Sure those racks seem more solid than those in my town, and those thieves would have an easier time sawing through my lock, but anyway, that is a 5 seconds bike stealing.
Oh man that is super extra evil 
that is some majorly clever planning and well as @codinghorror said quite super extra evil.
Solution:
Install electrified-fence cabling inside the pipes, wait for them to saw through.
(Yeah, I suppose triggering an alarm would also work.)
not as satisfying though.
Special place in hell for bike thieves.
man, props for such a clever ruse, but all that effort to steal a bike or three?
I’ve been noticing that the bolts holding many bike racks to the ground in San Francisco have recently loosened so they are wobbly. Gotta take a closer look.
Similar to the “sucker pole” trick that bike thieves have been using in citys since at least the '80’s.
Just skip the bike racks and use a utility pole.
I can’t imagine a used, probably-hot bike brings much in trade. That’s the worst thing about thieves - to get themselves fifty bucks, they’ll happily rob you of hundreds. And you can’t say, “Hey Bozo, here’s fifty, gimme back my bike.”
Yet another use for gaff tape!
Heard about this happening in the US on the West coast over a year ago (Portland?) - only it wasn’t duct / gaffer tape it was large stickers from trendy (or niche,) shops and bands. As the bohemian neighborhoods where people go clubbing are already covered with this adhesive graffiti, the cuts are even better camouflaged.
I eagerly await PC Hipsta’s take on this phenomenon.
Undoubtely something to do with chromoly Reynolds 320 curly leaf frames or something…
You won’t have heard of that yet…
Why would they use gaff when duct is about 1/10th the price?
Yep - always give the pole a good push/pull/lift before locking on!
[quote]This brings up a fundamental question: If stolen bikes are so cheap, is it even worth it for thieves to rip them off?
“The juice is okay,” said Rohin Dhar, founder of the company Priceonomics, who recently wrote about stolen bikes on his blog. But the squeeze — the effort you have to put in, and the risk of getting caught — is zero." The key, he says: “There’s just no risk to the crime.”
Joe McCloskey, a police sergeant in the Tenderloin who set up stings to catch bike thieves in the act, agrees.[/quote]
Bikes are common currency for riff raff, like drugs. You can use them for transport, or trade them for stuff.
Price? What is the price of gaff tape stolen from a show? 
That being said, yeah, that ain’t gaff tape. Reflector tape is much more expensive, but would have hid the gaff better (different use of the term “gaff”, so I guess that would make the reflector tape “gaff” tape 
)
