9/15/2023 0 Comments Bicycle thief![]() ![]() The company now makes a thick brute called the New York Lock, with a one-year $1,000 guarantee. Kryptonite, the maker of U-shaped bar locks, guarantees its basic model against theft everywhere in the country-except this town. Pshaw!Īs with other callings, bike thievery moves to a higher level in New York. That pleasing seat was irreplaceable: unlike the officially approved but ugly molded plastic seats now offered, it didn't meet federal safety standards. ![]() My son Jake commuted in it to nursery school after he no longer fit into my big front basket. The one I most resented losing wasn't so special, but it was fitted out with a vintage, English baby-seat covered in green and red tartan. Certain bikes, even an act of will couldn't sully. Then I'd think of how much worthier the next bike would be. With repetition, I learned to blunt my hurt and dismay by counting all the faults of the latest bike to vanish: the torn saddle, the wobble in the rear wheel, the unsteady kickstand, even a feeling that the whole bike was crap. Most theft victims, me included, don't bother reporting. But not alone: over 6,500 bikes are reported stolen to the NYPD annually, of which a mere 1.4 percent are recovered. I felt stupid for making it so easy on the thief. What remains oddly vivid is the memory of how fresh the earth smelled where the pole had been yanked out. About the meal-or the bike-I remember nothing. The first bike to go, around 1970, had been chained to a pole anchored in the ground next to a tree in front of an Upper West Side restaurant. They also drill home an old moral: wrongdoing, even with extenuating circumstances, will come back to haunt you. Its unexpected reverberations say a lot about Manhattan as small village. All were out-and out thefts-but my act, I'd prefer to call semi-stealing. They disappeared from seemingly secure tetherings to sign poles, parking meters, mailbox bases, and iron railings. Before I ever stole a bike myself, at least 20 had been stolen from me over 25 years of riding, and locking up, on Manhattan streets. ![]()
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