Stolen bikes. Do they ever come back?

[boink]

Daughter in Moston, Manchester had a Calibre Dark peak gravel bike stolen at 4.00 Am earlier today. Kept outside in back garden temporarily, under rain cover and held to railings by 2 Kryptonite locks...but determined scumbag with a bolt-cutter managed to take it. Not phased at all by security light. Captured on camera but pics too poor and blurred to be of much use. I know this kind of thing happens all the time and the natural reaction is to post images of the bike on FB, check market place and Gumtree etc (after contacting the police), but just wondering if anyone has ever managed to actually track down and retrieve a stolen bike?

[PT1029]

Occasionally I have heard of people getting them back. A friend got theirs back (with police help to break the lock) - I saw it locked up in town months later, see viewtopic.php?f=36&t=102936.

Where did all these come from?...... https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 841646536/

[Aikon]

Occasionally I have heard of people getting them back. A friend got theirs back (with police help to break the lock) - I saw it locked up in town months later, see viewtopic.php?f=36&t=102936.

Where did all these come from?...... https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 841646536/

Can’t see the fb link as I’m not on fb but a friend got burgled for a few high value bikes, a van full of bikes was stopped on its way out of the UK, the police suspected they were stolen and publicised the images, some of my friend’s bikes were among them and were recovered.

[Hellhound]

I think it's more often a no than a yes.
A friend got his £2k+ Cotic BFe Mountain bike back when he chanced upon some scroat selling it in his local pub for £20.Unfortunately it had been brush painted with gloss black.
He had the satisfaction of punching the scroat and getting his bike back but he had already bought a new BFe frame to start a new build.

[Paradiddle]

I had a cheaper single-speed stolen from a locked bike shed in front of my flat a couple of years ago. The crooks forced open the door, probably with a crowbar and cut the D-lock. I think I submitted an online report to the police that evening.

A month later the police gave me a call and told me that they found my bike. They had my contact details from the bike register.

When I picked it up they told me that a patrol car found the bike abandoned on the side of the road about 10 mins away from my flat. They think that whoever was riding it saw the police coming and panicked.

Very lucky that I got it back. By this time I had already got a new bike though. Always kept my bikes in the house and insured since then. One of my friends had 2 bikes stolen from him and never got them back. One of them in broad daylight in front of a train station.

A friend got his £2k+ Cotic BFe Mountain bike back when he chanced upon some scroat selling it in his local pub for £20.Unfortunately it had been brush painted with gloss black.
He had the satisfaction of punching the scroat and getting his bike back but he had already bought a new BFe frame to start a new build.

Oof, that is really painful. That satisfaction of punching the guy is not worth having your £2k bike painted with cheap paint.

[colin54]

Sorry to hear about your daughter's theft. I think there is a problem with identifying bicycles' owners if they are recovered by the Police . About the best you can do is make sure the Police have the frame number, tracking device reference if one fitted.
I believe a lot of these bikes get sold onto the second hand bike recycling market (charity or other) at Police auctions as they can't be restored back to their owners due to lack of a bike's identifiable I.D.
I lived next to a bike shop when I lived in Leeds, and that was where the owner bought his second-hand stock from mostly (to sell to students), he bought a bulk amount at the start of the University year. I believe my local charity recycler here in Skem has some kind of arrangement with the local police to take unclaimed machines off of their hands.
A little victory here about an expensive bike being tracked and recovered from Poland by the Police :-
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=145922
Sadly, I think it's mostly like Aldi's catch phrase for it's special-buy sales, 'once they're gone; they're gone'. I never saw either of the two bikes that I had stolen years ago again.

[boink]

Thanks for the replies. Good to hear about some happy reunions. She definitely won't be leaving a bike outside in future, and on the plus side I've got at least one Xmas present idea.

[pedalsheep]

A chap I know had his custom titanium bike stolen from outside his place of work only a few days after he got it. A few days later it turned up on Ebay. He contacted the Police who got the seller's details from Ebay and went round to reclaim it. The seller said he bought it from a car boot sale at the weekend and was not charged with the theft.
Man and bike happily reunited!

[9494arnold]

I had one stolen from inside Police Single Men's Quarters ( you would think it was secure enough but clearly not) and got it back myself seeing it parked outside local bike shop. Hand painted black in it's absence from me but recognised Lugs, equipment (an oldie but a goodie) and had a note of frame number. Juvenile got a caution for Burglary.

[RickH]

I had a Sun badged Raleigh (black Sun GT 10XL) that I bought in the late 70s while I was a student in Manchester. It had the lock cut while parked on the Uni campus a couple of years later. I had insurance which paid up & I'd already bought another, better bike by the time it was nicked so never thought too much of it. I never saw another while I owned it or since except once.

Fast forward a couple of decades & I was doing youth work on a rough council estate in Bolton. One evening one of the youth arrived on a black Sun identical to mine. At that time I could, for some bizarre reason, still remember the frame number & was sorely tempted to check if it was mine. I decided however that it wasn't worth it as the kid who was riding wasn't born when it disappeared. I do sometimes wonder if it was mine.

[eileithyia]

Never got ours back, but a friend got hers back last year and another friend did find his on a sale site but police weren't interested in helping to recover it..

[colin54]

I don't know if there is a national Police register of stolen bikes with frame numbers, or if it's done on a Force by Force basis, if indeed it's the latter, once it's out of the local Police Force's area it would be unlikely to be identified. There must be a national scheme surely ? Anyone know.

Never got ours back, but a friend got hers back last year and another friend did find his on a sale site but police weren't interested in helping to recover it..

There seems to be a common theme of the victims of bike theft doing the legwork in finding their stolen bikes when offered for sale, that's a poor show if the local Police won't follow it up, seeing as your friend has done their work for them .

[francovendee]

I'm still hoping my Raleigh Lenton stolen in 1961 may get returned.

[Grandad]

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/lond ... olen-bikes

Some may

[eileithyia]

I don't know if there is a national Police register of stolen bikes with frame numbers, or if it's done on a Force by Force basis, if indeed it's the latter, once it's out of the local Police Force's area it would be unlikely to be identified. There must be a national scheme surely ? Anyone know.

Never got ours back, but a friend got hers back last year and another friend did find his on a sale site but police weren't interested in helping to recover it..

There seems to be a common theme of the victims of bike theft doing the legwork in finding their stolen bikes when offered for sale, that's a poor show if the local Police won't follow it up, seeing as your friend has done their work for them .

There is a bike register, https://www.bikeregister.com/ and registered ours on it, any decent pawn shop owners are supposed to check bikes that come in against police and national databases. Trouble is I guess the police just cannot do the legwork due to being very under resourced.... I understand the other evening all 8 officers on duty for a specific area were all tied up with problem people in A&E....