Adventure Bike Rider Forum

I had the misfortune of coming out of work and finding somebody had screwdriver'ed the ignition lock on my Honda 250, even though the bike hade a ruddy great chain and lock through the wheels and over the back seat, they didn't get the bike but damaged it enough to stop me getting it home

I was visiting a friend that has trouble walking due to a long term leg injury, and noticed that he had a bicycle chained up in his front garden.
I mentioned that he wasn't the sort of person I would have thought of as a cyclist, he pointed out that he couldn't cycle and the bicycle had no pedals or chain, so he rode it like a hobby horse to the shops and pub as he couldn't walk that far, but he had to chain it up as the last one had been stolen.

Back in the 1980s for my 18th birthday, my parents bought me an RD250LC. My birthday was on Boxing Day but I didn't pass my test until February the following year so I was really eager to ride it by then... two weeks after the first ride, it was stolen. The insurance paid out (eventually) and I bought an RD350LC... which was stolen 6 months to the day after the 250 went missing. A couple of years later I had a CB750/4 chopper which was stolen out of my front garden.
All of this happened in Lincoln so I don't think it has anything to do with the size of the town.
Fortunately, nothing has gone missing since...

I have been riding bikes since 1986 and apart from a nine year gap when the kids were small and I was broke I've always owned at least one bike and in that time I've never had a bike stolen, vandalised or damaged.
Its bad in big cities here in Ireland but if you are careful or live in the country its not bad for theft.

Back in the 80's working as a despatch rider I lived in a squat in Hampstead and bought an old RD200 that was really just left permanently outside the squat so that we could all park our bikes outside the house at night, a bit like when you see a cone in the road or a chair or a dustbin. Anyway one morning I got up to find it gone. They couldn't get far as i'd used the battery on my work bike, a VT500. Later that day plod found it by the lido on Hampstead Heath with all the wires from the loom cut at the headstock to try and hotwire the thing.
No battery = no go. Dumbass scum didn't check for a battery. Anyway bike back and back to its parking space outside the squat. Result.
That's the only one I've had nicked.