Michael O'Hare wonders why the Dutch all have such crappy bikes:
I asked about this and everyone immediately said "if you had a good bike it would be immediately stolen." On reflection, I'm not satisfied with the answer, for a couple of reasons. First, the Dutch are about as law-abiding as Americans, perhaps more. Second, the serious lock that has kept my pretty good bikes secure on sketchy streets in two US cities for decades is available for purchase all over the world.Third, and most important, I don't see how this belief could be justified by real data, because there were absolutely no bikes worth stealing anywhere I looked. I didn't follow up to ask whether my informants actually knew anyone who had tried this and lost a bike to theft, but I can tell you if I tried to make a living, or even walking-around money, stealing bikes there, my business would never begin, owing to want of targets.
I think I've come upon a national urban legend illusion, perhaps initiated with facts before the era of proper locks, but maintained only by oral tradition and lack of data.
Personally, my experience backs up the Dutch. I have, in the last ten years, purchased three bicycles, along with three top-of-the-line Kryptonite locks. Ratio of bikes-with-kryptonite-locks:bikes-that-were-stolen? 1:1. The last two times, the thieves were considerate enough to relieve me of any anxiety I might have felt about locking my bike insufficiently securely by leaving the lock locked around the bike rack to which I had secured my vehicle.
The last time this happened was this winter, with a 12-year-old Schwinn that had scratches on the paint and loose spokes on the front wheel. I had locked it to a post about ten feet off U Street, a very busy thoroughfare at virtually all hours. Short of painting the entire thing with some sort of fast-acting poison, I'm not sure what else I could have done to protect myself against theft.
This is one of the reasons I have delayed buying a new bike; having obtained permission from my housemates to lock the bike in the vestibule, I'm now deciding whether to try to find an even scragglier bike, or get the nice one I actually want.
One of the things he might also have noticed about Holland is that it's flat. Really, really, flat. And it's also fairly rainy. Plus, they have trams. Who needs shiny ten-speed bicycles with narrow skinny tires that get caught in train tracks and no fenders just to pedal around a dense, flat rainy city?
They may also (and I don't know) have a bit of the Aussie ethic, i.e., the nail that sticks out gets hammered (which I may also have heard of as the "no tall tulip rule," suggesting it may be Dutch). Flashy, shiny new bikes would not be seen as status symbols.
I remember discussing bikes with a Dutch girl. I don't think "stolen" is the right word. Someone taking your bike in Holland is like someone taking your recycling bin here. They assume you'll just grab one that's just the same, so what's the difference? They just take the nearest one and ride it where they want to go, then leave it for the next person. In that case why buy a bike at all?
I grew up in Holland and have had my share of bikes stolen. Especially in the big cities, drug addicts would steal the nicest-looking bikes and sell them for around $25-50; the best defense against theft was to not have the nicest-looking bike.
There's also vandalism - in cities with canals, like Amsterdam and Utrecht, they have to dredge the canals every few years and get literally tons of bicycle wrecks.
I agree with post #2 that the country is so flat, and distances so short, that even a crappy bike will get you where you need to be.
As long as you can secure the bike indoors at both locations, buy a nicer bike, but not so nice that it would be worth someone's time to pull a knife on you. No uber-high-end name brands, no disc brakes -- either of those are steal-me advertisements visible to the casual mugger. Lightweight frame and V-brakes are a must, but you can get those on many Craigslist bikes.
Imagine if the police actually pursued theft instead of just handing out parking tickets...
I've lived in DC for 10 years. Bike almost everywhere and never had one stolen. If you lock the frame of the bike to a post, and both the lock and the post were not broken, then the thieves must have taken a hacksaw to the frame of the bike, rendering it useless for anybody else to ride. What's the point in stealing a bike that you can't later sell on the black market?
When it comes to bikes, theft is the least of your worries. People who spend most of their lives riding iron bicycles get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of the bicycle as a result of interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles. If you let it go too far it will be the end of everything. You would have bicycles wanting votes and they would get seats on the County Council.
If you lock the frame of the bike to a post, and both the lock and the post were not broken, then the thieves must have taken a hacksaw to the frame of the bike, rendering it useless for anybody else to ride.
Or, the thieves are merely getting cocky about their lock-picking skills.
"The last two times, the thieves were considerate enough to relieve me of any anxiety I might have felt about locking my bike insufficiently securely by leaving the lock locked around the bike rack to which I had secured my vehicle"
I wondered about this too. How are they stealing the bike?
Don't know what model kryptonite lock you were using or if they've updated their locks recently but as of a few years ago their funny looking cylindrical-key and locking mechanism could be unlocked in a few seconds with the outside of a bic pen.
Perhaps that is the solution to the mystery of the disappearing bike?
Fun videos of the trick here:
http://www.bikeforums.net/video/
They just take the nearest one and ride it where they want to go, then leave it for the next person.
My university tried that. They took all the bikes that had been abandoned over the years at the school, painted them a uniquely hideous green and left them outside for the use of all. Within a fortnight, all the green bikes were either hidden in dorms or being ridden by children from a nearby neighborhood who had stolen them. Also, drunk people had a nasty habit of throwing/riding the green bikes into a small lake on campus.
The poster's skepticism is understandable, but the answer he got is correct.
I lived in Amsterdam for years. Any bike that is not a piece of junk is immediately stolen, and even those are lifted with decent regularity. "The Dutch are as law abiding as Americans"? No they're not! If you get your bike stolen, people will tell you to go down to the red light district to get another one from a junkie - when you, as an American raised not to do such things, say that you don't want to, they look at you like you are from Mars.
Not to say that the Dutch are bad - they are in many ways more moralistic than we are - but they are not as formalistic as we are - so, they won't do drugs because they're bad, not because they're illegal, whereas in America appeals to morality not based in law are frowned upon.
Finally, that super-duper lock your friend is so fond of gets laughed at in Amsterdam. Really, try bringing that line there - it's like a white guy bringing mikan lay-ups to a playground game, just get that crap out of here, they're in a whole 'nother league.
Ok, I can understand not wanting to buy a stand-out bike because of theft. Then where does the market for these stolen flashy bikes come from? Some wellspring of soon-to-be cynics?
The Dutch people I've known have two bikes. One beatup piece of shit they ride on weekdays on errands. And the nice one they ride on weekends for fun.
The issue everyone is skirting is the punishment for bike theft. I say use the same saw to hack their hands off.
And city people wonder why more people don't want to live in cities.
So this wouldn't fly in Amsterdam?
http://bikerodnkustom4.homestead.com/gallery408.html
My Dutch roomie agreed with jayackroyd. She and many others had a nice bike, but never left it unattended, and never rode it in Amsterdam.
I rode my bike across the US with a Dutch rider, so I got to hear a lot about cycling in the Netherlands. My friend confirms what Bambi and jackaroyd says. In the Netherlands, bike theft is a sport, and any bike left unattended and unlocked in an urban area will be stolen instantly. My friend has a lower quality around town bike that he rides to do errands, a custom touring bike that he rides on tours, and a custom racing bike that he rides on day rides. His cycling friends all have a townie and a racing bike.
Those town bikes may be heavy, but they're equipped with lights, fenders and chain guards. They're practical for commuting and running errands.
It's trendy in the Netherlands to spray paint one's town bike in garish colors so that it's easily recognizable if it's stolen.
From the 1970s through the late 1990s, it was true that Dutch bikes remained universally crappy due to both theft concerns and the nail-that-sticks-out thing; having a nice bike was viewed as showy and just weird, like wearing big platinum and diamond neck chains among middle-class white men in the US. The one exception was a certain class of truly classic bike, the "omafiets", designed in the '20s. It seemed to me that people were willing to tolerate someone who rode around on a nice omafiets because the look was so classic. But many of the "nice" ones were fifty years old.
Since about 2000 there has been a shift in the aesthetic. New bike sales are up dramatically and Dutch bike companies which had never bothered coming out with multi-speed models have begun doing so. The reasons are both greater street safety in Amsterdam and rising tolerance for public displays of flashy consumer goods.
Also, in recent years several new designs have come out for bicycles that seat two or even three toddlers in addition to the rider. The best of these is the "bakfiets", which puts kids and cargo in a forward wheelbarrow but is incredibly comfy to ride and steer. These models cost up to $2000.
It's also the case (heard from Dutch bikers on a biking site) that the crappy town bikes get resold to people for ~$25.00, far less than new glitzy bikes.
I lived in the Netherlands for three years. I got stuff stolen constantly. However, I never once felt in danger from violent crime. Most of my family's mountain bikes were gone within the year.
I live in Cambridge, England, which is very like Amsterdam in terms of being very flat and rainy, and this is also a huge bike town. I can confirm the same is true here, that if you buy a nice new bike it will be immediately stolen. My partner bought a new bike some time ago and left it unlocked in our back garden; within a few days, someone *went into the garden* (of a terraced house!) during the night and stole it, while I've left my crappy old one unlocked there every day for 2 years and it hasn't been touched.
The problem with being in a city with tons and tons of bikes is that it creates a huge incentive for bike thief rings to grow up...
I just can't figure out what they're doing with all the stolen nice bikes if no one is willing to buy a nice bike. Who are they reselling them to? Or are they just doing it for the fun of it? But then why not steal crappy bikes, too?
What I've never understood is that it would seem in order for there to be a reason for all the stolen bikes, there should have to be a large black market where one can easily and inexpensively purchase those stolen bikes.
However, there doesn't seem to be one, or if it exists, the barriers are much, much higher than the black markets for fashion knock-offs or untaxed cigarettes.
The link on my name goes to a rather good article about common methods of bike theft and how to lock to avoid them.
So we have pretty much concluded that the world over (not counting places like Singapore or maybe Saudi Arabia), if you leave a nice bike someplace, it will be thieved? That's almost surprising if it was not humans we were talking about.
Where have all the bikes gone?
Underpants gnomes expanded their franchise to better capitalize on rising commodity prices, selling both cotton and metals now and funneling the profits into Citibank convertible preferred stock (on advice from Saudi Prince friends).
the only time i've ever had anything stolen from me was in the netherlands, actually. someone stole the radio out of my car right in front of the ICJ. the police didn't even bother to take down a report.
but, speaking of data - i recall reading that more bikes are stolen in NL than there are bikes (see njorl's comment.) which is crazy. but its crazier (and so typical of sloppy thinking) to write "gee, all these dutch people must be wrong, and its obvious that their paranoia comes from not looking at the data" without, you know, looking at the data.
Come on. Ms. McArdle, you are way smarter than this. I could come up with anecdotal evidence for anything. That's how faith healers and Christians and the people who make airborne all get away with their huckstery.
I have had 11 bikes over the last decade, any of them worth more than $500 and some of them worth five times that and I have never had one stolen. Major cities, bad neighborhoods. Why? Because I don't leave them outside overnight. Period. Everyone that I know who has had a bike stolen leaves it outside at night for an extended period of time.
The real reason is that Holland is pretty flat and everyone uses bicycles for transportation. When you combine those factors you end up with utilitarian bicycles rather than the more sporty varieties seen in the US. You don't need lots of gears or light-weight materials when you just have to pedal a few tens of miles over flat terrain to/from work or errands.
My college tried the communal green bike thing too. At the end of the first day, they were all at the bottom of the biggest hill in town. Nobody wanted to ride them back up, so they stayed there.
Megan, forget the overpriced "specialty" bike locks. Get a length of hardened chain and a piece of vinyl tubing for it (to protect the finish on the bike) and a good quality padlock. Try to find an object to chain it to that keeps the chain high enough that bolt cutters have to be used with both arms (the thieves can't put one handle on the ground and lean their weight on the other).
That should keep your next bike around longer.
When I was in Amsterdam (for a semester in 1999) even motorcycles were secured with two bike locks.
AMERICAN govts already tried to slow down CRIMES by teaching classes in being a COYOTE etc...and it only QUADRUPLED the PROBLEM!
AMERICAN govts already tried to slow down CRIMES by teaching classes in being a COYOTE etc...and it only QUADRUPLED the PROBLEM!
AMERICAN govts already tried to slow down CRIMES by teaching classes in being a COYOTE etc...and it only QUADRUPLED the PROBLEM!
If you ever catch the thieves, please have them blog their methods. Apparently it is easier to open those things WITHOUT the keys than WITH them.
Just got back from lunch, where I secured my bike to a pole and ate at the window with a clear view of the bike. Wished I hadn't bothered to lock it.
After lunch, about three minutes of fumbling with the key did not get that lock (Your favorite brand, which I bought DESPITE reading your blog because, well...that's what the bike store HAD. Makes me wonder - do bike stores REALLY have an incentive to stock good locks?) open. I would have tried longer, except that the key finally broke off inside.
Walking dejectedly back to work, I stumbled into a hardware store on the first block. Bought a light-duty hacksaw and a special grit-lined blade that would cut "uncuttable" things. Never needed the special blade, 2 minutes with the regular hacksaw got me the use of my bike.
The entire time nobody said anything.