Thief surveys his target.See more photos below.(Photos: PDOT)

Central Precinct officers are on the lookout for a suit-wearing thief that nabbed an unsecured bike from the racks in front of the City of Portland Office of Transportation’s headquarters in downtown Portland (1120 SW 5th, across the street from City Hall).
The theft occurred around 2:00pm last Friday [...]

One educational effort in Portland.(Photo © J. Maus)

The New York Times has an amazing report (In a Cyclist-Friendly City, a Black Hole for Bikes - 8/21/08) about a man in Toronto, Canada who was caught with nearly 3,000 stolen bikes in his possession.
According to the report, Igor Kenk was a used bike shop owner (among [...]

If you really don’t like bike thieves, check out this step-by-step how-to posted to Instructables (video below)…
“With a $40 pay-as-you-go cell phone, stun gun, and some basic electronic components, you can teach bike thieves a lesson and, hopefully, foster a small social change through individual action…”

Check out his video below:

This reminder brought to you by your friends at the Lloyd TMA.(Photo © J. Maus)

Since summer is the peak of bike theft season, and many newbies are taking to the streets (with shiny new steeds) for the first time, I thought it was time for a bike theft prevention refresher course.
The other day, while locking [...]

How not to lock your bike.(All photos © J. Maus)

Portland is tied for the fifth spot on Kryptonite’s latest list of the Top 10 Worst Cities for Bike Theft.
The results are from 2007 and they were posted to the Kryptonite blog today. Joining Portland in the top five are Philadephia, Chicago, San Francisco, New [...]

Police Officer Robert Pickett(File photo © Jonathan Maus)

Police Officer Robert Pickett passes on the news that thew newly formed Southeast Precinct Neighborhood Enhancement Team, with help from the SE Precinct Bicycle Patrol, has uncovered a stash of stolen property.
“The loot” he says, includes nine “well-loved bicycles”.
Unfortunately, when he ran the serial numbers, none [...]

“Rad Amerika” was stolen from Washington Park last Monday. Please contact me if you’ve seen it.

Few people in Portland’s bike scene put as much creativity and thought into their bikes (or their outfits) as Gabriel Amadeus Tiller. He’s got the zaniest collection of tall-bikes, freak chopper bikes, and mini-bikes I’ve ever come across.

Gabe [...]

Here’s an update to the story about a burglary at Weir’s Cyclery in St. Johns courtesy of Ira Ryan (who works in the basement of the shop),
“The cops recovered 10 bikes and most of the other stuff last night. The thief was a resident tweaker in St. Johns who the cops are on a [...]

Empty racks inside Weir’s Cyclery.(Photo: Ira Ryan)

Weir’s Cyclery in St. Johns was the target of a major robbery last night.
According to framebuilder Ira Ryan, whose shop is in the basement of Weir’s, the thieves broke into the back door and took nearly all the shop’s Specialized and Raleigh brand mountain bikes and several road bikes. [...]

Kloeppel’s fork for sale on eBay.

Back in December, someone broke into Mike Kloeppel’s Woodstock neighborhood home and stole four of his “irreplaceable” high-end bikes.
A few months later Southeast Precinct police officers recovered two of them.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago.
Out of the blue Kloeppel got a call from someone in Wisconsin who [...]

The lock selection at Citybikes.(File photo)

Yesterday a record ten bikes were listed on the BikePortland Stolen Bike Listings, bringing July’s total to 30.
In May, 80 bikes were listed and June would have topped that if the listings hadn’t broken after my server crash.
Portland was recently named one of the “Top Ten” worst cities [...]

(File photo)

U-lock maker Kryptonite has released their list of the Top 10 Cities for Bike Theft. Portland comes in at a tie for 9th place with San Diego, CA and Washington, DC.
Here is the complete list:

Top 10 Cities for Bike Theft
1. New York City
2. Chicago
3. Boston
4. Philadelphia
5. San Jose
6. Los Angeles - tie
San [...]

Detectives from the Central Precinct are looking for a brazen bike thief. The man below was caught on security cameras in front of the City of Portland Building wielding a set of bolt cutters in hopes of stealing a bike. When the security guard showed up, he made a hasty retreat.

(Photo: PPB/PDOT)

To help [...]

Spotted this unfortunate scene in front of Powell’s last week:

Folks. Please. Bike theft is going crazy in this town right now. I’m getting about 3-4 stolen bikes listed every day on this site alone. Please use a high-quality u-lock or a heavy chain to secure your bike. Cable locks are [...]

Washington CountyCommisionerDick Schouten.Photo: Wash. Co.

Last November, Washington County Commissioner Dick Schouten boarded the Blue Line MAX train at the Hatfield Government Center in Hillsboro. He hung his bike on a hook, sat down, and dozed off for just a few stops.
By the time he opened his eyes, his bike was gone.
Schouten filed [...]

The other day I noticed something strange when I went to park my bike on the corner of NW 23rd and Kearney (just in front of the toy store). The bolts that attach the rack into the concrete had been loosened and the rack wobbled back and forth (see photos below).

Loose bolts on [...]

It’s been way too long since I last shared a stolen bike recovery story, so I was very pleased to get a call last week from local theft victim Michael Kloeppel.
Back in December, Michael lost his entire fleet of beloved, high-end bikes when thieves hit his Woodstock home.

On Thursday, nearly five months later, he received [...]

It’s been forever since I last posted a stolen bike recovery story.
This time, the story comes from S. Renee Mitchell’s column in the Oregonian last week. She has the story of Erin Greeson’s high-end carbon-fiber racing bike getting nabbed from New Seasons in Sellwood:

“I was waiting in line to pay,” she says, [...]

The Stolen Bike Listings just took a nice step up. Michael Jones, the man behind Finetoothcog, just completed one of the main features we planned since we joined forces back in June.
He has combined stolen bike location data with Google Maps to provide a nifty view of where bikes get nabbed.

[View the map on [...]

Michael Kloeppel is the General Manager of Cyclone Bicycle Supply, a bicycle parts and accessory distributor based in Southeast Portland.
This past weekend, someone broke into his Woodstock neighborhood home and took his “irreplaceable” fleet of bicycles.

The bikes were all unique and should stick out like a sore thumb in the hands of the [...]

[Hey! That's my bike!]

The other day I got a phone call from a reader in distress. He found his wife’s bike for sale on Craigslist. He was sure it was her bike, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed. I didn’t really have a good answer for him so I asked [...]

As promised when I introduced my partnership with Finetoothcog, web programming guru Michael Jones of Code in Motion has been hard at work trying to integrate your stolen bike listings into a Google Map interface.
It’s not quite fully functional just yet, but this morning he sent me over a sneak preview of an actual Google [...]

[Officer Jim to the rescue]Photo: Jack Newlevant

I’m happy to share that yet another bicycle has been recovered due to this site and the vigilance of our bike community. This time the bike was the beloved, vintage Ritchey belonging to Jack Newlevant. He has documented the story well on his personal website. Here’s [...]

You might have noticed that I just posted 72 stolen bike listings. Sorry for the onslaught (especially those of you that read via my RSS feed) but I can explain everything.
But before I do, check out this video clip from FOX News (KPTV) that aired a few days ago. It features [...]

[Still from Willamette Week videoshows intern using bolt cutters whilepeople ignore him completely.]

Just noticed the Willamette Week has devoted a cover story to bike theft. They sent out intern Josh Silverman to steal his own bike in broad daylight to see if anyone would stop him (no one did).
They also made a video documenting [...]

[Update: The Police Bureau has just debuted their new web page for bike safety and theft info.]

[Recovery number 15!]

This week has been good and bad for bike theft.
First the bad news. In the last 7 days there have been 39 new stolen bike listings (I haven’t published them all yet).
That’s a [...]

It’s been a while since we got a stolen bike back so it felt great to read this comment from a reader yesterday:

[Recovered!]

“Wow, this thing really works. Two weeks after my bike was stolen in NW PDX, I received a phone call from a good samaritan who bought my bike for next to nothing at [...]

There was a stolen bike listing that caught my eye the other day.
Apparently a woman was waiting for a MAX train when a thief ripped her beloved steed right out of her hands. The woman’s husband emailed these details:

[Liz and bike, pre-theft.]

“She was at the PGE Park MAX stop when a guy ran [...]

A recent stolen bike listing describes a brazen thief clipping bike locks in broad daylight on NE Broadway Blvd:
“My bike was stolen a few hours ago outside Costello’s Travel Cafe on NE Broadway between 22nd and 23rd. It was 7:00pm, bright out, and busy on the street. A woman who was parking right beside the [...]

Check out this article in today’s Willamette Week.

“Two-Wheeled Street Justice: A popular website tips off bike-theft vigilantes”
Reporter Angela Valdez covers the recent bike theft recovery story and says some nice things about BikePortland.org.
I love this quote she got from Corey (the guy that confronted the thief):

“My whole theory on violence is, if you [...]