Jeffrey Cramer, who says he can support himself indefinitely as long as he spends just $500 a month, talked to us about bikes, bike theft and living outdoors in Portland.
(Photos by M.Andersen/BikePortland)

When Jeffrey Cramer bought what he now calls “Sarah’s bike” for $10 last Friday night, he wasn’t planning to track down its owner, he said. He just needed a way to get home, because someone had stolen his own bike a week before.

“At that time of night, $10 for a bike ride home was a good deal — you can’t get a cab back to where I live for $10,” he said. “It wasn’t ’til I got home that I realized I was riding a gem.”

Cramer, 48, doesn’t want to say exactly where he lives, except that it’s “way the fucking hell out there.” But five days after he turned down most of a $100 reward for tracking down the owner of the bike he’d bought from the man who stole it, this self-described “vagabond” was willing to have a candid conversation about his decision to live outdoors, the importance of bikes in his life and his own thoughts about Portland’s underground economy of stolen bicycles.

[Read more…]

Because we can never get enough of hearing about how people get their stolen bikes back, we present you two more stories of stolen bike recovery success.

But before getting into some good news, we have some not-so-good news about our Stolen Bike Listings. Due to a software issue that’s causing duplicate postings, I’ve decided to disable the listings until we can get it fixed. Sorry about that. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Our first story comes from Vancouver resident Branden Shelby. You might recall that Branden was the subject of one of our Ride Alongs back in April. A few months after our story, the same bike he rode with me that morning, a LeMond Poprad, was stolen from his side yard. Branden had put a lot of love into his bike, upgrading it over the years with a green Brooks saddle, green BMX pedals, and other nice touches. Unfortunately, he posted it to our Stolen Bike Listings on July 23rd with a $100 reward. [Read more…]

West End Bikes on SW Stark
and 11th is one of several shops
that has been broken into
this past week.
(Photo © J. Maus)

A thief who has (nearly) mastered the ability to remove large windows without breaking them has hit several bike shops and other businesses in the past week.

A total of six businesses (including three bike shops and one bike rack store) have been burglarized since November 1st by what police feel is the same criminal. Two bicycles stolen from windows have since been recovered (officers found them being ridden by people at the site of Occupy Portland) and now Crime Stoppers of Oregon is offering a $1,000 reward to catch the suspect who’s responsible for the string of thefts.

In each of the incidents, the suspect expertly removed a large window without smashing it (or at least trying to not smash it).
[Read more…]

It’s been a while since we mentioned our Stolen Bike Listings or shared a stolen bike recovery story. I used to keep track of every recovery, but after we had about 20 or so, I stopped counting and they didn’t really seem like news anymore.

But just in the last few weeks, we’ve confirmed three recoveries. They made us feel so good that I thought it’d be fun to share the stories with you. Each one shows that a combination of serials numbers and Good Samaritans are sometimes all you need to get your bike back.

So here goes…[Read more…]

(Photo © Chris Harbert)

In what appears to be a smash-and-grab, small downtown bike shop Kinetic Performance lost a display bike and a front window early Wednesday morning. The vandal(s) made off with a white 54cm Fuji Roubaix 2.0 road bike without pedals.

Kinetic opened last March at 1127 SW Morrison Street.

This theft is the fourth such Portland bike shop break-in reported to us since February. Cascade Cycling and the eBike Store in North Portland each experienced similar style thefts. Just this week, Clever Cycles in Southeast Portland had a new computer stolen and their front window broken.[Read more…]

Robert Pickett.
(Photo © J. Maus)

So you’ve seen a nervous-looking young guy riding a too-small high-end racing bike down the street with shoes that definitely don’t match the clips. Or maybe you found a bike stashed behind your garage. Or your friend saw your long-lost steed locked to a pole downtown. What’s the right thing to do? Should you call the police? Can you keep a bike you find? If someone finds your bike, how do you prove it’s yours?

We get emails from readers with these questions at least once a week. We haven’t had good answers (besides directing folks to our stolen bike listings), so we asked Portland Police Officer (and occasional BikePortland contributor) Robert Pickett for his advice on what to do if you’ve found a bike that you think might be stolen.[Read more…]

Stolen.

My friend Felix got his bike stolen last night and his experience might be a lesson for others.

Felix posted a listing to sell his bike on Craigslist. A man responded with interest (Felix says the phone number displayed as “unknown”) and then showed up at Felix’s house at about 9:00 pm last night to take it for a test ride.

Felix says the thief left his backpack as collateral and then left for a test ride. After about 10 minutes, Felix checked the backpack and found nothing but a blanket stuffed inside. [Read more…]