Just a FYI...

[metatron]

This was posted by a bike thief...

Who the hell is... That guy that stole your bike?
Posted By gareth on Jul 29, 2015 | 0 comments
The person you're about to read about isn't one person in particular, more a collection of notes taken from a bunch of different versions of the same scumbag over the last ten years. We've pieced them together to paint the picture that none of us should ever have to look at.
Imagine if your working day was one that in002volved nobody bothering you while you went about your business. No traffic jams on your way to work, a guaranteed (and free) parking spot outside the office and no chance of your phone going off every five minutes, leaving you to crack on and get on with what needs to be done. You can be your own boss, knowing that you get out what you put in, or to be a little bit more specific, you get out what somebody else puts in.
I grew up doing this, it started with pushbikes when I was at school, then the odd scooter. As I got older and found that I could make money on your bike rather than dumping it when I was finished, I quickly progressed to bigger bikes that made me easy money. When I was 19, I could earn ten grand a week in cash.
I never start bikes where I steal them. They go into the van and onto a mattress. If your alarm is going off, I'm usually in the van and gone before it's even woken you up. I'll usually pop back the next night to see if you've replaced the chain I broke before the alarm went off. The amount of bikes that spend the first 48 hours after an attempted theft with zero security makes my job easy.
I go to bike meets, just like you. My own bike is roadworthy, has a license disc and insurance. I park it up and drink tea like everyone else, the difference is, I'm looking for bikes that I can steal and make easy money on. The ones that stand out are the ones that have stupid owners stood by them, owners that are talking about details from their ride that allow me to piece together where they might live. I listen carefully while I look at bikes, remember specifics and then follow up. You think it sounds stupid and that you'd never give yourself away? I don't. I sell your bikes to the same set of trusted friends that I've always used, they pay in cash on the spot and are always happy to see me.
I stopped stealing bikes in broad daylight the last time I got caught stealing bikes in broad daylight. It makes no sense at all to me to do this in the daytime. I work at night, I leave the house at around ten pm and I'm home by five most mornings. I don't live in your town, I'll drive the van for an hour or more before I even think about taking a bike. The value that I see isn't always the value that you see. Your brand new R1 is worth on average R60k in easy cash. A fifteen-year old R1 can be worth R20k if it's clean, I'm not fussy. Ground anchors slow me down, bike covers and barking dogs piss me off and some of the chains you think are impenetrable are hilariously easy to break through. If you're wondering how little people hear things at three am on a Saturday morning, get up at three am on a Saturday morning an003d then go kick your neighbours' wheelie bin over. Better still, kick your neighbours' bin over and then hide behind a wall and wait. Nobody will see you. Your sleep is my ally.
There's always some new-fangled way of putting me out of business. Datatagging, immobilisers, chains as thick as your arm and now trackers. Eventually I'll find a way to defeat whatever you have and I'll get what I want. The bikes that I don't steal are bikes that I can't see. I stopped breaking into garages for bikes a long time ago, too much hard work and it means working with other people. I didn't enjoy increasing the risk only to have to share my wages, it's far easier to spend another five minutes in the van or walking round your estate looking for easy targets than it is to spend half an hour trying to silently get your garage door open.
This all started out because I enjoyed the thrill of riding fast on bikes that I could never afford. Now I can afford any bike I like, I don't bother riding yours anymore, so I don't need the keys. It'll come with a new logbook so I don't need that either. You might think that I spend ages silently working away on the ignition of your bike to get it away, I don't. It's simple, I need to get your bike into my van as quickly as possible, that means separating it from whatever is holding it back, that means chain, ground anchor and padlocks all get checked out for the weakest point. I won't break those until I've snapped the steering lock, which involves little more than sitting on the seat, putting my left boot on the handlebars and pushing as hard as I can while I pull the right handlebar towards me. It usually takes less than a minute to snap a steering lock in relative silence. Disc locks are usually pretty easy to prise open. I'll crop the weakest link of the lock or the chain if I can't pick the lock. You can buy lock picking tools online, even disk detainer type locks can be beaten with tools that cost less than R200 ($18). If I can't pick the lock and the situation is right, I'll crop. If I can park close enough, I'll take out the ground anchor with a hand pump hydraulic jack and drag the bike to the van with the lock still in place. I wouldn't want to guess how much money I've made over the years. For long periods, I worked a normal job in the day and just topped my money up putting the odd night shift in once a week. When working in the daytime irritated me, I could walk away knowing that I could do three bikes a week at a minimum of R20k ($1800) each, cash in hand. The day job wasn't about money, it was about giving me a cover to spend money that bikes were making me.
It used to be really easy to do track days on your bike. Some new panels and some stickers completely transformed it. I enjoyed riding it as much as you used to, the difference is, I sold your one hundred grand bike for fifty grand when I was finished with it. Some of your track bikes that I've used didn't even need fuel putting in them. I read on a forum about the police running spot checks at track days which meant I stopped riding your bike at the track and started riding my own again.
Your bike usually gets stripped once I've sold it on, the value in parts takes longer to earn but is usually higher than selling the whole thing on. Some of my friends have friends abroad that will take complete bikes by the truckload, I'm not interested in getting tied up with that stuff, I'm happy to make my money and keep things as they are.

[ShowBizWolf]

Whoooo that made my eyes hurt but I got through it...

Thought provoking!!  That's for sure... I often think that nobody would ever swipe the GS when they could go for a bigger/faster/fancier bike but I guess a thief is a thief and some of them will take whatever they can for all kinds of reasons.

The part about breaking the steering lock...      Smh at people who steal 

[metatron]

Ye we are having a huge issue here with bikes being stolen lately. Mostly litre bikes but everything seems to be fair game .