CiclaValley Faces Second Stolen Bike at NoHo Station in Three Months

Damn. I’m always in search of content, but not this kind that was handed to me.

About three months ago, Mrs. CiclaValley had her bike stolen from the NoHo Station while she was at work which I vigorously coveredNoHoStation

Of course, my wife needed another bike since parking is super scarce and she likes cycling to work too. She went to Target to buy a new $200 bike, which was odd for us since she has refused to shop there after they screwed us on our baby registry.

My parent’s neighbor also donated an old mountain bike which probably isn’t worth that much, but did have some vintage characteristics being an old “Made in the USA” Cannondale.

My wife actually went with my mom’s old bike which probably celebrated its 30th anniversary at some point this year. It was super rusty, the shifting was broken and made my wife look like a vagrant, but she just needed a bike to go a mile that wouldn’t get stolen.

We also took the extra step of buying a real lock, one that we thought would properly deter anyone wanting to steal what got thinly be described as a bike.

Things the last three months had gone relatively smoothly, with my wife never complaining that it would take an extra minute to lock everything together with the additional cables she had bought. She even never rode the Target bike and returned it, but that may have been out of spite.

Yesterday, looking forward to our first family meal since last Friday, I got a call from my wife stating the obvious. When you get that call, you hold that outside hope that while she’s talking, that she finds her bike at a different spot, but of course, we weren’t that lucky.

The flummoxing part about it? She found her lock intact. Let me say it again in case corporate is reading this. Her BLACKBURN lock was found intact.

There are only three logical answers that come to mind:

  1. Someone sawed off her frame.
  2. My wife didn’t really lock her bike.
  3. The lock was easily picked.

I could live with answer number one if it did happen and if you’re going to take your lock our and latch it to a pole, you’re not going to forget to put it on your bike, so number three is where I’m going.

BarbBike01

 

Our consolation prize

It is also the most frustrating. She spent $70 on that BLACKBURN lock, which was probably double the value of her bike, but what do we do now? Buy another bike to only have the lock picked again?

Last August, I was trying to hand out leftover Metro swag that we weren’t able to hand out at our pit stop during Bike Week since it was too rainy. I had a number of security people come up to me telling me that I couldn’t do this on grounds. What’s my point? There definitely enough people there to have eyes on the bikes.

I’ve contributed a number of times asking them, “doesn’t that guy look like he’s eyeing those bikes?” or “why is that guy crouched behind that locker?” All this without one day of training.

We’re reeling after this, but fortunately my wife doesn’t need a bike again until Monday. She may use the gifted mountain bike in the meantime, but we may go with a foldable in the long run. Either way, we will not feel safe having to lock anything up at the NoHo Station ever again.