Bikes left for months at a time at work

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rolandp
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Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby rolandp » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:37 pm

I work in a shared building, there are 12 floors which is made up of around 8 companies. We have three different areas for parking bikes, the third was put in a couple of months ago when a new company moved in and demanded/asked for bike storage.

Even with the latest bike storage, we are running out. There are several bikes which are not being ridden regularly (two have flat tyres, have cobwebs etc) so building management is using this as an reason for not put in additional bike storage, though in fairness they are considering it.

Though the bikes are obviously not being ridden, potentially we may have a similar issue with lockers where someone has used it a couple of times, and is now either empty (with a lock on in) or storing a moldy towel or two.

How do others deal with bikes stored at work, in particular as this is a shared area? Do building management have a right to remove left bikes, if so, what do they do with them?

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Kalgrm » Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:40 pm

The building I used to park my bike under had a sign in the parking area saying
Bikes are not to left for extended periods of time. Any bike which is left for extended periods my be removed by management.
While I was using the facility, they did indeed clean out the bikes one weekend. A note was left saying the bikes had been put into storage.

I believe the managers of the building do have the right to remove bikes which they believe have been abandoned.

In another building I worked at, I approached building management asking about an abandoned bike in the lock-up area. I asked if I could remove it for them, and a day or two later, they got back to me and said yes, on the proviso that if someone asked for the bike to be returned within the next month, I'd have to do so. I still have the bike, a middle-of-the-range Avanti MTB.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Fletcher » Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:46 am

My current place of work recently banned us parking our bikes in the basement carpark, for two reasons. First, the lack of room. Car spaces are so small, and the company's pool cars are covered in little dents from staff with poor parking skills. Secondly, because of the 4 bloody bikes that people had left there for months/years and the dozen or so locks people had left hanging from rails, pipes or brackets. Management eventually got jack of it, removed the bikes and cut all the locks off. Some of us park our bikes in the lunch room, others brave the racks out on the streets. I get a little jealous when I hear of public service buildings with hundreds of secure bike parking spaces and dozens of showers/lockers in them. Gots to get myself back in the bosom of the public service methinks.

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x8pg2qr
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby x8pg2qr » Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:49 am

Tragedy of the Commons at work.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby gdt » Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:49 am

On one site where I work there are multiple bike cages. Across the christmas shutdown each cage is closed for one day (signs go up with the day about a week beforehand) and bikes in the cage are removed.

On another site any bikes left on site during the christmas shutdown have to have a piece of barrier tape tied to the handlebars (there's a sign on the door with a roll of tape).

At both sites any abandoned locks meet Mr Angle Grinder. Abandoned bikes are treated as Uncollected Goods from a lease.

The bikes go into storage for 40 days, an e-mail goes to the mailing list of bike storage tenants with the list of Uncollected Goods, a notice is published in the paper, then they are sent to an auction house. Then another e-mail is sent giving 30 days to claim the proceeds of the auction. After that the proceeds are donated to the Red Cross.

There's legislation describing the process for the disposal of Uncollected Goods, and the uni basically follows that. They don't go as far as a lease agreement for use of the bike lockers. It's more that it would be difficult for aggrieved people to argue that the uni is being unreasonable when it is following a process that the parliament has laid down for use in an similar situation.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Aushiker » Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:02 pm

Hi

We don't to seem to have the bikes left issue but did have a lot of lockers with locks on them that seemed to be locked but unused. All lockers got cleaned out recently, locks removed and replaced with combination locks. To know get a locker it costs $20.00 for the year. If you don't renew the lock gets removed and replaced with a new one as I understand it.

There is now a number of free lockers :)

Andrew

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby rkelsen » Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:15 pm

Fletcher wrote:Gots to get myself back in the bosom of the public service methinks.
1 word:

Hospitals. 8)

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby rolandp » Tue Mar 16, 2010 9:12 am

Thanks for the replies. I put up some posters around the building, including photos of the bikes. Bikes still there after 1 working day. There have been some changes in tenants in the building in the last 4-6 months, so maybe they are owned by someone who now no longer works in the building.

I do like the idea of regularly requests to clear out the bikes and lockers. Will have to suggest to Building Management this idea.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby goneriding » Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:26 pm

We've got some that still have red dust on them from the dust storms in Sept/Oct last year. Others that seem to be abandoned are the Kmart specials. There hasn't been a clean out as yet but I think there will be lots of extra spaces when there is!
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Zynster » Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:53 pm

In my building the bike racks are swamped by motorbikes.
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rolandp
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby rolandp » Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:55 pm

Building Management has tried to do the right thing, and put up notices on the personal lockers. There are around 60 lockers of which only 20 have contacted Building Management that they are still using the locker. The notices have been in place for around 4 weeks. I think the numbers have scared Building Management as this means they need to break in and repair 40-odd lockers, so nothing has happened to make them available to those who have been requesting a locker.

I also put up notices relating to two bikes left in the bike locker. One person came back to me confirming that one of the bikes was his, but is still sitting there unused now for the 4 weeks since I put up the notice. The other bike remains unclaimed.

If you are running out of personal storage lockers and bike storage, it is worth doing a similar exercise. Shame really, as this adds to the argument for not providing these facilities when they are abused in this way.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby casual_cyclist » Wed Apr 21, 2010 12:05 am

rolandp wrote:Thanks for the replies. I put up some posters around the building, including photos of the bikes. Bikes still there after 1 working day. There have been some changes in tenants in the building in the last 4-6 months, so maybe they are owned by someone who now no longer works in the building.

I do like the idea of regularly requests to clear out the bikes and lockers. Will have to suggest to Building Management this idea.
At our work we seem to have collected a lot of surplus towels. The clotheslines were full and some of the towels didn't move in months.

The bike commuting coordinator sent around an email to all bike commuters letting them know on a specified weekend all towels would be stored in the store room. The idea was that you take home your towel for that weekend. Any towels in the storeroom could be collected at any time (for people on leave etc). I was away that week so mine was in the store room with a huge stack of other towels. Oh, they put up posters too in case anyone didn't get the email.
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby jules21 » Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:02 am

this is a classic example of why it is better to charge money for lockers - people hate the idea of paying but this thread shows why it works.

give something to people for free and they won't respect it.

you could put the money into an end of year bbq for subscribers or a melbourne cup sweep.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby trailgumby » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:02 pm

We had an issue with a lot of bikes being unused for long periods. The red dust was the incriminating evidence. We also have access card tracking to confirm how often people access the bike cage.

The shower locker shortage issue was resolved by putting time-operated locks on the lockers. They are opened and cleaned out every Friday. Contents are held for a couple of weeks and then donated to the Salvos if unclaimed.

Bike storage area lockers are confirmed every 6 months or so. Rekeying is relatively straightforward. Most of the cable locks people use are little better than string and are readily cut with a pair of scissors :lol: , so the threat of bike removal and disposal was effective in freeing up a bunch of unused slots.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Marlin 3030 » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:35 pm

Work Fridges are the same.


I had to clean out a work fridge and there was lettuce in there that had literally turned to liquid. Disgusting.

My current employer has a notice on the employee fridge that says that at 11pm on every Friday everything in the fridge is binned (including containers). Maybe a similar tactic could be used? The last Saturday of every month every locker is to be empty. As to bikes a policy of charging for a bike to be stored over a weekend?

That being said I have never worked in a place where it's been a problem.
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby twizzle » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:44 pm

We have pretty good bike parking, but a lot of 'lost' bikes. I park in an alcove with two other guys who are serious cyclists. We have wrapped the racks we lock our bikes to with old tubes to protect the bikes. Beginning of last week, some ahole locked his old KMart special to one of the other guys bars and hasn't been back since. Days before that, a different bike was locked to it and left there with a flat tyre for two weeks. I really should keep some bolt cutters at work.
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Marlin 3030 » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:52 pm

twizzle wrote:We have pretty good bike parking, but a lot of 'lost' bikes. I park in an alcove with two other guys who are serious cyclists. We have wrapped the racks we lock our bikes to with old tubes to protect the bikes. Beginning of last week, some ahole locked his old KMart special to one of the other guys bars and hasn't been back since. Days before that, a different bike was locked to it and left there with a flat tyre for two weeks. I really should keep some bolt cutters at work.



Oh man I hate it when you put in that extra effort and some f_stick steals the benefit. Bolt cutters would be a good idea but make sure that no-one sees you using them and it'd be a great idea to make sure that no-one knows that you have them. More than once I've confided my sins to workmates only to have them blab :roll:



Just thinking out aloud here but maybe carrying the padding or having the padding hidden so that you can retrieve it near your parking spot?
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby twizzle » Wed Apr 21, 2010 8:46 pm

Marlin 3030 wrote:Just thinking out aloud here but maybe carrying the padding or having the padding hidden so that you can retrieve it near your parking spot?
It's such a pain in the butt to set up anyway, as you have to use multiple tubes and then 'knot' the ends under to keep it in place. Simon got the irrits last week, he removed the tubes while the bike was locked to the rack and went and wrapped another rack. I reckon there's about 10 'lost bikes' down there... one chick really upset building management by locking her bike to a rail outside of the bike storage area (couldn't follow the f'in signs to the bike storage cage??!?), after a week of it sitting there with a note taped to it saying 'move'... it got moved by the property people. :twisted:
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Fletcher » Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:52 am

twizzle wrote:Beginning of last week, some ahole locked his old KMart special to one of the other guys bars and hasn't been back since.
Do you mean the pillock locked his BSO to another guy's bike instead of the rack? Bit of a nightmare scenario, that one.

There's a Giant hybrid which has been locked up with a big f&*%8$ff D-lock at the Canberra Centre bike racks ever since I started riding back in July last year. It appears the cleaners come along and occasionally dust and de-cobweb it, and the tyres now have about 2psi. It's truly amazing it hasn't been trashed by weekend drinkers.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Aushiker » Fri Apr 23, 2010 10:47 am

Fletcher wrote:
twizzle wrote:Beginning of last week, some ahole locked his old KMart special to one of the other guys bars and hasn't been back since.
Do you mean the pillock locked his BSO to another guy's bike instead of the rack? Bit of a nightmare scenario, that one.
Hi

I think Twizzle was referring to the bars that had been wrapped to protect the bikes, not the guys actual bicycle.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby m@ » Fri Apr 23, 2010 11:24 am

If someone locked their bike to mine, I'd be popping home for the angle grinder - and it wouldn't be their lock I would cut in half :twisted:
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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby just4tehhalibut » Sat May 01, 2010 4:50 pm

A bit malicious using a grinder on someone's bike and you may end up paying for it. I keep a full workshop toolkit upstairs at work and can easily realign some culprit's cranks to 90 degree or synchronised so they have to pedal home like a kangaroo. Swapping bits around on the handlebars so the brake levers are usable but all on the lefthand of the bar, the shifters on the right and wrong way up. It's the thought that counts, really.

Where I work we have the occasional bike issue, someone using another's tools or tube without permission, however it is more lockers and showers. At least for the lockers the keys are all handled by one property person in the building, I was able to check through the register and identify the locker below mine as being held by someone who'd left the building 2 years ago and once I cleaned his old stereo equipment (Say What?) out I had a backup locker for my weekly gear. Someone else wanted one, I found another who'd not used their bike since August and presto, done. As to the showers we got sick of finding someone borrowing towels plus leaving them wet and on the floor, we stuck up signs and removed all the hooks, put all the spare towels (years of accumulation) in boxes outside the stalls. The message was bring your own towels and take them away with you, find somewhere else to dry them. Of course that message doesn't always get through, the next time someone borrowed a couple of towels from the boxes and used one as a foot towel, hung the other one up inconveniently across the lockers one of my colleagues apparently went postal and binned everything, boxes, towels and few other bits laying around. The showers are now remarkable clean and easily maintained. Sometimes to make something foolproof you've got to remove the thing instead of the fool.

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby jules21 » Sat May 01, 2010 5:07 pm

just4tehhalibut wrote: can easily realign some culprit's cranks to 90 degree or synchronised so they have to pedal home like a kangaroo. .
lol, i must remember that one :)

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Re: Bikes left for months at a time at work

Postby Max » Sun May 02, 2010 2:13 pm

just4tehhalibut wrote:A bit malicious using a grinder on someone's bike and you may end up paying for it. I keep a full workshop toolkit upstairs at work and can easily realign some culprit's cranks to 90 degree or synchronised so they have to pedal home like a kangaroo.
:lol: That is absolutely magnificent!!!! :lol:

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