“My bike was stolen.” The words hit me like a brick, with many emotions close behind. Shock, disbelief, anger. It wasn’t my bike that was stolen, but it was a bike I had put lots of love and effort into for Jessie. I felt powerless. The bike lock had been chopped twice and left on the ground along with the helmet. The bike was gone, along with many stolen bikes in San Francisco. If your bike was just stolen and you’re trying to figure out how to get your stolen bike back, here’s what worked for us to recover a stolen bicycle.
Quick Checklist for Your Stolen Bicycle
- File a police report in your local jurisdiction (you may need to do this at a police station, check local guidelines)
- Register your bike on Bike Index & Project 529 if you haven’t already done so
- Mark your bike as STOLEN on Bike Index & Project 529. The following things will probably be offered to you:
- Buy Promoted Alerts from Bike Index
- Buy Project 529 Detective if you don’t already have a 529 Protect membership
- Post your Bike Index and/or Project 529 listing on local bike groups, social media, etc.
- Post about your stolen bike on relevant platforms like Craigslist, Marketplace, etc.
- Long shot: Head to local flea markets to see if you can find your bike.
- Next time: Buy an angle grinder resistant u-lock and lock all your components!
The Emotions & Struggles Behind a Stolen Bicycle
When a bike like this is stolen, you lose so much more than just a bicycle. You lose all the effort put into finding and building up the bicycle to fit you just right. Each bicycle feels unique, and finding one that feels just right is not always easy. Sometimes there are things that cannot be replaced, as technology moves ahead and leaves behind a trail of gadgets and bike styles that are useful but no longer manufactured. Then there are the emotions involved. This specific bicycle was bought with someone I was dating, and by the time it was stolen our relationship had grown and changed into something different that made the bike theft even more metaphorical and emotionally difficult.
The bicycle was locked to a bike rack in a large private parking garage with the Abus Mini 40. A good lock (the theft required two cuts of the lock!), but not angle grinder resistant. The parking garage was private and gated, but the bike racks were visible from the street and someone could easily slip through an open gate after a car exited.
The frustrating part for me was that I had told Jessie this parking garage was not very secure the moment she first put it there. I’ve heard too many stories of bikes stolen from garages (and have experienced that myself in San Francisco), so I was scared to see that bike there. Maybe a short period of time was fine, but days? weeks? π± I would see the bike there and think “Phew it’s still there!” all while Jessie would think “Oh great it’s still there, it must be safe to leave it.” If I knew the bike would be there for long-term storage I would’ve offered another lock and made sure at least one of them was angle grinder resistant! That would’ve given me peace of mind (and likely thwarted this theft).
Because of all this context, when I heard the bike was stolen I was livid. Of course the bike was stolen! It’s exactly what I thought would happen if it was continually left there! I was angry when I heard the news, and I took it out on Jessie with mean verbal attacks. I felt righteous in my anger, a true I Told You So moment. But that didn’t help the situation, and it sure didn’t help our relationship. Thinking back on that moment, it was one of the times when it’s better to leave the room and cool down before talking any further. It’s advice I’ve read in books but never been angry enough to need to put into practice. Now I understand.
Jessie was hurting too. Not only did she suffer from experiencing the bike theft to begin with, but once she finally built up the courage to tell me the bad news she had to suffer again from my outburst of anger. She was scared to tell me since she understood how important this bicycle was to us, and her fear came true. It took a few days for our emotions to cool before we could meet to discuss what happened and how we could move forward and repair.
It’s Never Too Late to Register Your Bike
Amongst my anger, I got to work making sure we had the highest chance of finding and recovering the bike if it did show up. One of the things on my initial todo list for Jessie’s bicycle was to register it, but of course I never got around to it. That was fine, since as long as you’ve taken pictures and/or written down the serial number (which I did the first day we bought it) you can register your bicycle later! Now it was time to take all the information, register the bike, and mark it as stolen. This way, if someone finds it and searches the serial number, the bike will show up as stolen with a way to contact you.
Unfortunately, there are multiple bike registries. Fortunately, Bike Index and Project 529, the biggest two, will probably have you covered. There are often local bike registries too, so do a search to see if there’s something else you should do as well in your local area. The San Francisco Police Department used to have its own registry, but now they just recommend people use Bike Index. Either way, I’d recommend getting registered with Bike Index and Project 529 in case your bike goes farther away. In my case, I had forgotten about Project 529 and only registered Jessie’s bicycle on Bike Index.
Once I marked Jessie’s bike as stolen, Bike Index offered to sell me some social media ads to spread the word about the stolen bicycle through something they call Promoted Alerts. There was a $10 option and a $20 option to buy ads for a shorter or longer time period. I usually don’t get upsold very easily, but this seemed like a great upsell. I still only selected the $10 option since I thought it was a long shot anyway. It turned out this was the key to my successful bike recovery. And I didn’t even need the serial number!
This goes to show, even if you don’t have a serial number and you just have a few pictures, it’s still useful to register your bike! Anyone who has tried to get the serial number on a bike knows how much of a pain it is to find it anyhow. Putting your phone under the bottom bracket and taking a few pictures with flash will reveal it, but you may have to try a few times to get the whole number in the frame.
In writing this post, my research reminded me of Project 529 and if I had known I would’ve also registered it there too. I also discovered that Project 529 has a Project 529 Protect membership that has a $3k replacement warranty on your bike if it isn’t found within 30 days of the theft. I would love to hear if anyone has a story of using this. Project 529 insists this is not “insurance” but it seems to have some overlap in its usefulness there.
If you’re reading this and feeling generous, I would highly recommend donating to the Bike Index and signing up for Project 529 Protect (they don’t have a way to donate except through their memberships) for the hard work they’re doing to help keep our bikes safe from theft!
Finding, Buying, and Accessorizing Jessie’s Bicycle
To fully feel the intensity of a bike theft, you need to hear the whole story of how it came to be. Every bike has a story like this, and every bike theft causes grief from the loss of time and effort involved.
Jessie was bikeless when we met, previously having a different bike stolen from a different garage. Naturally, once we started dating it was time to get her a bicycle so she could join me on bike rides around town! She’s a short one at 5 feet tall, so we needed to find a small bicycle. I prefer buying secondhand, and easily found some used bikes in the small range we could try out. We ended up buying from Chris who runs Salvation Cycles basically 100% via Craigslist. It’s a low tech operation, but once you get to his storage unit near the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco he has lots of bikes to try out. Usually more than just the one you see on Craigslist.
Also you may have noticed I saved the original listing when we bought the bike. It’s a great hack I do with most Craigslist purchases that enables me to recall all the info the seller posted and makes reselling a breeze. The detailed specs were helpful when registering the bike! Technical interlude if you want to try this on Google Chrome: make sure to load all the pictures first by tapping the arrow through all of them to see them all large (otherwise you just get tiny thumbnails in the download) and then going to File > “Save Page as…”. This downloads a local html file and resources folder with all the pics and other website resources. Remember to put the two downloads in another folder or compress them together so they don’t get separated. You can open the html file and it will load the listing locally in your browser. Other browsers also implement this, but in different ways. To confirm it worked, turn off wifi and test that everything is actually available locally (since you might think you downloaded it but really it’s still grabbing all the images from Craigslist servers).
Anyway, Jessie & I went there together and found the perfect bike for her. It was small & fast. I’ve learned the hard way when helping someone I’m dating get a bicycle…I want to get the fastest possible bike they’re comfortable with. Really you just want to help your partner get a bicycle that will help them ride the same speed as you…whatever that means in your relationship dynamic. For me, I like to ride my fast road bike, so I helped Jessie buy a fast road bike π One time I helped a partner get a very pretty Public C7 cruiser bike. It’s a great bike, but it is inherently slower and didn’t make sense for us to ride together if I was riding my fast road bike, so that relationship didn’t last (kidding, it obviously wasn’t the bicycle).
We went over to his storage unit and checked out the bikes. This definitely wasn’t the most visually appealing bicycle he had, but Jessie did some test riding and it’s the one that fit her the best. It fit her perfectly with the seat at its lowest setting!
After we bought the bicycle, I created a document with all the things we had to do to make it commute ready. If you’ve read my website much, this is what I do!
I made sure I bought the best Bontrager city flat pedals that would have enough grip but wouldn’t cut the shins (ugh the worst), the slim & sexy Axiom Streamliner rear rack like mine so Jessie could carry things easily (Chris had one we bought but I had to go to the hardware store for some extra connector parts that were lost), the Specialized Align II best bang (protection) for your buck helmet, some front & rear lights, and of course all the requirements for total bike security which I’ll talk about soon.
I got all of these things to create a bicycle experience Jessie would love. If her bike is easy, convenient, and fun she’ll ride more with me right? π
We indeed had many great rides and commutes together. I have a wonderful memory of us racing down Sunset Dunes Park along Ocean Beach, biking as hard as we could until we were out of breath. The fast bike working a little too well!! I would think back to how that might be the last moment of bike riding like that we would share together. Another bike could be acquired, but it wasn’t a trivial transaction…and it would be different. So much love and effort and logistics went into creating this experience represented by this bicycle. So now you may understand why this bike being stolen was such a big deal.
Locking All The Components: What Saved the Bicycle
I say it all the time, and I’ll say it again. Thieves don’t want to deal with all your locked components on your bicycle!! It’s hella inconvenient for them (and let’s be honest, slightly inconvenient for us too, but definitely worthwhile). Locking all your components is a very important step to make your bike commute ready in a city like San Francisco (and unfortunately many other places too). One way I’ve prevented my bike from even being attempted stolen on the street was just to have all the components locked! Who wants to cut your U-lock twice just to have to take the bike and replace all your locking skewers with quick release skewers, chop a bike seat lock, and maybe replace any other component locks you have?
We’ll never know for certain, but I’m pretty confident that the reason we got this bike back was from the thief realizing this was not going to be an easy bike to resell. Since the bike was in a parking garage, the thief probably worked quickly to cut the lock before investigating more about the bicycle. Once stolen, the thief noticed all the locked components (after also noticing this bike was waaaay too small and likely wanting to raise the seat), and abandoned it merely one block from the theft location.
Let’s go over all the locking components I added to Jessie’s bicycle.
Locking Skewers for the Wheels
I got an entire set of Pinhead locks since it was a bit cheaper at the time, but really I bought it for the wheel locks. I actually bought it directly from Pinhead so that I could enter my key code and get a set that has the same key as my bicycle wheel locks. If you have a history of unstable relationships and/or fear of an ex slashing your tires, maybe that isn’t the move for you. There are many other types of locking wheel options, but Pinhead is the ecosystem that I’ve bought into most.
Bike Chain Lock to Keep the Seat Secure
Although the pinhead set I bought included a seatpost lock, I actually don’t like using it. Instead I prefer the Abus Chain Bike Lock that I can use to lock the saddle + seatpost to the frame while keeping adjustability. If your seat is meaningfully far away from the frame, you may need a longer chain, but usually the 60cm length works fine. They sell a key or a combo option, but with the combo option you can’t change the combination! Again there are other ways to keep your bike seat secure but the Abus Chain Lock is my favorite.
These chains are especially useful for bikes ridden by multiple people requiring variable seat heights, as well as for beginner bikers who start out with having the seat lower, and only as they become more comfortable can they raise the seat to ride more efficiently and effectively.
Locking Headset for Added Peace of Mind
This one isn’t a high priority, since I’ve rarely heard of anyone coming back to a bike with the handlebars stolen (and a thief would have to chop all the cables!), but if it’s easy and you also have Pinhead wheel locks with the same key, why not?
Some older bikes don’t have a standardized headset stem bolt that can be locked by something like pinhead, but Jessie’s bicycle had the standard headset stem bolt and the Pinhead kit came with one, so on it went!
Another option for this is actually to obfuscate the headset stem more. There are some phone mounts that hide directly on your headset stem and it’s another thing to remove. Loop.cc has some pretty slick ones, and get 15% off with my coupon! Any extra work to require of a thief is a theft deterrent.
The Theft of Jessie’s Bicycle
I’ve sprinkled foreshadowing and details of the theft throughout this post, but I’ll review it again here just to keep things tidy. Jessie parked the bicycle in a private parking garage for some number of weeks, sometimes using it and putting it back there instead of taking it up into the apartment. One day, she came back to the bike lock chopped. The Abus Mini 40 was cut twice with an angle grinder and the bike was gone.
I registered it on Bike Index and posted the Bike Index link in a few bike groups here and there for people to watch out for it, but the real winner was Bike Index upselling me to buy some social media ads they call Promoted Alerts for the stolen bike.
Bike Recovery in One Week!
About a week after the theft, someone saw the social media ad that I bought through Bike Index Promoted Alerts after marking the bike as stolen! He found it abandoned at the side of his house and left it for a few days until seeing the ad on Facebook! Thank you Bike Index for upselling me to buy that ad and making it happen so easily! I wouldn’t have even thought of that, and can’t believe it was successful.
The thief abandoned the bike 1 block from the theft location after angle grinding through the u-lock twice, presumably because the bike had total bike security with wheel locks, headset lock, and a seat lock. I’m guessing the thief decided the bike would be too much work to sell and it was abandoned. Perhaps another passerby saw the bike on the sidewalk and put it in the side house nearby (similar to me closing open garages I walk past sometimes), but who knows exactly.
The person who recovered it said it was placed in their sideyard behind an unlocked door and no one in the house knew why it was there or who owned it. Once he saw the social media ad he recognized it as the bike that was in his sideyard and he contacted me!
As soon as I picked up the bike, I immediately pinged Jessie and told her to come outside. I had a surprise for her. I walked the block and showed her the good news. What a shock indeed!!
We investigated the bike a bit and we saw the clear evidence where the frame was removed from the U-lock. The thief was clearly not that smart, since the two cuts in the lock made quite a small opening and I think at first it was hard for the thief to free the bike from the lock even though two cuts were already made! I assume these scratches are from the finagling of the lock off the frame after it was cut. Fortunately they’re just surface scuffs on an aluminum frame. The thief stole the phone mount and the bike bell, but everything else was completely fine!
While I was hopeful I could recover Jessie’s stolen bike, this was an ending that I was definitely not expecting, and all our friends were just as surprised as us. If there are any takeaways from this post I hope it’s something like this:
- Lock all your components to thwart the thieves
- Register your bike on Bike Index & Project 529
- Buy those social media ads from the registries to help you find your bike if it’s stolen!
Oh, and buy an angle grinder resistant lock if you can afford it. They’re much harder to cut and are a new level of bike security!
Happy biking and keep your bike safe!
