Hey,

Just back from a weekend in SWales and unfortuntatly on the Friday night, one of the girls in our group had her car broken into and her Juliana nicked. Its a small in black with red RS Sids with FireXC pros. If people can keep an eye out I (and she) would be very grateful.

Craig

seems to becoming a regular occurrence, is it now around 1 per week nicked from a car at Glyncorrwg

Yeah – there was a couple of separate posts last week regarding bikes going from there
Hope she gets it back

It is slightly worrying, if people were leaving them propped up outside it's one thing, but what exactly can you do when they're getting nicked from locked cars!?

unfortunately these reports will mean im looking at riding elsewhere this autumn

but at the same time, local accomodation should be pushing its secure bike storage facilities

It is slightly worrying, if people were leaving them propped up outside it's one thing, but what exactly can you do when they're getting nicked from locked cars!?

Get an alarm, other than that (apart from physically welding or bolting a ground anchor to the interior) chuff all.

God that's awful, seems pretty brazen!

well if nobody is getting caught doing it yet, its got to be seen to be well worth the risk as its a grand or so a go.

You wouldn't leave £1K> of electrical equipment in the boot of your car on display without some serious security so I guess you need to look at it in that light.

Which car park? the main one or one of the overflow ones? and was it late at night or the middle of the day?

For all the positives of the trails up the Afan Vally, it really is bandit country up there, especially Glyncorrwg.( makes the film 'Twin town' seem normal. I live about 10 mins away down on the coast)

Don't leave anything in the open.I dont even like driving to the place.

The nicked bikes are sold for drugs in most cases.

You try driving down that valley with a car covered in England Rugby logo's.

good old valley's racism

It is really crappy that a couple of local scum bags are ruining it for the rest of the locals that rely on the biking income and the mountain bikers themselves. But as soobalias says it certainly makes a house to rent or lodge with secure bike storage as a cheaper option than camping and getting your pride and joy half inched!

is it better camping at the other centre at afan?
We are off there this weekend and really don't want to lose any bikes

It's funny but I think it may be more than a few scum bags.
Organised bike crime is now such a huge problem most counties have set up specific divisions to try and deal with it. You will see lots of posts on here from a Bristol Policeman trying to get bike back to people and taking leads from us.

I guess all you can do is make sure the bikes are covered or you take them up onto the balcony when you have finished your ride and look them up there. But at night I sleep with mine in the tent.

Did you know you can get motion detection lights and alarms for tents now! May be worth a look at that.

When I travel with my bike in the back of the car (Mondeo estate) it's always covered with a tarp. If I have to leave my bike in my car for any length of time then I park right up against a wall so the boot can't be opened. OK a door could still be forced but it'd be a hell of a lot of hassle and noise to try and get a bike out through a back door. Store the bike in as large a unit as possible – if the wheels and seatpost are off you can manouvre it out, if it's one unit it's a lot more difficult to move around.

A mate used to lock his to the seatbelt anchor points using cable locks.

I used to do trakdays , and we had proper harnesses and the driver had the normal cross chest inertia reel seat belt, for driving on the highway. Its wasnt illegal, but made life easier when pulling out of junctions at awkward angles.
The large eyelets the harnesses came with screwed into the std mounts for the inertia reel belts , and would make an ideal secure mount for a rather large cable or chain. JUst a thought, will look at Demon now to see if they are a rip off or a quid or so.

edit, They are around the £3.00 mark , and are a std thread . Suppose it depends on how often you have to leave your bike in the car.

Its getting to the stage that I wll think twice about riding there now..In fact thats the 2nd time Ive heard of a bike being knicked from inside a locked car..Plus I think Dimmadan is right – this isnt just scumbags this is organised for sure. Do the people who run Glyncorrwg plan to do anything about it? Surely its in their interest?

Hey,

Its even worse than it sounds, they managed to very quietly smash the rear side window, and open the front passanger door and nicked her bike and ALL her kit from inside the car.

We were camped on the edge of the main camping area and the car was about 5m from her tent. The bike was covered over with a blanket, but I guess they know from experiance a large lump of something in that campsite is almost certainly a bike.

Please, if you go there, make sure you can dead lock your car/van, lock your bike to either another bike or the car/van, make sure you can ID your bike and do anything else you can think of to try and prevent your bike being nicked.

We were there the weekend before and 5 bikes got stolen! Its getting ridiculous. It isn't one or two people doing it as the police said they had put at least 2 back into prison (out on parole).

We won't be going back to Glycorrwg until they've beefed up security, which is a real shame as the trails there are so good.

They were watching you put the kit in the car no other answer as they wont chance busting into a car for £100 bike. These guys know what they are doing. For the amount of business/foot flow they get they can afford to have a security guard in the car park.

Just to further Craig's description of the stolen bike, the 'Juliana' stickers on the top tube had recently been removed leaving an area of shiny, 'as-new' paint which is quite obvious apparently.

Keeping my eyes peeled and fingers crossed here.

This getting ridiculous now. Surely the locals know that their livelihood and one of their man incomes will go down hill if it continues. I was meant to be going soon but seriously thinking about giving it a miss now.
I assume they are only targeting cars with no alarm/easy thefts etc?

Hugh

cant they organise some kind of trap ??? if it is happening on a regular basis cant the police set up a bait car/bike ….. they do this with cars in some areas.

it does make you think twice about going, such a shame ….

So what's happening then? Mainly bikes stolen from cars overnight whilst people are camping? Or also bikes being stolen from cars/roof racks et whilst folks are in the cafe post-ride? Was there a few weeks back and had food in the cafe after riding – bikes out of sight in the back of the van, but surely all the local scrotes know that any/vast majority of vehicles in that car park are going to have bikes and/or bike kit in them?

Perhaps we should organise a boycott? A well publicised boycott? Perhaps the owners of the ponds will get the message they need to take action.

By the way the Forestry Commission are not the owners of or have any control over this site.

Maybe we should organise our own honey trap? These scum make me sick. And to think the times I've had my bike in the car whilst enjoying a post ride feed. I wonder if I sell all my bike bits I could get one of these…. http://www.98bravo.com/

Not another! I'd probably still go for a day ride there but I'd think twice about staying overnight as I have done in the past. Setting up trip wires, alarms etc just takes a little of the fun out of a weekend away. I'd like to think that, apart from the police, some Welsh development agency would have an interest in sorting this out, if the right people were lobbied. Bad publicity about what should be a flagship enterprise in a deprived area is in nobody's interests.

Hmmm, so its the overnight campers who are being targeted? looks like it might only be worth it for day trips then.

Anyone mentioned this to the people at the Dropoff/Skyline cycles? as they are going to be the ones who suffer in the long run when there business dries up.

Just an update: The bike has been FOUND!

The thief (who had been arrested two weeks previously for another theft) was dumb enough to be seen riding around the area on our friend's Juliana. The police stopped him and now the bike and owner have been reunited – I doubt she will ever let it out of her sight again!

Big up to the police down there for keeping at it and thanks to the moronic thief for his stupidity in helping get the bike back 🙂