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news
Tang Hall Lane, York (credit: Google Maps)Cyclist confronts thieves who stole his bike, gets chased and assaulted but manages to recover bicycle
A cyclist in York was left "shaken" after confronting the thieves who stole his bike from outside a shop — the victim chased, threatened and assaulted by the youths but ultimately leaving in possession of his bike again.
The events unfolded on Sunday afternoon (March 23) when, at around 5.50pm the group of youths stole a bike from outside a shop on Tang Hall Lane. After discovering he had been the victim of the theft, the man in his 20s followed the group to a nearby street where he challenged them and recovered his bike.
However, the group threatened him and chased him to another nearby street, Osbaldwick Lane, where he was assaulted before a member of the public stepped in.
Bike theft protest (credit: Fiona Bateman/Spotted Witney Official/Facebook)> Man convicted after mother of bike theft victim holds three-day protest outside his house
North Yorkshire Police said the victim is thankfully uninjured but "very shaken up by the incident".
A spokesperson told the public: "We're appealing for witnesses to any of the incidents and to anyone in the area with CCTV, doorbell footage or dashcam footage that may may have caught the any of the incidents on camera, to get in touch. Please call North Yorkshire Police on 101 if you can assist our investigation. Alternatively, you can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or via their website when passing on information. Please quote reference 12250051525 when passing on information."
While the incident highlights the risks that can come with confronting the potentially violent offenders who steal bikes, there has undoubtedly been a loss in confidence in the likelihood of stolen items being recovered through conventional crime-reporting means in the UK, not least with the British Transport Police in January admitting that most bike thefts "unlikely to ever be solved".
> Warning that bike theft has been "decriminalised" as stats show 89% of reported cases unsolved
In November, a former Guardian journalist concluded "if it's cycle theft you probably need to expect to solve your own crimes", that after he tracked down his stolen cargo bike after the "overstretched" police told him "that's up to you" and "we do not attend when it's a block of flats".
In the same week, another London cyclist led police to a serial bike thief in a DIY sting operation – after spotting his stolen bike on Gumtree – but admitted they had to make "it difficult for the police to ignore" to get any help.
Cyclists help police find stolen bike (credit: Harry Gray)Despite these 'success stories' on the DIY bike recovery front, the York case does highlight the safety risks that can come with confronting potentially violent criminals over a stolen bike.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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10 comments
There should be an organisation that helps in retrieving lost or stolen bikes! Kinda like the police, but only for bikes. That would be a good thing honestly.
Various groups are trying. I've no involvement with them but e.g. there's Stolen Ride.
Maybe the assault should be considered a good thing. Authorities will usually investigate those and take action against the perpetrators instead of ignoring the whole thing as would be the case if the bike were simply reported stolen.
The assault might actually result in the thieves suffering some sort of punishment.
The article states the toerags were youths, so unfortunately there probably won't be any real punishment. But at least the police are appealing for witnesses, likely due to the assault as you say.
I double lock my bike, solid chain on one wheel D lock on the other. Bit heavy when cycling around, but worth it. Funny how Police never have time to investigate property crimes. Just what have they got time for?
Bike theft is pretty much consequence free for the thief. It doesn't matter what the law is, if it's rarely enforced it might as well not exist.
So what do we do? Demand that bike manufacturers start building in systems that make bikes unattractive targets. TBH if it makes a bike much less likely to be nicked I'd be happy for it to weigh an extra 500gm.
Password lockable electronic shifters would be a start...
Bike serial numbers should be registered at the point of sale - Bike Register / Immobilise *. It would be easy to do and ought to make it harder to sell bikes on and easier to bring charges of handling stolen goods.
* - as an aside, why are there 2 registers? My bikes are registered with Immobilse 'cos I've got their microchips in them, do I need to register them twice?
But only if the police recover it. Once it's been sold on? The chances of that are vanishingly small.
But if you can lock wireless derailleurs from a smartphone app that makes the bike harder to sell. If you could lock the BB in a similar way that would be better still. Ultimately any security measures have to be integrated into the frame, chainsets, groupsets by manufacturers.
Well, you could get a rusty omafiets (would you be happy for it to weight slightly more than double, assuming you've a fairly heavy road bike)? Or a grotty noughties hybrid or 7 speed mountain bike with calipers (weights a few or a lot of extra kilos)?
I've had to choose following thefts from "secure areas". I now keep all bikes in my flat. If I need to leave one locked up anywhere else for any significant time I'll only use the one which is decades old and owes me nothing.
I have a very old MTB (guess what make) that I'll happily leave locked at the train station or shops or whatever. The fairly new Trek MTB or Specialized road bike don't get left locked up. They get ridden and taken inside wherever I end up.