Re: [TheThinkTank] Cheap locks/stolen bikes
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Hello, Everyone
Sometimes people in Detroit try to earn one or more bikes to
help get bikes for other family members or friends without the time to do EAB themselves. (Not all older siblings are evil bike thieves.)
Single mums sometimes need help earning bikes for themselves
and a couple of kids, some of whom are too small to be responsible for EAB hours. Kids sometimes earn bikes for their mums as a present after earning their own.
People who live far away or who do shift work or who work a
million little jobs to keep afloat sometimes have a friend who will earn a bike for them.
The locks made of chain from the hardware store (often
covered with bits old fire hose to make it harder to cut) and a padlock are popular and apparently effective here.
Coming from Toronto, where bike theft is a real problem, I
was amazed to see Detroiters leaving their bikes on the ground outside-- unlocked!-- to go into stores. Many of the thefts we have involve people trustingly leaving their bikes completely unlocked. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed the tales of the naive, trusting denizens of Detroit's Cass Corridor...
Sasha
On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:56:14 -0400 veganboyjosh@gmail.com wrote:
We got the city of Boulder to subsidize locks, lights, racks, and a small tool/set for each of our Youth EAB students. The locks are the 4 tumbler number kind that you can "program" with your own combination, so the kids won't forget. One issue we had early on was someone opened her lock to lock up her bike, and bumped one of the tumblers, and couldn't get it to lock. she didn't know what to do, so she left it unlocked. Then it got taken. (We now walk the kids through the process of locking and unlocking and
locking again their locks. It's almost as important to me to explain that the locks won'tclose if the combination is wrong, just as it won't open...
Anyway, we've also encountered the older sibling/evil evil bike thief takes/breaks an EAB'ers bike...we're still working on a solution.
My thought is that anyone should be able to earn as many bikes as they want, with one caveat. With each bike that they earn, the hours they need to put in go up. For example, in the normal program, students go through 12-16 hours of work before they earn a (first) bike of their own. With my proposal, if someone wants to come in and earn a second bike, it would take 20-24 hours, or some appropriate amount. The goal would be for them to have the option to do it, but make it silly enough (wanna earn 5 bikes?
work 200 hours...etc) that it's not worth it. I realize there are some other issues--what if someone comes in and wants to earn 5 bikes, no matter how many hours it takes?--but i don't like the idea of limiting people
to one bike... This way, while students have more invested in the second, third, etc, bikes they've earned, which hopefully encourages them to take better care of their bike/security, it also offers them the opportunity to get another bike should the first one get stolen, run over by mom/dad, etc.
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 1:37 PM, rachael spiewak rachael@sopobikes.org wrote:
We've been running into this with the younger folks at the bike
shop, and
we have to be firm about our earn one bike and one bike only
policy.
They're allowed to trade in their bike for a different one only
if the one
they're turning in is in good condition, and we regularly have
chats about
why our policy is what it is. We also chat about how not to get
your bike
stolen. It's hard when older siblings are the ones taking the
bikes away
from the kids who come up to the shop and otherwise abide by
what we have to
offer, so we do our best to be understanding. The most we can
do is create
a system of accountability that makes sense for us, stick to our
rules for
the good of the entire shop community, and be understanding
about
extenuating circumstances.
When we can find deals on locks, we buy a few and distribute
them to folks
who express the need for one. That seems to work for some
people. The
younger folks tend to lose keys, so combo locks work best for
them. I try
to keep a list of their lock combinations and spare keys to help
them out
when things get lost or forgotten.
If folks don't trade cash for bikes, are they doing anything to
create a
sense of investment or ownership in the bikes?
-r
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 3:24 PM, plan_9@riseup.net wrote:
We at the FM Community Bicycle Workshop have had a good,(read:
busy,
chaotic, overwhelming) first spring openand have run into a
few
unexpected situations regarding stolen bikes. We have a one
bike a
year limit policy and have had individuals get bikes from us,
then
come back the next week saying theirs was stolen and they want
to get
another one. Some of these were pretty decent, modern bikes
(trek
4300, Giant Cyprus, Diamondback BMX) and we don't want to
suspect the
worst, that these bikes were pawned or sold for profit rather
than
ridden, but we also don't want to open ourselves up to
exploitation
either. We have put in place a policy that if you bring us a
copy of
your police report you are eligible for earning another bike,
assuming
that folks wouldn't file a false police report. We don't live
in an
area that has high bike theft rates, except for "bike hopping"
where
people just grab a bike that isn't being used and leave it
wherever
they end up. Basically, crime of opportunity rather than
intent. The
bigger issue here is that we are getting folks bikes who can't normally afford one, but not giving them the means to secure
it. We
are interested in getting locks to give out to people who get
bikes
from us through our referral system but are debating which is
the best
solution. One idea would be to buy cheap cable locks in bulk.
Another
idea we have had is a much more DIY approach: Get a roll of
beefy
hardware store chain and a padlock and call it good. Has
anyone run
into this? Thoughts? -Andy FMCBW
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