Re: [CR]Stolen bikes...how the heck would we know?

I can remember about 25-30 years ago, you could get a bicycle license at any one of the Palo Alto Fire Stations. I believe it was free. The little license itself was a thick blue and silver decal that was usually placed on the seat-tube just below the top-tube. This decal did absolutely nothing of course unless your bike was stolen; then it was on record to watch for that bike.

But those were simpler days. There was no personal computers, no internet, and no hacking. Everything was pen and paper. Back then when your bike got stolen it was a big deal. It was almost as if someone had taken a part of you. The police were much more vigilant regarding stolen bikes back in those days. And believe it or not they found a few of mine. Our family (parents and four children including myself) had a total of 26 bicycles stolen from our home in the Cresent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto. We locked those bicycles up every single night and or carried them into the house. But at ANY given time we did not lock them, someone stole them.

These bikes ALL ended up in EAST Palo Alto, (a tough neighborhood on the East side of 101. One time I made the mistake of riding my bike into East Palo Alto with a friend. So here are two little white chumps on their nice bikes. We stopped to buy candy at this market. Before we could even park our bikes, we were surrounded by about eight African Americans who beat us senseless, took all of our pocket change and took off on our bikes.

Later I got this job working at Raychem Corporation. Two of the guys I worked with grew up in East Palo Alto. They would joke about stealing the bikes and car stereos. I asked them why they always stole bikes in our neighborhood; the answer amazed me. They said, "Because we didn't want to walk; we were lazy!" These people simply stole the bikes to ride them home and then ditched them.

Getting back on topic here, I HIGHLY doubt that there are any real records of all of the thefts that took place. If you lived in my area and had your bicycle stolen, you could try calling the fire-station, but for a bike stolen 20+ years ago they will probably laugh.

Now if a Confente or a Rene Herse were stolen, that may be a different story.

Bills of Sale are always important--especially if you are dealing with a sketchy person.

I think someone ought to design, manufacture, and sell some sort of tracking system. One could epoxy a tiny water-proof "chip" way down in the seat tube. Then, the owner could have a "link" to the chip and look on the internet to see exactly where his/her bike is sitting/moving at any given time on a computer enhanced map.

Ted Baer
Palo Alto, CA