Originally published at: Mountain of stolen bikes in man's backyard visible on Google Earth satellite image | Boing Boing
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Now they’re all mountain bikes.
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I recall a similar story years back about a dude in Canada who’d amassed a similar amount of bikes in a warehouse. These guys are less thieves and fences than deranged hoarders.
ETA. Here’s the guy:
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“So big it’s visible from space!” isn’t what it used to be.
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Seems part of the plan was missing if they stole the bikes then piled them in a yard. That type of crime actually does not pay.
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The mountain bikes of Bike Mountain
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Perhaps the thief was waiting for gas prices to get to the British equivalent of $6 a gallon, and then make a killing by cornering the alternative transportation market.
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What’s really weird is there’s this theft triangle between Portland, Seattle, and San Franscisco, so bikes will get stolen and parts separated from one of those places, and then the parts will appear on bikes being resold on Craigslist in any of the three locations. It’s always so easy to tell because these things end up being like:
- High end electric shifters
- Low end wheels
- Mid grade disc brakes
- $3000 fork
- $20 handlebars
- on a $2000 carbon fiber frame
And would go for $499, and have its picture taken in front of the same garage as other frankenbikes.
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So you get like 3 of them, swap the parts out to have a $5000, $2500, and a $250 bike?
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No longer anything to brag about. 
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I mean you could, but it’d be receiving stolen property, and eventually these higher end bikes will pop in bikeindex or project529 and then you’ll lose your bikes and probably get charged.
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Gosh. What a tire-some person. This is wheelie bad. This is why we can’t have nice things.
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I think finding out my stolen bike was rusting in a huge jumble of unused stolen bikes would make me more cranky than finding out it was quickly sold by someone who needed cash.
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Every bike represents someones viable way of transporting themselves around, and the loss of it. With a white hot passion I despise “bike thieves”.
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Inputs:
- most people who bike have had a bike stolen
- most people never steal bikes
Only explanation:
- this asshole
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There’s a pretty good chance that my stolen bike passed through Kenk’s hands. After he was caught, the police set up an enormous warehouse to display the recovered bikes, helpfully arranged in long rows by brand, but I never found mine.
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Same here. I’m sure at least one of the bikes that was stolen from me ended up in there. One of them ended up chained to a pole at Queen and Ossington for a while. I never could work up the nerve to steal it back, though.
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