Found it! (Can you tell I was a bit nervous at that moment?)

It’s back! I found my bike and am happy to report it’s right here next to me in my office.

Let’s rewind…
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If you see this bike, please contact me at 503-706-8804. Note that it has fenders and different tires than shown in this photo.

UPDATE, 3:15pm: Found my bike. Stole it back. Here’s the story.

My Cielo is gone. Someone grabbed it from outside my office building at the corner of SW 4th and Stark this morning around 9:00 am. Please help me find it.

I was not thinking straight and left it unlocked. I know it sounds crazy. But it happened. I feel horrible. I had ghost-ridden it to work this morning alongside my city bike (like I usually do at the beginning of the week, so it can stay in my office for lunch rides) and I set it against the rack next to my other bike. I locked my city bike and then walked up to the fourth floor, only to realize — several hours later — that I left it just sitting there. (I’ve had lots of heavy stuff on my mind lately and was just not thinking clearly.) (more…)

A police raid on allegedly stolen bikes in Old Town in July 2012.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

It’s one of the maddening paradoxes of the bike world: biking is so cheap and efficient that it’s a blip on almost every chart.

Biking infrastructure is so easy to build that there’s no army of contractors to lobby for it. Biking education is difficult because it’s so easy to just buy a bike and start riding. And bike theft doesn’t get penalized because a bike can be the most important object in someone’s life even though it’s only worth $50.

Reader Todd Hudson captured an aspect of this problem in a comment beneath this week’s post about a Portland cop who’s leading the fight against bike theft from the front lines.

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Officer David Sanders.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

There’s a strong feeling among many in the community that the Portland Police Bureau simply doesn’t care about bike theft. I hear this sentiment all the time, and I agree that the bureau needs to step up and make this growing problem a higher priority.

In the meantime however, it’s good to know there are some PPB officers going out of their way to battle bike thieves. Officer David Sanders is one of them; but unfortunately he’s doing it inside a bureau that has yet to join him in the fight.

I met Sanders last week at his headquarters office in Old Town.

As he led me into a conference table, I noticed about 8-10 bikes strewn about. They were just the latest batch that Sanders and his partners have taken off the streets and now hope to connect with their owners. Sanders is one of six members of the the downtown Bicycle Patrol Unit (four of which are paid for by Portland Patrol Inc., a private security company that contracts with the PPB), whose job is to keep the peace on the streets. The bulk of his day is responding to low-level disputes and establishing relationships with downtown residents and business owners.

But whenever he can find a few extra minutes, his attention turns to bike theft.
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Putting bike theft on their radar.
(Photo: City of Portland)

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that Portland has a serious theft problem when it comes to bicycles and bike parts. For all of you that feel hopeless about it, I wanted to chime in and say I think there are some signs that the tide is finally starting to turn against the thieves.

We’ve been focused on this issue for over nine years — ever since we first launched our Stolen Bike Listings in September 2005. Since then we’ve helped recover so many bikes I stopped counting a long time ago (I’d guess it’s well into the 100s by now). Back in the early days I actually used to list bikes manually while taking information from aggrieved victims over the phone!

Almost 6,000 stolen bikes later, our listings have become a key part of the local fight against thieves.
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Stolen in Eugene on Friday and it might be in Portland now.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

Willie Hatfield, the winner of Portland’s Disaster Relief Trials event has just informed us that the bike he used — a custom Bike Friday — was stolen in Eugene this past Friday. (more…)

via reader email and Reddit:

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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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