Trash & Transportation Thursday: Bike Theft

Helen here.  I’m a bike commuter and I started working for ioby recently.  I’ve been at it for awhile, but I’ve got to admit, traipsing through NYC by bike has gotten a lot nicer to ride in the past few years with 250+ new bike lanes out there.

I’ve been commuting with my Fuji hybrid (a functional, but not costly) bike since 2007. Lately I have been trying out a new route from my home in Astoria, Queens, down the Vernon Blvd greenway and into Brooklyn where I staked out a nice and pretty regularly available parking spot by the Bedford stop on the L train.  The ioby office is in Union Square so it’s a pretty short skip into the office from there.  Nothing had ever been stolen from my bike and I had started to think that it might be invincible or just plain undesirable to thieves. 

Not so! Last week my bike seat was kidnapped! 

I know, I know, it happens all the time. NYC is the bike theft capital of the world. So friends, here is a word of caution from Hal, a bike mechanic and bike locker extraordinaire.  He teaches us that nothing is really theft-proof, only theft-deterrent. Hal also gives us cheeky commentary while imparting earnest knowledge about how to actually make your bike less easy for thieves to steal. 

Oh, and by the way, I’m the founder of the Tour de Queens.  My current bike advocacy project is to try and convince my new awesome co-workers Brandon and Erin to bike to work on “Bike to Work” day tomorrow(!).  I believe they fall into category of thinking that biking is great for everyone and great for themselves…someday.  If you have some words of encouragement or motivation for them, please share it in a comment below!