General purpose bike for heavy, tall rider

On 1 Aug 2005 08:03:26 -0700, "41" wrote:


Jasper Janssen wrote:
On 29 Jul 2005 08:42:27 -0700, "41" wrote:
Jasper Janssen wrote:

90% of bike
thefts are down to 10% of the offenders, and they'd steal several bikes a
week to several per day. Vast majority of them are junkies, so the going
price for a stolen bike d irect from the thief is heavily dependent on the
going streetprice for a shot of heroin. $10-20 or so.

Ah, I understand now. Economic and criminal profiles where you are, are
different from elsewhere I know, where "homeless" and "junkie" are
rather more distinct: the former being those who've lost their homes
due to the economy or to mental illness, the latter being teenagers who
do have homes but don't like the parents that go with them. I guess
also NL has a much bigger junkie problem than anywhere I've been.

Maybe I'm just using the word differently than you. It's very hard around
here to become homeless through sheer incompetency at a job -- 70% of
minimum wage government-supported income (which is not a lot, but enough
to survive) is available to those who are out of a job (although, at least
technically, they're required to try to get a new job), and getting
evicted is a hell of a lot harder than in the US as well.

Those who *are* homeless, then, seem to be one or more of several
categories: illegal immigrants, who don't get those protections, *badly*
addicted people who have a really bad habit and the mentally ill who have
been put out on the streets when their institutions closed because mental
patients should participate in society. The latter two often go together.
Heroin use is fairly well restricted to the homeless who've been on it for
a decade or more; almost nobody starts using it.

I suspect that a big part of that is that pot isn't a gateway drug, as it
is in the country of the War On Some Drugs -- because you can get pot
legally in hash bars, and even 'dealers' (which are usually just the older
kids at school that provide for those who aren't old enough for hash bars
yet, like I'm sure there are ways for under-21s to get alcohol in the US)
tend to restrict themselves to pot because the sentences for hard drugs
are an order of magnitude or two higher.

in the dumps. Currently there's just been Yet Another Plan to link all the
police databases in t he country to aid in return rates.

In e.g. northeastern USA and southeastern Canada what's really needed
is video surveillance of key locations and sting operations, because
large-scale bike theft is part of organized crime. In NL I guess you
have to solve the junkie problem and the cheap lock problem and the
attitude problem.

Well, the thing is there is not much large-scale bike theft. There's just
one HELL of a lot of small-scale bike theft. One thing that may help --
though probably not as a deterrent -- is longer sentences for
"veelplegers" (many-committers), as they're known here. When someone is in
a court for the 50th time getting convicted of bike theft (often people
who probably steal a hundred bikes for every time they go to court), just
maybe the sentence ought to be a bit longer than the few months they get
for the first time.

I've just gone googling, and I've found one article that challenges some
of my statements: http://www.fietsactief.nl/serv_fietsendiefstal.asp

It claims, among other things, that most thieves specialise in one kind of
lock (chain, or ring, or U), so it's a good idea to use two locks. Also,
that the distribution of bike thefts is:
- 30% occasional one-time thieves. Young 'uns and/or students coming out
of the bar at 2 am that see a bike whose lock they can kick open to bike
home on, and disguise the evidence by plunging it down the canal next to
their house[1].

- 30% junkie veelpleger. Needs 5-8 bikes a day for his addiction. Often
specialises on one or two types of lock.

Both the previous categories tend to go for badly locked bikes, without
all that much regard for quality.

- 40% organised crime. Vans, large amounts of bikes, load up the best
ones. For locks that don't link to 'the world', they don't even bother
cracking them on-site. Also break open things like unguarded central bike
sheds for flats etc.



Jasper

[1] In Delft, I once took a piece of nylon rope, a big iron hook, and
stood beside one of the picturesque canals. 15 minutes later, I had
something like 6 bikes -- one throw per bike, pretty much. Most were
fairly wrecked, but one was a fairly recently inundated rental bike from
the station, that got a finder's fee even.

On 1 Aug 2005 07:27:57 -0700, "41" wrote:
Jasper Janssen wrote:

The Snel standard touring bike frames, at least, have maximum widths of
622/47 and 559/~56, they say when I asked. That just eliminates the Big
Apple(even in 559 version), sadly, although I know they do make custom
frames that can take them.

I do believe Cholina rides 622-47 top tourings. Should be more than
enough for you!u

Good point.

Jasper