Stolen Bikes in Edmonton

This is a blog where Edmonton commuters can post photos and information about their stolen bicycles, in hopes of recovering them. We hope you’re not here to post about your stolen bike, but if you are, you can register/login on the right to create a posting, and we’ll publish your post once we’ve reviewed it.

Your best option, certainly, is to avoid having your bike stolen in the first place. A well-locked bicycle won’t get stolen, unless it also happens to be a $10,000 bicycle and gets left in the open for a long time. (Most $10,000 bicycles, by the by, are never well-locked. The owners are just surgically attached to them.) Bike thieves are usually opportunists, and will go after the easy-steal: the bicycle in your unlocked shed, the bicycle with the cheap cable lock, or the bike that’s locked to a dead twig. Or the unlocked quick-release wheels.

Your local bike shop may recommend spending about 10% of your bike’s value on locks. Here at EBC, it ends up being 50-100% of your bike’s value for the same lock, which pretty much guarantees that bike thieves will go after something more worth their effort. (I once walked into a bike shop asking for their cheapest lock, and they gave me the “10%” number, so I jokingly asked for a 10-cent lock.)

You can buy a low/mid-quality U-lock for $15. Don’t waste your money on a $20 cable lock–it’s not much better than a $1 cable lock, and a $40 U-lock will keep your bike much safer than a $40 cable lock. Don’t waste your money on a standard padlock, either: as thick as your chain may be, your padlock is the weakest link, and it’s probably easy to break. Use a mini-U-lock and heavy-duty chain, if you want to use a chain.