(Photos: Nomad Cycles PDX)
What is with people using cars and trucks for nefarious and violent actions lately?
This morning around 2:00 am someone driving a blue pick-up truck bashed into the front of the headquarters Nomad Cycles PDX on Northeast Sandy Blvd (just east of 57th). Shop owner Brad Davis says the driver intentionally broke through the front door. Once inside, the thief stole a prototype bicycle off the showroom floor and then sped away.
According to Davis, people who live upstairs from his business were awaken by noise and shaking. They looked out and saw the driver slamming into the building.
Nomad has been in this location for about three years and has never been victimized by theft. Davis thinks the thief knew what they were coming for because nothing else was taken.
Here are more detailed shots of the bike:
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Nomad specializes in electric bike conversion kits and sells them under the Ecospeed brand name. This bike was created in partnership with Phil Wood & Company and has been displayed in their exhibit booth at several trade shows. It is one-of-a-kind that has many custom bits including: A Santa Cruz V10 carbon downhill frame that fits 4-plus inch knobby tires, a swing-arm made by Sycip, a custom-machined triple crown front fork, front-and-rear GoPro cameras, 72-spoke wheels, and many other unique features. You can learn more about the bike in this YouTube video. It should be very easy to spot so please keep your eyes open.
If you have any information about the theft or the bike itself, please call Davis at (503) 806-1745.
Davis is understandably frustrated and sad that it’s been taken; but he doesn’t have time to sulk because he’s got to get his door and wall repaired and secured as soon as possible.
Nomad is just the latest northeast Portland bike to be burglarized and/or damaged. Back in September a driver careened into the front wall of Cat Six Cycles on NE 42nd. And last weekend someone bashed in the windows of Gladys Bikes on Alberta and stole a bike that was hanging on the ceiling.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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I’m really worried that all of the “defund the police” rhetoric is leading to a spike in crime – both b/c police are waylaid by violent protests and b/c people who want to commit crimes know police are waylaid and take the opportunity.
Yeah, it’s like, buyers remorse. We want a better PPB so we bought into the unrest, but now the cows have come home to roost. Never mind that people would stop making a ruckus if the cops would stop killing people and gassing the protesters. I know the tear gassing would stop if the protests stopped…not sure about the killing bit though.
I need to get out on more rural rides so I can catch these roosting cows in person.
It is majestic.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” HL Mencken.
Atlanta, Chicago, and New York have all seen a surge of shootings. And those are only the articles that caught my eye this week. The reasons are, as always, complex, but the trend is troubling.
And these same cities are held hostage and unable to fire long-time officers that are creating a toxic culture. I want to hold out for change.
It’s crazy that the Portland Police can’t recruit people to work a job that starts at over $70k/year and has no education requirements. I really think that the problem isn’t finding people who want to put up with Portlanders, it is finding Portland residents that want to work within the crappy culture of the Portland Police. We pay damn good wages to people who don’t live here, and don’t respect Portland citizens or share their values.
I’m not sure it’s the toxic police culture that’s causing the shootings, but we agree it needs to change, and I hope that in Portland, at least, Council will not sign another contract that extends unconscionable protections against accountability to the police as they have in the past.
I’m a little hesitant to join you in declaring that Portland Police don’t share “Portland values” because I really don’t know what those are, or what the values of the police are. All I can say is that the few Portland cops I have known personally have been very reasonable people who, while understandably a bit jaded, seemed to want to do the right thing.
It’s not so much a bike that was stolen, but more like a unique piece of modern art, which is going to make that much harder for the thief to sell it.
I note that there is an auto body business directly across the street: might they have security camera footage of the crash and theft, maybe to identify the make & model of the damaged motor vehicle?
That would be very neighborly of them.
Wow, what a strange item to steal. Will definitely keep an eye out for that unique ride.
This whole vehicle driving into businesses thing is starting to become fairly standard in the SUV & big truck era.
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/12/drunken-driver-71-plows-suv-through-speedy-market-in-ne-portland-police-say.html
Was the building wearing hi-viz?
Equally interesting is that the vehicles, be they SUVs or big trucks, are even visiting businesses on their own volition, let alone regularly at 3 am, rather than being driven by their human owners (or by thieves who borrowed them).
It’s just like that Futurama episode! Based on that cheesy B movie!
Sorry to ask, but was the stolen bicycle locked to something stationary within the bike shop? Most bike shop owners I’ve met lock all their bikes at night (usually with a 30-foot cable), but the really nice bikes get high-end u-locks too. It seems odd the owner who was living above his shop didn’t have time to respond to a crash-and-go theft, unless the bike in question was left unlocked.
Uh, bike? That’s a moped. The social workers will apprehend the criminal any day now.
False.
Hello, I am the owner, and I dont live in the apartments above the shop, if I did, the story would be a little different! With all the bars we have in the windows, I wasnt anticipating the need for additional locks, but from now on it looks like what will happen.
If the thief is willing to smash his vehicle through the front of the shop, do you really think a cable lock is going to prevent him from taking the bike?
Bollards at the curb might be more effective.
New must-have fixture for bike shops: sidewalk bollards.
I’m guessing that the bike is gone to SoCal, Germany or someplace distant and added to some really rich SOB’s collection. Not like you could sell it on CL… I hope they catch the scumbucketz.
I’m also sure it was a commissioned crime, it use to be art now bikes.