There may be fewer individuals commuting and parking their bikes downtown nowadays, however sadly bike thieves are usually not working from dwelling.
A BikePortland reader reached out to us over the weekend to share the unhappy information that their electrical cargo bike had been stolen. Additionally they despatched a video and a quick description of the way it occurred. Bike theft is so frequent in Portland that I don’t share each one in every of them we hear about right here on the Entrance Web page except there’s a notable circumstance.
This theft was notable for 2 causes: First, it was captured on video; and second, the one who took the bike did so by first loosening the bolts that hooked up it to the sidewalk. As you possibly can see within the video above, the thief calmy unscrews the bolts of the staple rack, then works the rack via the u-lock, leaves the rack on the bottom, and rides off. The sufferer used a heavy-duty u-lock, but it surely didn’t matter.
Additionally notable about this theft is that the rack isn’t blue. This makes me surprise if it was a Metropolis of Portland rack or a rack put in by a non-public constructing proprietor. It issues as a result of the usual, blue, Portland Bureau of Transportation staple racks have been upgraded in 2017 with tamper-resistant bolts which can be more durable to unscrew.
That is so infuriating to see! Many Portlanders merely received’t lock up their bikes on a avenue because of fears of theft and it’s an issue don’t appear to have made a lot progress addressing over time.
Unbolting bike racks is nothing new. We’ve coated the subject on a number of events over time. It appears the very best answer to that is to require that racks are sunk immediately into the concrete so bolts are usually not required. If we put in racks this manner they’d not solely be unimaginable for thieves to unscrew, they’d even be a lot stronger bollards in opposition to careless drivers. (Then once more, I might see thieves carrying round sledgehammers or concrete cutters, however I’d moderately not take into consideration that.)
We hope this individual will get their glorious and clearly liked bike again. It’s a particular pink Xtracycle longtail with white accents and a comparatively unusual Nomad Cycles mid-drive motor. See extra on this Reddit thread.
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