Vandalism - your experiances and rants.

KonaKurt

It's an ugly topic, but one that deserves a mention. What experiances have you all had concerning vandalism (as opposed to just having bikes stolen) by petty and heartless thugs? I'm not talking about damage during riding, or damage or theft while stored at home. Have you ever locked your precious steed someplace, only to return and find it damaged? Or maybe actually caught someone in the act of vandalising it?

How trusting are you to lock your steed in a public place?

I am lucky not to have ever been a victim myself with my own eyecatching bike, but feel sorry for other valuable machines that have.

Your experiances and stories!!?

KK.

willy b

Never had an issue and parking my CX bike outside Sheffield uni everyday for past year.

I even forgot to lock mine up for a couple of days, was still there when i came back :roll:

MacAndCheese

so far so good with my commuter being left in a semi-public place in brighton, the only very minor things that have happened are people flicking the gear levers - this can make an annoying crunch as with your first pedal stroke if your not careful - and some idiot disconnecting both my v-brakes, I assume in an attempt to make me unable a brake at the first junction I came to, luckily I noticed. very tame compared to some peoples stories I would think!

Northwind

I hate that... I mena, I completely understand why people steal bikes, I never would but at least it makes sense! Financial gain. But pure vandalism... Nobody wins.

KonaKurt

Let me mention the two worst acts that I have witnessed.

Firstly, a group of massive ****er students who seemed to think that it would be a good laugh to loosen the QR skewer of a nice Cannondale, locked up in the centre of Oxford earlier this year, and then 'hiding' across the street to see if someone could be injured by riding off on it. Unfortunatly, the owner returned to it 2 mins later and I told him what happened. That may not seem like much vandelism to some, but no doubt could have been deadly at speed.

I also saw a couple of dodgy ethnic characters in Birmingham walk up to look at a very nice Trek (might have been an EX9) locked up just yards from a local copper, and then go crazy kicking it to death. They did a pretty good job wrecking it for about a full miniute before me and someone else yelled at them and chased them. This was in brum city centre, and a watching copper did nothing to stop them!!!

By the way, Oxford seems to be famous for bike vandalism, trodden on wheels litter the streets.

I would never leave my bike alone in an urban area for more than 5 mins. I park near cameras where possible.

KK.

stubs

Had my saddle and tyres slashed outside the pub once and a mate came out of college to find someone had left a fresh dog egg on his saddle

Daz555

Had my motorcycles over the years pushed over when parked in the street. :evil: I doubt the scum who do it for a laugh would even comprehend the cost of fixing some bikes when they are pushed over.

alomac

It may not be vandalism per se, but in my current university town it is very common for idiots (usually identified as "drunk students") to throw people's bikes in the river. Every year the council fishes out between 2-300.
I've also seen bikes with wheels literally folded over like a taco, but I don't know if that's vandalism or vehicular damage.

I'd personally never use a nice/new bike as a communter. My MTB lives in front of my television while I do my commuting on a 30 year old three speed.

fourcrossjohn

when i take my bike to school

roughly 2 days out of the 5 in a week 1 yre will be punctured

i once had wd40 sprayed on both discs, both tyres slashed, my nice new seat stolen, handlebars removed and left hanging next to the frame and the qr skevers fully undone.

regardless to say i was pissed off

found somebody in the act of letting my tyres down at school just before my year xc race, he had 2 black eyes and broken nose after i had finished with him, luckily i had my pump litteraly in hand( probs wat caused the damage)

alfablue

violence is not the answer

ride_whenever

yes let the courts deal with it :roll:

furby

fourcrossjohn wrote:

found somebody in the act of letting my tyres down at school just before my year xc race, he had 2 black eyes and broken nose after i had finished with him, luckily i had my pump litteraly in hand( probs wat caused the damage)

Spot on 8)

biff55

british law of today is not set up to protect law - abiding citizens. give bike vandals a pasting. :twisted:

gonga

alfablue wrote:

violence is not the answer

Im not sure i could keep from harming anybody caught messing with my property
sometimes violence is the only way to teach people to respect your stuff!

Not very p.c i know but with our judicial system being a complete joke then you must consider other options

wordnumb

biff55 wrote:

british law of today is not set up to protect law - abiding citizens. give bike vandals a pasting. :twisted:

18 months ago the police caught a gang of blokes (not kids, these were in their 20s) kicking in my bike. Long story short, the landlord of the nearby pub noticed and contacted the police, who arrived ready for a riot. I was having a quiet beer at a different pub round the corner, missed the action but arrived in time to be told they'd arrested most of the culprets. I was told not to get my hopes up though, as it was a gang they'd most likely avoid responsibility by each claiming someone else did the damage.

I'm not sure who was the more surprised the next day when a PC visited to tell me they had a positive ID on one guy who had initiated the vandalism, knew who he was, where he lived, where he worked etc and they were going to throw the book at him.

About two months later I received a cheque from the local courts. No letter of explanation, no mention of how they'd calculated the compensation. A second cheque arrived shortly after.

Clearly this is not how these situations normally play out. But occasionally the pointless little bleeps come off worse. And in this instance I'm glad that it wasn't a question of giving the vandals a pasting, because the odds would've been against me.

captainfly

alfablue wrote:

violence is not the answer

Yes it is, it is pretty much what violence was invented for

OH NO Dan

I dont think id ever leave my bike locked up in a busy area because things like wheels, seat/post could be nicked pretty easily.

wordnumb That was a good result! Did you get more money than expected?

Joe_Pineapples

Not really vandalism as such, but I awoke one morning to find that persons unknown had removed my Mont Blanc Barracuda from my roof rack and planted it pointy end first into my front garden. I actually found it quite funny, but it was my own fault for leaving it unlocked.
My house is on a road that many people stagger along in the wee small hours when they're coming home from the pub. I've also woken up to find that eggs have been thrown at my front windows, but that's nowhere near as funny.

dave_hill

captainfly wrote:

alfablue wrote:

violence is not the answer

Yes it is, it is pretty much what violence was invented for

Hear, hear. There's only one thing these little sh!ts understand.

missmarple

dave_hill wrote:

captainfly wrote:

alfablue wrote:

violence is not the answer

Yes it is, it is pretty much what violence was invented for

Hear, hear. There's only one thing these little sh!ts understand.

It definitely is in some parts of the country, they need to put down onto their level. :twisted:

KonaKurt

Well done wordnumb, a good if slightly lucky result!! It's nice to know there is at least one good story ending out there. I would also imagine that the prosectuted dobbin may have ratted on his 'mates' for the bargain, once he saw himself in trouble. It's often the way.

So, quite a bit of vandalism going on then? You would think with so many CCTV cameras infesting our towns and cities, that far more vandals would get caught.

Vandalism is pointless, although I would imagine the two main motives would be jealousy (of nice possesions) and sheer wickedness ('for a laugh'). But what goes around, comes around in the end.

KK.

KonaKurt

By the way, Alomac... I will wager me last chunk of dairy fruit n nut that the town you are talking about is Oxford. Cambridge? Reading then? These three seem to be littered with squashed abandoned front wheels. I've witnessed toff students throwing their crap bikes into rivers too. So much for our 'elite' huh?

KK.

KonaKurt

Oh my god! I just saw some kids pelting eggs at the most gorgeous Orange 5, then kicking in the wheels. Happened in Banbury town. An amazing old lady armed with her brolly saw them off and gave them hell!!!! I wish I could have congratulated her for her effort.

That's what this country needs!!!! Plenty of elderly people seeing to justice!
I reckon they would do a far better job than our police forces too...! The police should consider recruiting them!


KK.

bomberesque

Touring in Sweden this summer we locked our bikes up outside our tent one night. In the morning, Mrs B's light had been bent over (it's on a long steel bracket). Looked like someone had grabbed the light and tried to twist it off the bike. We bent the bracket back into place (it cracked a bit) and carried on bemused but none the wiser

2 days later we had been riding for 6 hours (and 10 hours the day before) in the pissing rain and were soaked to the skin. Suddenly; paradise .... BURGER KING!!!!!! we locked the bikes and went to fill up on fat and semi-meat product. When we were done we went back out into the rain to get our bikes to find that someone had again tried to twist the light off Mrs B's bike. Again without success although this time they had broken the bracket good and proper.

I have no idea if this is a swedish thing (like nicking the gun sights off mercs used to be a chav thing) or whether we were just unlucky and 2 different people, in 2 separate tons vandalised my wife's bike in exactly the same way.

f**king wierd

Skippy2309

only had people mash there bike in next to mine, mines an old frame which I recently sprayed but its now covered in deep scratches, also had someone loosen the handle bars which was not a fun ride home........

paul.skibum

friend of mine had her brake blocks nicked off her bike and sailed out into a busy road at 20mph. was very lucky to miss the traffic.