Perpetual Pedaling

If it weren’t for social media, Tamara Belanger doesn’t think she would have found the bike ripped off from her van’s rack in June.

Belanger and Josh Perkins had just finished cruising for the day when they stopped by the Railyard for a concert. After a little music and dinner, they returned to find their cable lock cut and one bike missing—a scenario with which many local cyclists are familiar.

Stories of stolen mountain bikes, cruisers and 10-speeds run the gamut in Santa Fe. Some are swiped from people’s homes, sprung from their locks while parked on the street or snatched from bike racks mounted to car bumpers. Cyclists use what resources they can to hunt down their cherished rides and are often reliant on the power of the internet, such as the Santa Fe Bulletin Board on Facebook.

SFR reported in June that the city has seen a rise in car thefts this year—up 93% in the first five months as compared to that time period in 2021. Stolen bicycles, meanwhile, are on pace to reach last year’s number of 127. According to SFPD Capt. Aaron Ortiz, 75 bikes have been reported nicked since Jan. 1.

Ortiz acknowledges stolen bikes have been a “consistent problem,” but writes SFR in an email that the department “takes all thefts seriously” and assigns the cases with higher solvability factors, evidence, stolen property value and investigative leads to detectives first.

As the Broken Spoke bike shop owner, Mike Chapman is used to hearing the stories of stolen bikes—everything from the ordinary opportunist needing transportation to more planned-out heists by “pros.”

“I haven’t heard about this recently, but what was happening was people were getting followed home,” Chapman tells SFR. “They’d see somebody with a speed bike on their car and they’d follow them, find out where they live and break into their house at night. I’ve heard stories of people posting up at trailheads, too.”

SFPD officials assign high-value bicycle theft reports to the Criminal Investigations Section, while patrol officers handle stolen lower-value bikes. The department also participates in Leads Online, a program that alerts detectives when property sold to pawn shops, scrap yards or other businesses is identified as stolen.

Bike theft victims’ demographics and geography seem to be random, Ortiz tells SFR, so detectives keep an eye out for stolen property they come across in other, unrelated cases. He says it’s common for detectives to find several different stolen items they can link back to other property crimes either in SFPD’s jurisdiction or other agencies’.

Similar to cars and trucks that go missing, bicycles are often used for getting around town and left abandoned, Ortiz says.

It was “such a bummer” when Jessica Pecos had her cable lock cut and bike lifted outside the DeVargas Center on July 29, she tells SFR. The bike had kept her spirits up during pandemic lockdowns, giving her a reason to get out of the house and exercise. She filed a police report, but says the responding officer didn’t seem “too hopeful” of finding it.

Pecos has her fingers crossed, yet she’s familiar with the “police didn’t help me” comments online.

“I’ve had a lot of positive responses from people saying they would help me find my bike and they’d be on the lookout,” she tells SFR, adding that she expects to get it back. “I guess it’s just wishful thinking.”

Whether they’re found on the side of the road or discovered in an investigation, bikes police do recover are taken to the department’s evidence room. However, SFPD is unable to return many of them, because the owners don’t usually have a serial number to identify the bikes.

“That’s very hard, because, obviously, manufacturers make their bikes similar and they all have the same description,” Ortiz says. “It’s not like a vehicle where you could have tinted windows or stickers or anything like that.”

Belanger had good luck.

“We posted on social media about it being stolen and the next day started getting info that the bike had been spotted in the downtown area,” Belanger says.

She and Perkins made their way to Railyard Park, where they found a man asleep next to her bike. Perkins grabbed it, loaded it up in a van and informed the man police had been called. He “didn’t give any trouble,” Belanger says.

Belanger recalls dialing the Santa Fe Police Department to file a report on the missing bicycle, but was told it would take four hours before officers could arrive—time they weren’t going to spend waiting around. She says the department could “absolutely” do a better job addressing stolen bikes, “but I understand they are dealing with serious crimes.”

Awareness and using the correct lock are key to preventing bike thefts, but other tips from police and bikers include:

• Always secure bike when left unattended
• Use a U-Lock or heavy-duty chain lock
• Lock bike in well-traveled area
• Lock wheel and frame together
• Record the serial number