More Bay Area Bicycle Thief Mayhem...

Way back I had a post about a woman who had her bicycle stolen out the back of her pickup truck. Typical of Bay Area bicycle thieves, they didn't bother stealing her truck (worth thousands of dollars), but wanted her bike very badly -- which couldn't have cost more than a few hundred bucks.

My older brother recently experienced one of those WTF bicycle theft experiences. He had his bike stolen from the backyard of his apartment building.

Not that unusual, right?

Here's where it gets wacky.

His bike was not a blinged racing bike, nor was it one of those mountain bikes packed full of hydraulics. It was a bike marketed to street vendors in developing countries, with big rear racks to haul around large loads with.

Not a sexy vehicle.

His bike was also u-locked around a tree trunk. Tree trunks are not easy to break.

For some odd reason, the bike thieves wanted my brother's unsexy Third World hauling machine. So what did they do?

The chopped down the tree his bike was locked up against!

The determination, resourcefulness, and misplaced priorities, of the Bay Area Bicycle Thief never stops to shock and amaze me.

The whole sub-culture is both aweful and fascinating. Read below;

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=2836&volume_id=254&issue_id=281&volume_num=41&issue_num=20&l=1