Stolen: 2011' Giant CRX-3 - Darling Harbour, Sydney

[Alexei]

Hi everybody,

I did not expect my FIRST post to be about this. I am new to Sydney and Australia (originally from Russia), bought a bike and registered here recently and was going to introduce myself in "Member Profiles" subforum, it seems like I have a bad karma...

My brand new bicycle was just stolen today while I was watching the Argentina-Germany soccer game at Darling Harbour. It was chained to a pole at the backyard of the Sydney Aquarium building, right across the Wheat St, not far from the King St, here is a Google Maps link:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&ll= ... 02583&z=19

It had a pretty decent (or at least I thought so) lock - Tioga Platinum, which was professionally broken (no scratches or any visible damage outside). The lock was left at the scene.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1901 ... lelock.jpg

I did call police right away, and though they were not friendly at all (it reminded me of Russia!) but at least they gathered my info and provided me with a police report number.

The bicycle is the latest 2011 model Giant CRX-3, dark blue medium size frame, unmodified at all so it does not have any unique details (I did not even have any time to do anything with it yet). It was not registered at Australian Bike Registry as I was not aware that it could be registered (now I appreciate this system in Japan with mandatory bicycle registration).

I still cannot believe it happened.. The bicycle was there for just about two and half hours, from ~11.45 pm to ~2.30 am, so it seems like bastards are scouting this area for bicycles during the games??

Guys and gals, please let me know if there is anything else I can do, what else should I do?

And be careful out there, I learned this the hard way..

[Alexei]

an update - we also spoke with rangers yesterday, they were patrolling the area. They checked the nearby surveillance camera and told us that there were no actions logged during this time. All in all, it seems like whoever did it was not a rookie (bad for me).

anyway any advise or idea you can think of would be greatly appreciated! thanks

[Saro28]

Sorry to hear this Alexie, I hope there is a good outcome for you.

If I may offer some advice, park/secure bikes in a more public place so these theives are more likley to be seen. It 'seems' you may have placed it in an area where the theives had cover to do the job without being seen. Is there anything about the bike lock that has failed or a weak point? Take it to the bike shop you bought it from and try to get some action regarding how easy the lock was picked/ broken without it being damaged.

Andy

[Alexei]

Thanks for your reply Andy!

I also thought that I picked too "secure" place, it was indeed not too public. For some reason I was only worried about vandalism yesterday (which is I guess fairly common after soccer games) and completely missed out that someone might steal it at this time.

will definitely check with the bicycle shop as for the lock - as you can see on the photo they just somehow broke off the central rod without actually damaging anything else.

[Westgarth]

Looks like maybe they hit it with a decent sized hammer or chisel? You really need a D-lock as a bare minimum for an expensive bike, a cable lock like this can be cut by someone with bolt-cutters in seconds.

[Alexei]

Looks like maybe they hit it with a decent sized hammer or chisel? You really need a D-lock as a bare minimum for an expensive bike, a cable lock like this can be cut by someone with bolt-cutters in seconds.

yeah absolutely, but I guess I won't leave my next bicycle anywhere except home and work at all. You know, if somebody wants to steal it, nothing can stop him/her..