{"id":608998,"date":"2023-02-17T07:49:05","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T13:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/17\/bike-hunters-tracking-down-stolen-bikes\/"},"modified":"2023-02-17T07:49:05","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T13:49:05","slug":"bike-hunters-tracking-down-stolen-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/17\/bike-hunters-tracking-down-stolen-bikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bike Hunters: Tracking Down Stolen Bikes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One evening late last summer, the owner of a white 2019 VanMoof S2, which retails for upwards of $3,000, parked the bike at home, a Manhattan residence, locking it to a fence with a sturdy Abus lock. By 7:00 a.m. the next day, the bike was gone. Later that morning, the owner filed a police report, adding the bike to the thousands-strong roster of bicycles reported stolen every year in New York City\u2014a list representing only about 20 percent of all bikes stolen there. Nearly all are never seen again by their owners.<\/p>\n

Before notifying the police, however, the owner did something even more important: opened the VanMoof<\/a> iPhone app and pressed a button marked \u201cReport stolen.\u201d <\/p>\n

This set several events into motion. First, the bike switched to \u201cstolen mode,\u201d turning off the e-assist and any \u201csmart\u201d features. Second, the following day, the company activated its team of Bike Hunters\u2014employees who are tasked with tracking down stolen VanMoofs. <\/p>\n

This is all covered under VanMoof\u2019s Peace of Mind program ($340 for three years), which promises that if the Bike Hunters can\u2019t find the bike in two weeks, the company will replace it with, as the website notes, \u201cone of the same (or better) age and condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a rather bold premise: To end, via technology and the occasional human-powered search-and-rescue mission, the scourge of bike theft\u2014a hallmark of New York City life so drearily routine that it\u2019s nearly a rite of passage, one that\u2019s become even more common during the pandemic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And so, the day after the reported theft, in VanMoof\u2019s bright, spare showroom in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Daan Rekkers, the company\u2019s U.S. general manager and a veteran Bike Hunter, is peering at an open laptop. On the screen is a series of intersecting circles overlaid on a map of New York City. Those circles represent \u201cpings,\u201d or signals automatically beamed out by the stolen bike every time it\u2019s moved. <\/p>\n

GET UNLIMITED ACCESS TO BICYCLING.COM ????????????<\/a><\/p>\n

The circles are clustered in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a few neighborhoods away from the VanMoof shop. \u201cIt was stolen on the 21st, and we have only eight signals right now,\u201d Rekkers says, \u201cwhich is not much.\u201d What this means, he surmises, is that the bike was stolen and then ridden (or perhaps even driven) from Manhattan to Fort Greene, and not moved again. \u201cIdeally, we see a bike moving around a lot,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\n

\"vanmoof<\/p>\n

\n

A laptop at the VanMoof Brooklyn store. The red circles are GSM-ping indicators, which show the general area a stolen bike might be found.<\/p>

Parker Feierbach<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rekkers, who\u2019s from the Netherlands, has tracked VanMoofs stolen in New York City as far as Philadelphia and upstate\u2014once to a town where, he says, he trudged through \u201ccompletely desolate\u201d streets covered in a foot of snow. (They never found the bike.)<\/p>\n

Whereas San Francisco hunters retrieve about 70 percent of stolen bikes, Rekkers puts the New York rate a bit lower. (The company generally hunts bikes in or around big cities where it has a retail store\u2014in the U.S., that\u2019s Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Seattle.) He attributes this to \u201cmore professional\u201d thieves, plus an abundance of basements and tall buildings. \u201cIt makes it a lot harder for us to track here,\u201d he says. He himself has had two VanMoofs stolen (the pre-electric variety, before anti-theft technology was introduced). After the first one was taken, he employed a second lock, but the thieves simply used an angle grinder to cut away the cast-iron fence the bike was attached to.<\/p>\n

Today Rekkers, along with me and part-time Bike Hunter Tim Speaks, who\u2019s also a VanMoof sales rep, will travel\u2014by VanMoof bike\u2014to Fort Greene, where we will trace a route in and amongst the Venn diagram of circles charted by the signals that last bounced off the surrounding cellphone masts before the bike went dark.<\/p>\n

There are several possible outcomes for the hunt, Rekkers tells me. We might locate the bike, chained somewhere outside as they\u2019re typically found. If it seems safe, he says, the team will usually add their own lock to the bike, come back with their own tool to cut the other lock, and notify the police. The second possibility is that the bike will be inside someone\u2019s house or apartment; absent a search warrant, there\u2019s nothing further to do except wait for the bike to move again. The most problematic result is that we find the bike with a person attached to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be quite dangerous,\u201d Rekkers says. \u201cYou have to have enough courage to approach a group of people in the dark who have the bike.\u201d Still, this is no vigilante squad. \u201cAt the end of the day it\u2019s just a bike,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are not there for some social justice reason, or to get someone thrown in prison. We are there for the bike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"vanmoof<\/p>\n

Parker Feierbach<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Once Rekkers has attached the tracking unit, a bespoke bit of hardware with an antenna and blinking lights, to his handlebar, we pedal off, like some nerdy modern-day version of the old and beloved PBS segment The Bloodhound Gang<\/em><\/a>, in search of the missing VanMoof. <\/p>\n

\n

\"vanmoof<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Taco Carlier, the Dutch cofounder of VanMoof, actually got the idea for the company while riding around New York City in 2006.<\/p>\n

Visiting the city on business, he\u2019d rented a bike. \u201cBecause that\u2019s what the Dutch do,\u201d he jokes over the phone from Amsterdam. As he explored the city by bike, he had a revelation. \u201cNew York is a beautiful city to ride a bike,\u201d he says. He says he was \u201camazed by the possibilities for cycling.\u201d But he was also struck by how few cyclists he saw.<\/p>\n

An industrial designer who graduated from TEU Delft (\u201cHolland\u2019s MIT,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not that cool\u201d), Carlier had been designing products for outdoor festivals like Lollapalooza, along with his brother, Ties. After that eye-opening Gotham ride, they decided to start a bike company. They called it Moof<\/em>, or \u201cmove\u201d in Dutch. \u201cWe wanted to start a movement to promote the Dutch way of cycling\u2014not using the bike on Sunday afternoon to ride around Central Park, but as a commuter tool.\u201d They added the \u201cVan\u201d to make it sound more Dutch.<\/p>\n

The first VanMoofs, produced in 2009, were single-speed, coaster-brake city bikes. They were angular and minimal\u2014like the Bauhaus in a bike\u2014marked by integrated engineering (e.g., the headlight was part of the top tube). They were intended, Carlier says, as contemporary updates on the traditional Dutch commuting bikes, lighter and more compact for cities like New York.<\/p>\n

After a few years, however, he had another revelation. \u201cI found that if you want to get the masses on bikes in cities like San Francisco or New York\u2014and I\u2019m not talking about 28-year-old kids who are really fit\u2014you have to rely on electric bikes,\u201d he says. \u201cIn New York in the summer, it\u2019s just not possible to commute on a normal bike without sweating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"vanmoof<\/p>\n

\n

An electric VanMoof S3 on display in the Brooklyn store.<\/p>

Parker Feierbach<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

So five years ago, VanMoof introduced its first electric bike. Since then, Carlier says, revenue has doubled every year, and in 2020 the company\u2019s sales increased by 200 percent over the previous year, attributable to a general rise in e-bike purchases during the pandemic. <\/p>\n

But e-bikes presented a problem: Theft. \u201cWe thought, if we are going to build an electric bike for urban commuters, we have to solve the problem,\u201d Carlier says, \u201cbecause nobody\u2019s going to park a $2,000 or $3,000 bike on the street.\u201d So they applied their design background and penchant for integrating systems to finding a solution.<\/p>\n

In the latest iteration of the approach, the rider, after parking the bike, immobilizes the rear wheel by tapping the kick lock, a small button the size of a thru-axle bolt located on the frame near the rear hub. If the bike is jostled, it flashes its lights and emits a brief warning sound, while an LED skull icon appears on the top tube. If you want, the bike will send your phone a push notification that this is happening. If the movement goes on for longer than a minute, it enters its second phase\u2014a continuous flashing and alarm sound. If the system isn\u2019t disarmed within two minutes, it enters phase three: The bike\u2019s motor and smart systems shut down and it sends a notification to VanMoof. In cities like New York, bike parts<\/em> are often stolen, so VanMoof created its own proprietary screws that can only be removed with special tools. (The tools are included with every bike sold.)<\/p>\n

\n

\"vanmoof<\/p>\n

\n

When a potential thief tampers with a VanMoof, a beeping noise will sound, lights will flash, and a skull symbol will light up on the top tube.<\/p>

Parker Feierbach<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Carlier, who notes that the company has filmed would-be bike thieves on the streets of Amsterdam, says the first stage is usually sufficient. \u201cOnce they see it\u2019s alarmed, it scares them off,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019d rather pick another bike.\u201d Nonetheless, bikes still get stolen. Sometimes an owner (like the one whose bike we\u2019ll be hunting in Fort Greene) will forget to engage the kick lock, and a bike gets ridden away or tossed into a van. That\u2019s why VanMoof installed the next layer of defense\u2014integrated 3G and Bluetooth sensors. The sensors are on the same PCB (printed circuit board) as the battery, so even if the bike\u2019s e-assist runs out of juice, the tracker can operate for another three months. <\/p>\n

The company made a vow: If your bike is stolen, we\u2019ll help you find it. Some customers, Carlier says, didn\u2019t quite believe that. So they decided to guarantee it\u2014and the Bike Hunters were born. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shrewd business move, and not the first time VanMoof has deployed clever marketing. The company made headlines in 2017 for shipping bikes in boxes labeled as if they contained large televisions<\/a> instead of bikes. (\u201cDamages in the U.S. went down from 20 percent to below 1 percent,\u201d Carlier says.) More recently, an ad the company filmed<\/a> depicting a rather dystopian view of car culture got banned from French television for creating \u201ca climate of anxiety.\u201d This, of course, yielded all kinds of further\u2014and free\u2014publicity.<\/p>\n

With the Bike Hunters, VanMoof has also created, via a series of YouTube shorts<\/a>, an instant genre of reality television: Two weeks to track down a stolen bike, The Greatest Race <\/em>meets Locked Up Abroad<\/em>. When a bike was pilfered in Berlin, its Hunters traveled to war-torn Ukraine, where the team tracked it as far as a sprawling secondhand goods marketplace. (They were then stopped by local police in a testy encounter.) Usually the team will find a bike within a few days, but when a bike went missing in Paris, Hunters finally retrieved it a year later in Casablanca, where a medical student had bought it, unaware that it had been stolen\u2014or that it was being tracked. The Hunters enlisted him to find the person who\u2019d sold it, giving him a new VanMoof for his efforts. In both cases, they\u2019d encountered fairly well-trod networks for stolen bikes, run by organized crime outfits. <\/p>\n

VanMoof obviously isn\u2019t going to put a dent in the flourishing trade of stolen bikes. Carlier is more interested in reducing theft as an obstacle to the cycling movement he set out to create. \u201cIt\u2019s the reason people are afraid to invest in a good bike, and therefore it\u2019s holding back the growth of cycle commuting,\u201d he says. \u201cThe current solution to the problem of bike theft,\u201d he laments, \u201cis just buying crappy bikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

WATCH: VANMOOF BIKE HUNTERS IN LONDON, PARIS, AND SAN FRANCISCO<\/h2>\n

This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.<\/p>\n

\n

Bike Hunt Report \u2013 December | VanMoof<\/p>\n

Watch on<\/span><\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"This<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

\"vanmoof<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On an autumn day in New York City, Rose Hyatt parked her bike outside a drugstore on Ninth Avenue for a moment while she went inside. When she returned, her bike was gone. She contacted police, who eventually found parts of the missing bike at a bike shop whose owner, as the thieves would later recount, \u201casked no questions about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The year was 1895. In New York, among other places, there have been bicycle thieves as long as there have been bicycles. Indeed, one of the few constants in the ever-changing evolution of bikes is their propensity to be stolen. In today\u2019s New York City, restaurant delivery workers have been assaulted for their e-bikes, while Citi Bike riders have had their bikes taken from them mid-rental.<\/p>\n

Linda Vojtov\u00e1, a fashion model living in Manhattan and a regular VanMoof e-bike rider (she says doesn\u2019t like to arrive to shoots sweating), had her bike stolen from outside her Tribeca apartment a few years ago. It was traced to a restaurant in Greenwich Village, where Bike Hunters found not only her bike but a second<\/em> missing VanMoof. (Rekkers speculates that they may have been purchased for use as delivery bikes.) A few days later, testing the cosmos, she locked the bike outside again. \u201cIt\u2019s a luxury apartment with a 24-7 doorman,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought it was fine.\u201d The bike was promptly stolen\u2014and this time never found. (VanMoof gave her a new one.)<\/p>\n

\n

\"bike<\/p>\n

\n

Various VanMoof models tied to a pole right outside the company\u2019s Brooklyn store. The bike in front is an electric VanMoof X2.<\/p>

Parker Feierbach<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Every city has its own kind of bike theft. Where European cities often see organized rings, the effort in cities like San Francisco tends to be more ad hoc. Folkert Salomons, a veteran Bike Hunter who manages the San Francisco store, says bikes stolen there are typically found a day or two later.<\/p>\n

To lend himself an air of professionalism and authority when he\u2019s hunting a bike, Salomons typically carries business cards and wears VanMoof-branded clothing. But he\u2019s become familiar in certain areas, so he\u2019ll sometimes don a hoodie and sunglasses, or even rent another bike to use on a hunt.<\/p>\n

Salomons has retrieved kick-locked bikes abandoned after a few blocks of presumably tiresome schlepping; he\u2019s found bikes disguised with stickers or paint. When he finds the bike still with its thief, he\u2019ll ask, with disarming Dutch directness: \u201cHey there, I\u2019m a Bike Hunter and this is a stolen bike. Can I have it back?\u201d When that doesn\u2019t work, he reminds them that because the bike costs more than $1,000, the thief could be looking at a felony rap. <\/p>\n

\n

\"vanmoof<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In Fort Greene, we arrive at the edge of the map quadrant that the tracking unit had zeroed in on. Based on the last signal sent, it could be here. Rekkers activates the tracker; its lights begin blinking. The more lights that glow blue, the stronger the Bluetooth signal and the closer we are to the bike. For now, just one is lit. We dismount and begin walking our bikes down the sidewalk to get a more robust Bluetooth signal. Bluetooth, Rekkers tells me, has changed the bike-hunting game. GPS, by contrast, is plagued by inaccuracy; to demonstrate, he opens Google Maps on his iPhone, which shows us to be some 60 to 100 feet east of where we actually are.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"bike<\/p>\n

\n

The mobile version of VanMoof\u2019s tracking system.<\/p>

Parker Feierbach<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\"bike<\/p>\n

\n

Rekkers consults the GSM-ping indicators while searching for a stolen bike. His own bike is equipped with a tracking device that helps determine the final location of the missing bike.<\/p>

Parker Feierbach<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sometimes the tracker is scarcely needed. When a bike is moving a lot, the Hunters will simply get on their bikes and zigzag around the last reported location until they visibly acquire the target. And the methods are not always so high-tech. Speaks tells me he once spotted a stolen bike as he was walking to his apartment; he locked it up and notified the police. He also regularly trawls Craigslist, where bikes sometimes end up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an exceedingly balmy summer day in New York City. We pass a community garden enclosed in chicken wire, where large and luscious tomatoes shine in the sun. In warm weather, Rekkers says, people are generally using their bikes, so they\u2019re stolen less. There\u2019s a peak of thefts in the fall, he says, \u201cwhen it starts getting rainy and thieves know people don\u2019t use their bikes as much.\u201d <\/p>\n

I try to take on the eyes of a Bike Hunter, to see the landscape as a series of places where a bike could be stashed. I peer under scaffolding, behind dumpsters, down stairwells. At once, the three of us do a double-take at a sleek-looking black bike chained to a fence. Alas, it\u2019s a Wing, a locally produced VanMoof knockoff. Hours pass and we see no VanMoofs; the Bluetooth tracker hasn\u2019t budged. <\/p>\n

Someone, somewhere, almost certainly has a VanMoof stashed away\u2014perhaps, who knows, even wrapped in some Bluetooth-deflecting material. Rekkers will keep looking for the pings as long as the stolen bike\u2019s battery has the strength to send them out. In the meantime, the thief has a bike with a use value of essentially zero. It\u2019s not only a non-electric e-bike, but the moment the thief tries to use it or pass it on to someone else, the digital scent will be reactivated.<\/p>\n

And even though their client didn\u2019t kick-lock the bike, leaving VanMoof legally off the hook, Rekkers tells me they\u2019ve offered a free used replacement, or a discount on a new ride. The bike may be lost, but they never want to lose a customer.<\/p>\n

\n

5 Bike Locks We Love <\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n

Best U-Lock<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\"On<\/p>\n

\"Kryptonite<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
Kryptonite New York STD<\/h6>\n

Now 17% Off<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Backed by $4,000 in theft protection.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Wearable<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\"Editor\u2019s<\/p>\n

\"Hiplok<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

This lightweight chain lock disappears on your waist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Best Chain<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\"On<\/p>\n

\"OnGuard<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
OnGuard Mastiff <\/h6>\n

Now 39% Off<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This tough 3.5-foot chain is high-value security.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Lightweight<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ottolock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
Ottolock Cinch<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Small enough to be portable, yet surprisingly strong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Versatile<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\"On<\/p>\n

\"Brute<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
Brute LS U-Lock<\/h6>\n

Now 13% Off<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Shackle that widens the diameter of lock-up poles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

\"Headshot<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Tom Vanderbilt<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Tom Vanderbilt is the author of the best seller Traffic<\/em> and his most recent book is Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Stephania Geddes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One evening late last summer, the owner of a white 2019 VanMoof S2, which retails for upwards of $3,000, parked the bike at home, a Manhattan residence, locking it to a fence with a sturdy Abus lock. By 7:00 a.m. the next day, the bike was gone. Later that morning, the owner filed a police<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":608999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23608,46,2034],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-608998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hunters","8":"category-technology","9":"category-tracking"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}