Cyclist shocked after thief saws through e-bike’s lock
A CYCLIST was shocked to discover that her bike had been stolen by someone who appeared to have sawn through the lock.
Nikki Colley had left her Estarli electric bike locked to the bike rack in North Beach car park sometime between 7.30pm and midnight on a Friday evening this month while she attended a work event in town.
‘I locked it to the metal barriers with a metal lock, but when I came back I found the lock had been cut through, the combination barrel removed, and the lock left, along with my helmet,’ she said.
‘The bike had gone.’
A regular bicycle user, riding it most days as part of her commute to and from town, Mrs Colley said she was most upset by the way in which it had been taken.
‘My guess is that someone wanted to use it as a drunken ride home, and then just ditched it,' she said.
‘What bothers me is how deliberate and calculated it was.'
Fortunately for Mrs Colley, after posting about the theft on Facebook, she was reunited with her bike a couple of days later. It was found abandoned in a clos along Route Militaire.
Mrs Colley bought her electric bike earlier this year from Wheels & Co, a bike shop based at Oatlands Village.
Upon viewing a picture Mrs Colley took of her broken lock, Wheels & Co co-owner Matt Joyce said that, while he was not 100% sure, it looked like the lock’s combination barrel had been cut off with a hacksaw.
‘I would need to take a closer look to be sure, but it looks like a rough metal edge flush with the casing,’ he said.
‘Maybe one of the teeth on the other end has also been cut.’
He suspected that, because of this, the theft was more than just casual opportunism.
‘Whoever did this would have to have some knowledge and practice.’
Police said that there had appeared to be an increase in reported thefts of bicycles and said that some robust security measures were a must for what can be expensive bicycles worth a few thousand pounds.
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