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It was only a matter of time. After all, my husband and I live in Boulder County, Colorado, one of the bike meccas of the U.S. where the joke is that the bike on the back of the car is often worth more than the car itself—and thieves know it. Besides being a hub for mountain-, gravel-, and road biking, Boulder is also a university town and exceptionally bike-commuter friendly, meaning there are a lot of people who ride and own bikes here. In other words, its a town ripe for the picking.
Most of our friends have had a bike (or two) stolen from a public bike rack in town, off the back of their car, out of their vehicle’s trunk, or even lifted right out of their garage. My husband and I counted ourselves lucky, until we recently, involuntarily joined the ranks of the sad and pissed-off bike-less.
2023 bike theft data for Boulder, Colorado, published by the City of Boulder. (Illustration: City of Boulder)
At approximately 8:30 on a sunny Tuesday morning, someone rode up to our house on a black Huffy mountain bike, walked into our open garage while my husband was in the house, helped themselves to his 2023 Santa Cruz Tallboy hanging off a wall-mounted rack at the back of the garage, then pedaled off to god knows where.
The only signs of a crime were a bike hook torn out of our garage wall and the Huffy abandoned in our driveway.
We spent very little time in the denial stage of our loss—again, this is sadly commonplace in Boulder County—and instead jumped right into problem-solving. If there’s one good thing about living in a place where bike theft is the norm, it’s that everyone has helpful advice for what to do to try to recover your bike or recoup the financial loss. Here’s what we learned.
Tips for Reporting a Stolen Bicycle
File a Police Report
The very first thing you should do when your bike is stolen is file a police report. Cities have different instructions for filing reports of theft, so be sure to check your city’s instructions online. In Boulder, you can file a police report online and there’s even a specific form to fill out if the report involves a stolen bicycle. Alternatively, you can call your city’s non-emergency police dispatch line to file the report by phone.
Be sure to have your bike’s manufacturer, exact model name, model year, and serial number on hand, along with other helpful details like frame color, specifications, etc. If you bought your bike new from a shop, you can get most of this info from your sales receipt. If you no longer have the sales receipt, call the shop where you purchased your bike to see if they still have a record of the sale; if they do, that record will include the details of your bike.
Once you file a police report, temper your expectations. Chances are your local police department has their work cut out for them dealing with more serious crimes than bike theft. Don’t expect them to dust your car or garage door for prints to find the perp. Unless your stolen bike falls into their lap while dealing with another incident or crime (which does happen, so don’t give up all hope), there’s little the police can or will do about it.
The main reason for filing a police report is because it’s a requirement for filing an insurance claim (more on that below).
Register Your Bike on Bike Index
If you haven’t already, register all of your bikes on Bike Index, a website run by a non-profit that helps users locate stolen bicycles with the help of other users and police departments across the country.
You can register your bikes on the site as soon as you acquire a new bike, or retroactively when you have a bike stolen. All you have to do is create a free account and add your bike details like manufacturer, serial number, frame color, and a photo.
Once your bike is in the system, you’ve essentially created a dog tag for it. If it gets stolen, you mark it as lost or stolen on the site and post about your bike across Bike Index’s social media platforms. If other Bike Index users or partners (like police departments, bike shops, etc.) locate your bike, they can notify you via the site.
Create Alerts on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and eBay
Often, expensive bikes are stolen for the purpose of making a quick buck. Bike thieves might try to sell your stolen bike on popular online marketplaces like Facebook, Criagslist, or eBay. You can create alerts for new postings on these marketplaces that match your bike description.
You’ll need to create a free account on each, but from there, type in your search term (e.g. “2023 Santa Cruz Tallboy”) and hit the notification icon to sign up for email notifications to let you know when posts matching your search term go up.
Spread the Word
Remember, there’s strength in numbers. In this day and age, there are many ways to enlist your community to help you find your bike. You can stop into local bike shops and second-hand gear stores to give them a heads up about your stolen bike—it might turn up in their shop for service or for sale.
You should also post about your stolen bike on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Nextdoor, etc. to get your community to help keep eyes and ears open for you. Talk to your neighbors IRL to let them know about the theft—you never know whose home security cameras might have caught some valuable footage.
How to Recover the Financial Loss
File an Insurance Claim (If It Makes Sense)
I hate to say it, but chances are, you won’t recover your stolen bike. The odds just aren’t in your favor: According to the City of Boulder, of the 646 bicycles reported stolen within in the city in 2023, only 54 were recovered (that’s 8.7 percent). It’s been three weeks since our bike was stolen, and so far, no signs of it.
So far in 2024, 223 bikes have been reported as stolen in Boulder, and only 14 recovered. (Illustration: City of Boulder)
We know of only one lucky friend who was able to recover a stolen bicycle after pedaling around his neighborhood and just happening upon the thief riding his easily-recognizable custom bike. After confronting the thief on on the spot (a risky approach that police advice against), the thief abandoned the bike and ran for it. Like I said, this friend was one of the lucky few.
So if your bike was stolen from your home and you have homeowner’s or renter’s insurance with a low deductible, go ahead and file an insurance claim as soon as you’ve filed a police report.
Generally, both homeowner’s insurance and renter’s insurance cover the theft of personal property, but that’s not a guarantee that you’ll be able to recoup the value of your stolen bicycle. Our homeowner’s insurance (through State Farm) covers theft of personal property, but our annual claim deductible is $3,800—about $800 more than the Santa Cruz Tallboy was worth brand new.
In our case, it made no sense to file a claim since there would have been no insurance payout. It’s also worth noting that many insurance policies will only pay out the actual cash value of your bike, not the total cost of replacement. So unless your bike is brand new, expect the insurance company to account for depreciation. Some insurers also have a sub-limit for bikes, e.g. $1,500.
The lesson we learned here: We should buy more expensive bikes (#bikemath).
Consider Additional Personal Property Insurance
While our homeowner’s insurance policy wouldn’t cover our stolen bike, we learned that many insurance companies offer supplemental coverage for personal property (or “personal articles policy”), which includes sports equipment.
There’s an additional premium for this coverage—State Farm quoted us $300 annually for $5,000 worth of coverage—but there’s generally no deductible. Plus, your gear is insured wherever it is, so if your bike gets stolen outside of your home, that theft would be covered by personal property insurance.
Considering our lifestyle and the number of bikes and skis we own, the extra $300 per year is probably worth it. I always did fork over for every insurance policy known to man when I played the board game Life—and I always won.
Read More
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The post Your Bike Was Stolen. Now What? appeared first on Outside Online.
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