Moped gang steal junior national closed circuit TT champ’s bike – 12 hours after he won title (+ video)

It's not the original footage - it's a video of a screen showing the footage. That's why you can see all the controls, etc. at the bottom of the screen. You can even make out the badge on the monitor ('Hikvision') below that.

Ah thanks ... that explains it!

Would they need to destroy the bikes ? They would just use an angle grinder (and as we know you can get a 305mm disc portable one )

squired wrote:

Obviously it can be worthwhile having bikes chained to ground anchors, but there is every chance they will just destroy the bikes if they can't have them.

A friend of mine had his bike suffer the same fate. Except that he had a cheap bike that he had bought from Argos that wasnt even worth stealing.

Part of his commute to work includes a bike ride down to the train station before locking it up there and jumping on the train to head into london for work. Someone had attempted to steal his bike on multiple occasions but failed to cut through his lock or chain and each time the thief would take out his displeasure of not being able to steal the bike on the bike itself. things like taking a hammer to the frame, shredding his tyres or his saddle, clipping his gear/brake cables, kicking/breaking his wheels etc etc etc and it gradually got worse and worse to the point where I think the guy eventually got an angle grinder, still wasnt able to cut through the locks/chain so cut through the handlebars, seatpost and the frame itself.

This guy wasted so much effort trying to steal a bike that wasnt worth more than £100-150 well before the days of covid. 

sad about the bike though, but he did get a new one and never parked it outside the station again.

I used to lock my inexpensive hybrid in the bike shed outside my flat when I lived in Colchester, they were discretely out of the way from the road, you'd have to go looking for them to find them, but on two occasions I had someone try to steal the bike, fail to get through the locks, so they stripped every part they could from it. Even though the bike wasn't expensive it was still kind of heartbreaking, the second time I didn't bother to replace the parts until after I'd moved to a house with a garage to lock it in. Needless to say the road bike never lived outside, I used to lock it in the electricity meter cupboard inside the flat.

Things shouldn't have to be like that, it shouldn't be an attractive crime to steal bikes, yet it seems to easy to get away with and doesn't seem to carry much in the way of punishment.

anke wrote:

This is most annyoing, I'm sorry to hear about this. 

But out of interest: Were the bike not locked inside the garage? Chained to a solid object?

Were they two abreast, not wearing hi vis, not wearing helmets? Didn't they flag down one of the many passing buses at 0330?

I know I'm being idealistic here but you shouldn't have to keep bikes under dozens of layers of security. It's the thieves who are culpable no matter what the level of security in use, and your post smells a bit of victim blaming.

TheBillder wrote:

anke wrote:

This is most annyoing, I'm sorry to hear about this. 

But out of interest: Were the bike not locked inside the garage? Chained to a solid object?

Were they two abreast, not wearing hi vis, not wearing helmets? Didn't they flag down one of the many passing buses at 0330? I know I'm being idealistic here but you shouldn't have to keep bikes under dozens of layers of security. It's the thieves who are culpable no matter what the level of security in use, and your post smells a bit of victim blaming.

Agreed, this was a targetted raid on somebody's home, not simply walking off with a bike left outside the toilets. Even then I get sick of hearing victim blaming.

If it's not yours, don't take it - you wouldn't like it if someone did it to you.

I take it you don't lock your front door because you don't want to have made any effort to stop thieves because you shouldn't have to? 

check12 wrote:

I take it you don't lock your front door because you don't want to have made any effort to stop thieves because you shouldn't have to? 

I lock my front door, and I consider that to be enough that I haven't put cable locks through my television, computer, or other valuables.

Yeah but your guns deter them.

check12 wrote:

I take it you don't lock your front door because you don't want to have made any effort to stop thieves because you shouldn't have to? 

I lock my front door as, amongst other things,  it's a stipulation of my insurance policy. Even then I've been known to forget, because I'm only, well, badger.

If someone steals my stuff after gaining entrance in that circumstance, I've been guilty of forgetting. They are guilty of being a thieving scrote. I wonder how we stack up against each other morally.....

I'd imagine anyone who did try to break in would be risking getting stuck in the entrance anyway.

Frankly, anyone who risks trying to raid a badger's sett is braver than me.

mdavidford wrote:

I'd imagine anyone who did try to break in would be risking getting stuck in the entrance anyway.

Frankly, anyone who risks trying to raid a badger's sett is braver than me.

Yes, well. Those squirrels are frankly getting too big for their boots.,...

Woldsman wrote:

Though nowhere near as expensive as these models I've had a bike stolen from me. That was nearly twenty years ago and it still rankles. Bastards. 

Odd, isn't it ? I sometimes imagine my hybrid getting stolen and think about all the commutes, shopping trips, rides into town, bikepacking trips, the mild off-road rides we've had. Even if I could replace her exactly (I can't) it wouldn't be the same bike.
My car could be stolen tomorrow and I wouldn't care (provided the insurance paid out). I'm fucking sick of bike thieves.

I cant see them popping up as whole bikes again, my guess giving the organised targetted nature of it, the bikes assuming they were even in one piece anymore are probably not even in this country by now.