NYT Bike Theft Article

ALPEN SOLVES TENANT BIKE SECURITY PROBLEM

A silver lining from the coronavirus pandemic has been the worldwide surge in bike sales and ridership. Many bike shops have struggled to keep up with demand while cities continue to improve cycling infrastructure to keep up with the changing times. Unfortunately, for bike owners, this bike boon has led to a spike in thefts. The New York Times recently reported that New York City has seen a 27% increase in bike thefts from March to September. As apartment tenants struggle to find sufficient storage, they are forced to leave their bikes locked to a rack, in a bike cage, or stored in their already cramped living space. The need for a protected and convenient bike storage solution has never been greater.

ALPEN solves this dilemma by offering apartment owners a secure, private, and innovative storage solution that will provide the ultimate protection against theft. The ALPEN Bike Capsule will not only make tenant's lives easier, it will also generate recurring monthly rental revenue for apartment owners and managers.

Bike Thefts Are Up 27% in Pandemic N.Y.C.: ‘Sleep With It Next to You’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020-bike-thefts-nyc

As more people are buying bikes, more bikes are being swiped from sidewalks, garages and basements. Locks are not always a deterrent.

One of the more unexpected side effects of the pandemic has been a surge in cycling, fueled by people avoiding trains and buses and seeking a way to stay in shape. That triggered an extreme shortage of bicycles. Then came the thieves.

Bikes are being plundered from sidewalks, garages and apartment building basements in rising numbers in New York and across the country. Similar spikes in thefts have also been recorded abroad, including in Britain and France.

No one, it seems, is immune.

A father recently posted a sign on a Brooklyn street to publicly shame the thief who stole the bike his 10-year-old son got for his birthday. A bike along with the railing it was locked to was stolen from a Brooklyn apartment building. In the Bronx, a 15-year-old boy riding a bike was attacked by eight men who stole his cycle.

“When you buy a bike you just hope that you hold onto it for as long as you can,” said Jacob Priley, 29, explaining how he had two bikes stolen, one after the other.

The first was at a protest against police brutality in Brooklyn where he said he was arrested after being out past a curfew and left his bike on the street. He replaced it with an electric mountain bike costing about $800. That one was stolen, too, after he left it overnight in the street, albeit locked.

While locks are obviously a good idea, many are no match for the electric saws that thieves commonly use.

“Every lock — you can break it,’’ said Sty Gonzalez, who works at Trek Bicycle shop in Manhattan. “The stronger ones just buy you more time.”

Before the pandemic, Joe Nocella, who owns 718 Cyclery in Brooklyn, used to hear about someone getting their bike stolen maybe once a week. Now it’s every day.

“If they leave their bikes out, they have to be emotionally and financially prepared for it to not be there the next day,” Mr. Nocella said. “The best thing is to keep it with you everywhere you go. Sleep with it next to you.”

The number of bicycles, including those with electric motors, reported stolen in New York from March through Sept. 21 was 4,477, an increase of 27 percent from the 3,507 reported stolen during the same period last year, according to the police.

Those figures are likely an undercount since only one in five bike thefts are reported to the police, according to 529 Garage, a bike registry service. About 1.7 million bikes are stolen every year in the United States, about one every 30 seconds, according to the group.

Bike Index, another national bike registry group, said that between April and September, the number of bikes reported stolen to the service totaled 10,059, compared with 5,998 during the same period last year, a rise of 68 percent.

Bike theft is nothing new, but the latest surge seems to be driven, at least in part, by the shortage caused by a disruption to global supply chains during the outbreak.

Between April and July, sales of bicycles in the United States rose 81 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the NPD Group, a market research company.

“We tend to have seasons like ‘garage break-in season,’ or ‘theft-from-the-street season,’ but now it’s all seasons at once,” said Bryan Hance, a co-founder of Bike Index.

The handling of bike theft differs among police forces, so it can be hard to get a precise handle on the scope of the problem in different cities. Several police departments were unable to provide data. Some agencies will not accept theft reports without a serial number, which not every owner records.

The police force in Portland, Ore., is one of the few agencies in the country to have a dedicated bike theft unit. It reported an 18 percent increase in stolen cycles between January and August compared with the same period last year.

The chances of recovering a stolen bike are often slim. Thieves can easily and quickly sell pilfered bikes on apps and will often sell bikes to buyers in different cities or states, to lessen the chance of being caught, according to bicycling groups.