The bike thievery in this city is out of control! I have lost 8 bicycles in four years. A friend has lost 7 e-bikes over 3 years. It doesn't seem to matter where you park it, 'official or not'. People offer to sell 'presumably' stolen bikes near the north railway station when you ride past. However I think most of the rampant bike stealing fuels a large operation that sends bikes to other provinces. I would just like to warn people intending on moving to Kunming and buying a bike. Take it into your apartment. Take into your workplace. Don't leave it for more than an hour outside anywhere.
8 bicycles in 4 years is a bit slow. I have a friend who had 6 stolen in 6 months. The average for an e-bike is about 3 months.
What's that place you mention near the North Railway station? If someone has their bike or e-scooter stolen, they can go to that place to see if it's still there.
What kind of bicycles have you lost? Are they name brand with decent components, or do the asshole bike thieves just steal anything with wheels? How were the bikes locked? Were they locked to a rack or a tree, or was the wheel just locked to the frame? What kind of locks do you use? Did your wheels have quick release?
I'm just curious because I will be moving to Kunming in a year or two and I depend on a bicycle to get around most of the time. My current bike uses a Chinese branded frame and medium quality but outdated components without many visible markings. I do keep it quite clean though, which is probably a mistake. I hate riding really shitty bicycles, so I'm just wondering if there is a way to keep a low profile and not have your transportation ripped off.
Anonymous, they have been a variety of bikes priced from 100 yuan to 3000 yuan. They've always been locked to a tree or post through the frame. One was stolen while I ate in a restaurant. Two were stolen from officially guarded parking areas.
If you have a good bike here I would suggest you cover up brand stickers, tie some old rags around parts of the frame, don't clean it and always take it into your apartment over night.
I had two bikes ripped off from Yunda within a few months of each other - really ticked me off - so I went to file a useless, but troublesome police report. The police response - yeah that happens a lot at yunda.
Both bikes were locked - rear tire to the frame - but combination locks are apparently easy to pick/defeat.
My bike is now locked at home, in a locked storage area and it's ALWAYS within a few meters of me when I'm outside and I'm ALWAYS watching it - thanks to the lack of "protect and serve" by the police.
There was a story on gokm a while back about a cop that tried to intercept some bike thieves on wenlinjie - they tried to beat him up, then ran off - apparently he fired shots at them.
Mountain bikes are now more popular than e-bikes to steal - as they're faster to turnover (presumably, in chenggong et al).
Not sure what's worse - bike thieves or kunming taxi drivers.
You can install a switchblade device on the seat that must be disengaged prior to mouning the bike. So if they ride the bike they will have a knife shoved up their Anus. This would be lovely to see!
@Campo: too much for too little, I think, but it's an interesting idea. On the other hand, I'd hate to come out of a bar too loaded & forget to disengage the...
@laotou: Bike thieves are worse than taxi drivers, the large majority of whom are okay, in my experience.
If everyone installed this on their bikes, then you would see a lot of people with a big bandage on their ass. Then it would be very easy to identify the thieves.
had another ebike stolen just yesterday. This time it was from my building gate, inside our xiaoqu. My girlfriend had just been to buy groceries and decided to carry them upstairs in 2 trips. By the time she got back down the stairs it was gone (along with half of our daily shopping)! This area has always been comparatively safe (in my mind). The 'guards' didn't see anything. Apparently, they got the water delivery man's bike a few days ago... they rode off with the empty bottles and everything while he was delivering.
