Making the Best of Having Your Bicycle Stolen

Screenshot from the Stolen Bikes Database website

With spring here and nice weather, a lot of us will be riding our bikes more often, which means thieves will be on the prowl for poorly locked bikes. For anyone who has had a bicycle stolen, there are few feelings as dreadful. The SFBC has a great resource page with tips on how to secure your bike properly and what to do if you lose it, including calls to the SFPD and posts on Craigslist.

If you have had your bike stolen, a new website is building off of that loss and attempting foster a community of people who are in the same predicament. Stolen Bikes Database, a project started by CHS Consulting Group’s Nino Genoese, allows users to geocode the location where their bicycle was stolen and share a description of the circumstances.  It also serves allows you to see high theft areas on a map.

As Genoese writes on the website, “I’ve had my bike stolen from me and so have you.  My goal for this
database is to first maybe provide a channel for someone to find and
return a stolen bike and second spread awareness of the locations of
higher incidence and maybe decrease the occurrence of bike theft.”

Many of you have already watched this excellent Streetfilm with a bike mechanic from New York City as he grades the quality of the locks people use to lock up, but if you aren’t sure you’re locking your bike properly, we would recommend checking it out again.  Safe riding!