Am I understanding that bicycle stealing has fast becoming a new hobbies of many thieves??? Even within neighbours!

Our 20 year old racer bike was stolen out from our 'secured' double lock bicycle room.. it could only be our neighbour ( we have about 20 families). It is impossible to get in without a key...

The problem is not that it is an antique bike (at least nobody in our family got hurt)that probably worth like 1000CHF. The person who took it must be short of cash, but it is the trouble that we have to go out now to buy a brand new bike! Especially now the season is almost over, there are very limited racer bike avaliable..

Why... we parked all our bikes (we have 4 and the racer is the cheapest!) in there for almost 4 years now and there are many more expensive bikes lying around in the room (E-bike, top mountain bike..)...Why us???!!!
Now we have to go to a DIY shop to buy a very long lock to tied all our other 3 bikes together to prevent more theft..

or have the three of them stolen together….

This has happened a few times, reading through threads here on EF. I don't lock my bike once it's in the bike room, but maybe I should start.

It could happen that a neighbour steals my bike. Or leaves the door open by mistake. Or they let a friend keep their bike in there who steals it. Hmm. Luckily I have insurance as it's a hassle to lock it, as our bike room is small and we often have to manoeuvre the bikes around to get them out.

I think some thieves have the talent to break into a room without a key, no?

Perhaps the thief followed a resident into the bicycle room when the door was open? I have also heard of fellow resident's "borrowing" bicycles without asking, usually returning them later. I leave my bikes locked my basement where no one can take them. If I left them in the bicycle room I would always use a lock.

It's much easier to ride or wheel one bike away than to carry 3 of them away! I kept 2 bikes locked up outside my house in the UK. They were locked to each other and then locked to a pole. I came home once to find the lock to the pole cut, but the lock locking the bikes together was a more expensive lock and you could see where the attempts to cut it had failed. I never bothered locking them to the pole again and the bikes were never stolen.

It seems like bike theft is very opportunistic here, based on what I have read on this forum and what I see is available to steal at the road works right outside my house now. I noticed two almost new wheelbarrows are always left overnight and over the weekend with no security. I can't think of anywhere else I have lived where a wheelbarrow could be left unattended for more than a few hours with out it disappearing! And most of the other equipment is not very secure. The container used to store some of the more valuable tools is locked with a single, average padlock.

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We have a lock for every single one of our bike.. But it seems not to work..

Now we will lock it to the bicycle stand as well... triple protection...
Wonder will my neighbour very expensive looking E-bike be next...

We have printed out a warning on the front door, hopefully this will stop the theft for awhile...

I would be the thief I would be terrified by such warning note.
I'm already shaking, my teeth are clacking, stress level reach dangerous high levels.

PS:

prevention: take picture of your bikes, so you can give them to the police for the report.
Do make a police report even if chances to catch the thief/get the bike back are low.
Do scout Anibis, Ricardo for pictures of your bike.

Do talk to neighbors in person and ask them if they have seen anything-

Etc...

If your bike has a removable quick release front wheel or saddle, you could keep that bit in your apartment. No thief (or *ahem* neighbour) is going to be arsed with the hassle of replacing it and would probably leave your bike alone.

And if they do ask if you would sell them the saddle it might be a clue ............ hmmmm

What does the warning notice on your front door say. I hope it's not:

"Warning, we'll be very cross if you come inside and steal our nice and expensive bikes (the ones you weren't aware of until you read this notice)".

My neighbour with the brand new E-bike will hate me for that...

Painting your bike a bright colour might help to put 'casual' thieves or borrowers off. Perhaps even taping it with something 'obvious' would be a deterrent too.
We once lived in a house where there was also a dental practice and found a bike hanging around which had probably been used by someone who had missed the bus to get there. Rang the police who found the owner. (In the days when the police kept a record of the numbers on the vignette). At a local swimming pool it was quite on the cards to find ones bike missing. Locking it didn't prevent it being taken but it could be found safe and sound down at the railway station...

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Longbyt

It's not likely to be much hassle to steal a wheel or saddle from one of the other bikes.

Appears he/she was civilized and wanted to cause least harm ;-).
Or just wanted to ride away as fast as possible and so took the racer.

I know, useless answers :-)

Assuming the other bikes have the same sized wheels.

(Just had an hilarious vision )

my bike currently lives in the spare room, my fiance is not keen on it being there but no-one is going to steal it...its quite a pricey bike, and our neighbours have a pretty lax attitude to security downstairs so I dont feel happy with it down there....

Not that I want to encourage any thiefs, of course, but most locks people here use can be openend by a (slightly skilled) thief faster than the orignial owner could with his own keys. Sometimes people still use those locks with the number codes...
Coming from NL I was at first surprised that not all bikes here got stolen every day. What does seem to increase is those little punks that are trying to steal the lights, speedometers, etc off your bike - but maybe they are just frustrated they coudln't steal the bike because of the big lock on it!

If you're bike is not targeted, then the thief will just take any other available which has no lock on it. There are plenty of those in Switzerland.