This installment comes in the form of a Twitter conversation:

Had my bike stolen. Again. Second bike this year. Portland, I love you, but you’re bringing me down.

— Andy McMillan (@andymcmillan) October 9, 2014

@andymcmillan How are they getting them? Cutting the lock? If you want, I have an insane NYC u-lock that weighs so much I never use it.

— Matt Haughey (@mathowie) October 9, 2014

@mathowie Actually, it was locked to a 2 Hour Parking sign in SE. They snapped the sign off the pole, and lifted the bike over the top.

— Andy McMillan (@andymcmillan) October 9, 2014

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From RM on 9/24/14:

“About two weeks ago my husband’s bike was stolen off the front of a TriMet bus. It was not taken by another rider. It was taken by a random person on the street who ran up to the bus, grabbed his bike and rode off. The driver alerted our friend, who had borrowed the bike but by the time she got off the bus the thief could not be caught. I contacted TriMet and got a weak sorry from them but no hint that they could or would compensate us for the loss. The person I spoke to said, “it’s public transit,” like that somehow made it all go away. From what I understand, this type of thing is a rarity and I would think that TriMet’s Risk department or some such would have a way to compensate (even a small amount) for the loss of something that was put in their care while someone is riding the bus. I’ve made a report to the police but am not holding my breath for a result. Our homeowner’s policy has a deductible greater than the value of the bike. I don’t know if you have any suggestions or influence in a matter of this sort, but any input or help would be greatly appreciated.”

— Read more Bike Theft Chronicles

[Note: In case you missed the announcement, we are now posting reader emails, comments, and other communiques we come across regarding bike theft. We are hearing so much about this crisis, we can't follow-up with a story on everything, so we figure the next best thing is just to try and highlight as many of these as we can. Keep in mind, these posts have not been vetted or verified by BikePortland, we are simply re-posting and will include a link to the original source when possible. - Jonathan]

From C T on 10/6/14:
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A “Cash for Bicycles” offer posted at St. Francis Park in
SE Portland, modified to remove its number.
(Photo: Bryan Hance)

Bryan Hance might know more about bike theft than anybody in the country.

So it’s always a treat when the Portland resident and founder of StolenBicycleRegistry.com, now BikeIndex.org, drops some knowledge here. (Note: Hance is also creator of the Stolen Bike Listings tool we use here on BikePortland — which will be relaunched very very soon!)

Here’s what Hance had to say on our post about our new Bike Theft Chronicles feature. Hance is working on a similar problem to local startup Project 529 — make it free and easy for everyone to register their bikes before thefts and to track them after thefts — but he’s tackling it from an open-source angle.

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As we reported back in July, bike theft in Portland is out of control. The problem shows no sign of going away and in fact, if my judgment of web chatter and other intelligence-gathering channels I monitor daily is correct, it’s getting worse.

We are working to help in various ways (a major update to our Stolen Bike Listings is coming online soon and we’re sitting down with the PPB next week to talk about various strategies), but in the meantime I wanted to do something with the constant stream of emails we receive on this topic.
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— This post was co-written by Michael Andersen and Jonathan Maus

KATU-TV ended their evening newscast on Friday with a pretty touching anecdote about a girl who knows how much her dad’s bikes mean to him.

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Joel Brown, happy with his bright green Kona.
(Photos courtesy of Joel Brown)

We’ve shared dozens of stolen bike recovery stories here on BikePortland over the years. From an editorial standpoint, I usually don’t like to repeat similar stories; but in these cases I make exceptions. Why? Because I know the despair people feel when their bike gets stolen, and I want to give victims hope. I also feel that given what a huge problem bike theft is in Portland (much larger than you might think), I jump at any excuse to cover the topic.

On that note, here’s the story of reader Joel Brown, who emailed his recovery story to us this morning: (more…)

Bike theft suspects at work in Eastmoreland this morning.
(Photos: Portland Police Bureau)

The Portland Police Bureau have distributed images of bike thieves who were active in the Eastmoreland Neighborhood this morning.

Here are the rest of the photos:
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The Project 529 team in the office on Wednesday. Their new free mobile app makes it far easier to track and report a stolen bike, but the company has bigger plans.
(Photos by M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Working from an office high above Interstate Avenue, a team of Portlanders has spent the last year quietly building what might be the country’s most ambitious bike-specific software company.

Funded out of pocket by three co-founders and led by the lead creator of the XBox, the ten-person company calling itself Project 529 hit the Internet last month with a web and mobile app that aspires to be a next-generation Stolen Bicycle Registry and with an attention-grabbing petition asking eBay and Craigslist to begin requiring serial numbers for the bikes they sell.

But the most interesting part of Project 529, which is pronounced “five two nine” in reference to the hours of rest and recreation, is what it wants to do.

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Bike racks at SW 12th and Washington
where stolen bikes are frequently locked up.
(Photo J. Maus/BikePortland)

Fencing operations for stolen bicycles are currently operating out of two downtown Portland buildings, Lake Oswego police say.

Det. Lee Ferguson said in an interview last week that Lake Oswego police officers tracked a handful of bikes stolen from that city to apartment buildings at SW 10th and Salmon and SW 12th and Washington. He said someone operating out of those buildings consistently purchases bicycles from people who steal them, then locks them at bike racks outside.

A third party then stops by to inspect the bikes, Ferguson said, makes arrangements to purchase them, gets a key from the fence and takes them away.
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