Bad Bike Moves

"It seems like a lot of people are coming from trailheads, and I believe somebody is watching people leaving from trailheads, and it also looks like they're targeting specific kinds of bikes, high-end specific kinds of bikes," Pat Brown, president of the Fat Tire Society, tells SFR five minutes after another report of a bike theft, this one from the hospital parking lot Thursday afternoon. "In at least two incidents, it was people coming off the trailhead, going to a retail center or a retail shop, and stopping to buy something and coming back out, and their bikes are gone."

Though the bike community is buzzing with word of the thefts, the Santa Fe Police Department hasn't noted an uptick.

"I wouldn't say there's a big increase in them. In summer we do get those, but it wasn't anything shocking," says Andrea Dobyns, public information officer for the police department. "We do try to remind people about locking up their bikes and our downtown, especially bike, officers, do look for that."

While bike thefts may not be new to Santa Fe, there's a sense that thieves are targeting certain high-end brands—Yeti and Santa Cruz, coveted boutique-type mountain bike brands. Santa Cruz bicycles can retail for up to $8,200, and Yetis as high as about $12,000.

"They're easy to sell, they're easy to get rid of, and everybody always wants them," says Mat Long, who came home last week to find someone had broken into his home and stolen two Santa Cruz mountain bikes, their total value at $14,000. Marks on the door showed where the lock had been shimmied on a back room used to store the bicycles. Long had returned home twice in the previous seven days to find locks and doors in his house tampered with.

The first time, the lock on the French doors to the bike room, which is blocked from view from the street by a 10-foot coyote fence and windows covered with shades, had been removed from the latch, and the second time, the front door was left hanging open.

On the afternoon the bikes were stolen, he had been gone from 2:30 to 5. Though he had ridden that morning from the ski area to his house in Casa Solana, Long doesn't think being tracked from a trailhead was how the thieves knew to target his home. Rather, he suspects the bike rack sporting a Santa Cruz sticker on his vehicle parked outside.

"They're looking for specific things, because I had another bike in there that is very expensive, but it's not a very common name; you would only really know about it if you were really into bikes, and they left that there," he says. "That's a $6,000 bike...So I think it's the brand."

Raphael Kruger was working at Susan's Fine Wine and Spirits near Early Street from 11 am to 2 pm on Sept. 30, and brought his Yeti along on his roof rack so he could ride with friends after work. Instead, when he got out of work, he found the lock chopped and bike gone.

"It never even crossed my mind that I needed the lock for anything other than like a psychological deterrent," Kruger says. "You know how sometimes things get stolen if you leave the window of your car open with a wallet on the seat? That was kind of, the lock was like rolling up the window for me."

Mellow Velo and Broken Spoke both have a list of Yetis and Santa Cruz bikes that were recently stolen they're keeping an eye out for.

"Sounds like somebody's got whatever you need to clip a bike lock. It doesn't take much. A basic cable lock, a good set of bolt cutters will cut right through those things," says Mike Chapman, owner of Broken Spoke. He recommends upgrading to a chain lock. "It would be nice if the police would do a sting operation, because it seems like if they're that bold, it might be easy to catch them."

Stolen bikes are likely disassembled and then sold in pieces, so memorable components don't help owners identify their stolen bikes.

The advice to bicyclists, in addition to upgrading locks and making sure serial numbers are copied down, is be very aware of your surroundings.

"I can tell you it's on the radar now," Long says. "People are freaked out."

Santa Fe Reporter