Bike thefts anger visiting cycling group
Four locked bikes are stolen in downtown Kitchener during lunch stop
KITCHENER — Rossetti Lam adores her bike.
It was custom built for her by her husband, Eagle Chan.
They researched the web for bike parts, purchasing many of them online from the United States. Chan put the bike together at home last year.
It was her baby, but now it’s gone.
Her $6,000 mountain bike was stolen on Victoria Day in downtown Kitchener when the Toronto couple was having lunch at Pho Dau Bo on King Street East after spending most of the morning cycling the Hydrocut Mountain Bike Trails off Glasgow Street in Kitchener.
The couple is part of a group of bikers who cycle together.
It was their fourth visit to Kitchener to enjoy the Hydrocut trails.
But the trip had an unhappy ending. On Monday, Lam’s bike and the bikes belonging to three other riders who were among 14 people on the cycling trip were stolen from the back of their vehicles in the parking lot at the back of the restaurant.
The bicycles were locked on bike racks.
“We are very sad,” said Lam. “We can buy another bike, but this was my size.”
The couple called Waterloo Regional Police and an officer arrived an hour later.
Lam, Chan and the others had all the necessary information, including the serial numbers and photos of their bikes for police. But they were told that their bikes are likely gone and stripped for parts, which are later sold.
Lam said that while she was downtown she saw a man riding a bicycle while at the same time holding bike parts.
Her son, Alan Chan, said he sent an email to the Kitchener mayor and the city councillor for the area.
“They bike all over in Toronto, Barrie and this has never happened before,” he said. “We reported it to police but there is nothing much they can do.”
Insp. Mike Haffner said stealing bicycles is a criminal offence and police do investigate the crime.
However, police don’t have a branch that directly deals with bike thefts. More than 1,000 bikes are stolen each year in Waterloo Region.
Last year, police kicked off its first Snap ‘N Save program in an attempt protect bike owners and hopefully have bikes that are stolen returned. Police ask bike owners to take two photos of their bike — one with them with their bike and another of its serial number.
Bikes that police recover that are not claimed by their owners are sold at auction or donated to charity.
In 2016, police arrested eight people and laid 37 charges after a “bait bike” project in which police put a tracker on a bike and monitored it as people attempted to steal it. Over three days, the bike parked in downtown Kitchener led to 37 charges.
Alan Chan said he would like to see more bikes used as bait to catch the culprits.
“For now, all we do it wait and that doesn’t seem right,” he said.
For those whose bikes are ripped apart with the parts sold in the “black market” bike trade, there is little hope of recovery.
Jesse Robertson, owner of Black Arrow Cycles on Queen Street South, said each day he sees customers who come into his downtown Kitchener business to say they have had parts stolen from their bikes.
He said it’s also common to see people riding bikes that have mismatched parts.