0175]

A couple of years ago my wife bike got stolen in the city. Police said we are probably not going to find it. Could not let it be. Set-up searches in all second-hand websites in Europe. From Sweden down to Spain and to the east like Polen. Got hunderds of hits, but after 4 months , I woke up and opened my search results first picture was my wife bike. Even had the local bike shop sticker still on it. Almost gave up.

Contacted police in Netherlands.....nothing they could do. So I tracked the guys location via his phone number he gave online to some-one else. Easy search brought me to his small village in Polen....Contact the local police station......did not speak English...so found a translater and they arranged a search and caught this guy with over 70 stolen bikes in garage Eventually the Dutch and Police police rolled up a very large organization selling stolen bikes.

Eventually 5 months after finding the bike I got the OK from the Polish police to get my bike back. Made a short holiday out of it and pick up my bike. They were so surprised I was willing to drive 1100km there to pick up a bike Hahaha. And they were very ashamed this was my first experience with Poland. They gave as a tour of the region and explained a bit about the area. I thanked them and we drove back home

F*ck thieves and stay away from my bikes!

Wow, what an adventure haha! Thanks for the positive post, just goes to show that we should not give up all hope!

I'll keep checking all the usual places meantime! Hopefully the bike doesn't show up in Poland but you just never know!!!

 

[Sapientiea]

Wow, what an adventure haha! Thanks for the positive post, just goes to show that we should not give up all hope!

I'll keep checking all the usual places meantime! Hopefully the bike doesn't show up in Poland but you just never know!!!

I was extremely lucky that the guy posted his landline number in a post about another bike I was also lucky that the police officer we spoke to was into investigating this. He called me back that afternoon that he went there in civilian clothes with his wife to ask for a nice blue bike. He laughed so hard on the phone saying: "hahaha first bike he brought up was yours!" That was so cool! Got to know lots of other 'cool stuff' how they get the bikes and how they operate throughout Europe.

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

Hi. Someone has messaged me to say they may have found this bike.

Can you PM me?

 

[Gw0175]

Hi. Someone has messaged me to say they may have found this bike.

Can you PM me?

Thanks Rob. They've already been in touch. A year and a half later, he recognised my bike in his local police station and got in touch with me.

I was reunited with my bike the following day!

What a community

 

[Mikerb]

Nice to see a thread end in good news!

PS I was a copper in the 1970s and there were significantly fewer coppers per capita then than there is now .....many will be surprised to know!! The majority of coppers were either walking a beat or in a "Panda" local patrol van, always solo. I have no idea where all the coppers are these days! Never seen one around here except the occasional main road patrol car passing through at speed on the main road!!
I had a Levo stolen in a forest car park. I was literally 2 metres away from it when the toe rag just walked up and rode off on it. I chased on foot but could not catch him. I know what "camp" he came from and who he associates with following a sighting of him and his mate at a train station with my bike by someone that informed me via facebook. I know what train journey he took. The CCTV on the train and at the station were not enough to identify him apparently!! Their identical clothing and the dogs they had with them were distinctive. In my day the local beat bobby for that area would know exactly who that was. Needless to say that toe rag was never apprehended and my bike never returned.

 

[Gw0175]

Nice to see a thread end in good news!

PS I was a copper in the 1970s and there were significantly fewer coppers per capita then than there is now .....many will be surprised to know!! The majority of coppers were either walking a beat or in a "Panda" local patrol van, always solo. I have no idea where all the coppers are these days! Never seen one around here except the occasional main road patrol car passing through at speed on the main road!!
I had a Levo stolen in a forest car park. I was literally 2 metres away from it when the toe rag just walked up and rode off on it. I chased on foot but could not catch him. I know what "camp" he came from and who he associates with following a sighting of him and his mate at a train station with my bike by someone that informed me via facebook. I know what train journey he took. The CCTV on the train and at the station were not enough to identify him apparently!! Their identical clothing and the dogs they had with them were distinctive. In my day the local beat bobby for that area would know exactly who that was. Needless to say that toe rag was never apprehended and my bike never returned.

Nice to see a thread end in good news!

PS I was a copper in the 1970s and there were significantly fewer coppers per capita then than there is now .....many will be surprised to know!! The majority of coppers were either walking a beat or in a "Panda" local patrol van, always solo. I have no idea where all the coppers are these days! Never seen one around here except the occasional main road patrol car passing through at speed on the main road!!
I had a Levo stolen in a forest car park. I was literally 2 metres away from it when the toe rag just walked up and rode off on it. I chased on foot but could not catch him. I know what "camp" he came from and who he associates with following a sighting of him and his mate at a train station with my bike by someone that informed me via facebook. I know what train journey he took. The CCTV on the train and at the station were not enough to identify him apparently!! Their identical clothing and the dogs they had with them were distinctive. In my day the local beat bobby for that area would know exactly who that was. Needless to say that toe rag was never apprehended and my bike never returned.

That's really sad to hear. Especially with all that evidence.

Speaking first hand, I know how much less of a priority tracing stolen mountain bikes are for the Police.

There's so few us these days and we're absolutely stretched the max in terms of resources, priorities unfortunately lie elsewhere (crimes of violence, domestic abuse etc) so emtbs don't get much of a look in.

Never give up hope though. I've been lucky this time. I've also recovered a number of stolen bikes in my time.... You just never know.