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the ethics of stealing a bike
NB: Originally posted elsewhere on the Global Riders Network and appears via syndication.
The ethics of stealing a bike from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.
Check out some of his other videos as well, pretty good stuff...
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but the ethics of it... I'm not so sure.
could you do the same thing for cars?
really old and really set up... Yeah you can just rock up and plug an angle grinder into the lamp post....
Isn't that the cordless grinder he was talking about? It's silly but a nicely put together video.
That he would prefere to use a cable grinder, however a cordless angle grinder will have to do in this situation.
I stole a bike once!
Many years ago, in Amsterdam, I needed a bike for about a week. I came across one leaning against a wall, completely unlocked. I nicked it.
Both tyres were flat and the whole thing was pretty unloved. I bought two new tyres and cleaned it up and then went to a World Super Bike race elsewhere in Holland.
Upon returning to Amsterdam I returned the bike to the wall it was leaning against. The cost of the whole exercise was about fifty Euro. It would have cost me this per day and I used it for six days.
So that was my brief career in bike crime.
The bottom line appears to be ... if the bike is obviously abandoned, it's OK.
I'm not so sure about that myself. Out where I work at SOP there was a bike I was sure was abandoned. Rusty chain on bike, rusty chain locking it up, looking like it wasn't looked after at all, looking like it hadn't been moved for weeks. The chain on the bike was so rusty that it was completely red. I was thinking of drawing to the attention of the precinct manager so that the decrepit old thing could be removed.
Then one lunchtime I noticed that it was chained up to a different rack. Another day it wasn't there. And then it was back. Hmmm... you mean somebody actually rides that thing?
I revised my plans about talking to the precinct manager.
The "nobody's bike" thing is a problem for unit (apartment) dwellers.
Where we live there are bike racks, but I would say the majority of bikes held there are not regularly used. People who regularly ride their bikes have nicer ones that they don't want scratched to cr@p by the other junk down there. You could argue that this alone means that most bikes on shared racks have a high chance of being no-body's bike. That said, two cases come to mind from our building:
1. The black hybrid thing that had a 'Spring Cycle' number on it from the previous year (ie. that number had been on it for over 12 months) that is now covered in mud (even though it has slicks on it).
2. The red retro racer. Someone placed a notice on this bike which read along the lines of, "To the owner of this bike: I'm a poor student and notice this bike never moves, has flat tires and a rusty chain. If you'd like to sell it I'd gladly offer you a few bucks to take it off your hands as I could clean it up and use as a cheap ride."
Bike 1 is someone's bike, even after no apparent use for over a year!
Bike 2 I'm guessing is no-body's bike. The sign has been there for well over a year, probably two.
This is bad for apartment dwellers because people do seem to abandon bikes and fill up the (often meagre) storage space in units. Some building managers do have clean outs from time to time (you know, put a sign on a bike saying it will be removed in 6 months if not registered, drop letters in residents mailboxes telling them to notify of ownership, etc). Sadly our building manager doesn't want to do this and cited issues of removing them. This thread makes me think once more about the issue and I'll ask him again about it. Theft or not - a "nobody's bike" dumped on common property (not registered and not used) has to be in breach of some strata law or other.
This is a shame, not only as the rack space is full, but also as no-one likes to see an un-loved bike