Mark Chidichimo actually thought about chaining his bicycle to a tree in front of the restaurant, where he could keep an eye on it through the window.
“No, it’s Victoria,” the Chicago-raised man told himself. “Don’t be so paranoid.”
So, instead, he locked it to a bike rack a little farther down Government Street, pulled off the lights, and went inside to join his dinner companions.
Bye bye, bike.
“I came out of the restaurant and everything was gone — bike, lock, helmet, all disappeared.”
Two weeks later, the loss still stung.
“I try not to get too bummed out about it,” Chidichimo said.
Some argue that such thefts are “only” property crimes, but tell that to the victims. Robbery is a violation of the spirit. Facebook is alive with sites like Victoria’s dramatically named Stolen Bicycle Avengers, where posters describe and lament their lost rides, and occasionally impart stories of real personal devastation.
For this is the flip side of being the self-styled Cycling Capital of Canada. Some days it feels like the Bicycle Theft Capital of Canada, too.
Even Mayor Lisa Helps’ “crappy, beat-up old mountain bike” was stripped of its wheels and seat while locked outside city hall last September. (She wasn’t the first councillor victimized. Back in 2004, her predecessor, Dean Fortin, marched into a Fernwood chop shop to demand the return of his mountain bike, which had been stolen while he was talking to a community group about neighbourhood crime.)
The temptation is to give up, to assume there’s no point in even reporting a theft — but that’s not borne out by the statistics, at least not lately. Of 237 bicycles reported stolen to VicPD so far this year, 86 have been recovered.
A few years ago, the recovery rate was way worse, but the odds improved markedly after Victoria Police changed the way they record thefts and identify stolen bikes, says Const. Sean Millard, the department’s bike-crime guru. It also helps that owners can list the particulars of their bikes on a registry launched last summer.
What irks Millard is the number of thefts that go unreported. Of 96 discarded bicycles turned into VicPD this year, three-quarters had not been reported stolen or missing. That’s self-defeating.
It’s also profitable to the thieves. Where a bike might usually fetch a $20 rock of cocaine, Millard has heard that can double if the police have already stopped the thief, checked the bicycle and it hasn’t been reported stolen.
Drugs are — surprise! — behind many thefts. Or sometimes, thieves will steal bikes to use as transportation to another crime. Often, they’ll trade up, leaving a junker behind after stealing a nicer bike.
The bikes tend to gravitate to tent city and the areas around Victoria’s shelters, though it’s important not to confuse the thieves with the rest of the people found there. In fact, taking a few key players off the street can lower the theft rate impressively. Note that in Victoria, five prolific offenders are now barred from having bicycles or bike parts without proper proof of ownership.
Also note that VicPD had a good bust involving a bunch of stolen bikes that were being advertised online recently. And three weeks ago, after a spike of thefts around UVic, Saanich police hit a chop shop in a home in Gordon Head, arresting a man and a woman.
Reporting a theft really does make a difference, as bikes aren’t terribly hard to identify. Thieves can’t change the make and model. They can mix and match components or try to scrape off the serial number, but in doing so, they might as well write STOLEN on the frame in big red letters. Ditto for the homemade paint jobs on nice bikes, Millard says. “These clowns who spray paint a bike don’t think we’ll know what it is?”
Millard also encourages victims to take some initiative and look for their bikes in pawn shops, online and in the areas where stolen bikes gravitate — but don’t act alone if you find something. Call the cops.
A good example of that came Thursday, after Chidichimo and Millard had been interviewed and the first version of this column had been written.
Millard was passing tent city, heading to an appointment, when he spotted a bike that rang a bell (no pun intended). He asked another cop to take and email him some photos, which he checked against the theft reports. Sure enough, he got a hit, and called Chidichimo to confirm it was his bike.
At the same time, Chidichimo got a text from his wife, Cheekwan Ho, reporting that she had just flagged down another officer after spotting the bike locked to a lamp post while passing tent city. How’s that for coincidence?
A few minutes later, Millard showed up with lock cutters and freed the bike, which was in decent shape, save for the absence of its basket, fenders and front brake.
It was a happy(ish) ending, and a reminder that even if your bike is stolen, it’s not necessarily gone for good.
