My bike is slowly being wrecked

[LordShaftesbu...]

I live in a 1st floor flat in a city and therefore have no choice but to park my bike on the street. I bought it about 18 months ago after careful consideration of exactly how I could secure it (I've had a motorcycle stolen before, resulting in much mental and financial anguish). I bought a 19mm Almax IV, an alarmed 16mm Oxford padlock, a combined alarm and immobiliser, a Datatag kit and a Mammoth disc lock for the front wheel. I chain it to a lamppost, one of the proper jobs with an extra thick base and no chance of lifting the chain up over it. So far the bike's not been stolen and I'm fairly confident that it won't be considering there's a guy up the street who relies only on an alarm for bike security and has never been had his bike touched.

However, I failed to take into account the bands of feral children that roam the streets. Ever since I bought the bike they have been fiddling with it, mainly trying to make the bike alarm and padlock alarm go off. Unfortunately there is a strange dearth of lampposts in my area so I've been forced to park it where I can't see it from my windows (so I can chain it to one). But for the last year and a half that hasn't been a problem because nothing serious has happened, no damage has been done and the bike has been essentially fine.

Now things have changed. The feral children have grown bolder, perhaps made so by the lack of a deterrent, and they have now taken to deliberately tipping the bike over. Sometimes my neighbours call round to tell me it's on its side again, other times I find it myself. It is now cracked, scratched and scraped with dents in both sides of the fuel tank. I have had to replace both the clutch lever and the brake lever but now they're bent again. The handle bars are also bent but I'm not sure how to fix that myself.

So far as I can see these are my options:

1. Move away and hope that where we move to is safer (how to be sure?). I'm desperately house hunting at the moment but what to do in the meantime?

2. Move the bike to where it can be seen from my window and train a CCTV camera on it. The problem with this is the camera would have to point directly into many neighbours' windows - as I understand the law if any of them chose to complain I would have to take down the camera. And anyway, why would criminals under the age of 16 fear a camera?

3. Chain the bike to something else in such a way that it would be physically impossible to tip over. I'm thinking railings or something similar. With the railings on one side and the chain holding the bike onto them neither direction would be an option for the scrotes. The downside to this is it means parking on a pavement - a ticket sooner or later seems inevitable, at which point the bike will have to move.

4. Stake the bike out. When the next person touches it emerge from the shadows and slice their windpipe open. Gently lower the vermin to the ground so that they can choke their last few breaths while regretting what they've done. This has a drawback in that I would go to jail.

It seems to me that the best solution would be to install something to chain the bike to within view of my window - but I would need council permission to install street furniture.

Has anyone here ever tried to get permission from the council to install ground anchors or anything similar (in a public street) and had any luck?

Google Streetview might help you reconstruct the crimescene (the bike under the cover is my old bike, but my new one occupies the same space).

Google Map Link

[Dr. DaveJPS]

i'd go for 1. move to clerk street/marchmont area then no feral kids only students.
____________________
"intelligent inattention is preferable to unintelligent tinkering"
www.davejps.com

[Mira]

Click me

or option 4. remember you'll only go to prison if they catch you
____________________
I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat.  I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! ~ Dr Seuss.

[st3v3]

Can't move, everywhere has kids or pissed up students.

Stake it out, and either catch some in the act and give them a quick slap when alone so they don't do it again (then there's no proof) or gather actual evidence and go to the police, get the parents to payt for it that way.

Covers will be torn, equipment will be trashed and there is only 1 way to deal with this situation; be voilent as that's all most of these scummy types understand. Trick is not to be caught or have any evidence against you and stick to "it wasn't me".
____________________
Roger wrote: Women don't get damp for clingy puppies. Get some better happy pills, hit the gym & buy a medallion the size of a dinner plate. Job done

[stinkwheel]

[twotakt]

I bet its the same kids repeatedly doing it, find them and punish them.
____________________
R.I.P. Tareree Shiimi, 1985-2008

[TheDonUK]

also i think the problem is partly you are parking it at a crossroads, which looks like it might get alot of (possibly drunken) foottraffic.

I think you need to park it within view and reach of your home and sacrifice the lampost, then stake it out and beat whoever you find with a baseball bat.

Its such a pussy thing to fuck with a persons vehicle for no reason.

I hope one day they own something of value just so they can experience the anguish and anger when someone messes with it.
____________________
[Current Bikes - GSXR-750 K5 & C90-97 ] [Previous Bikes: Runner 125, YBR 125, GS500, Bandit 600, Hornet 600, ZX6R-99, C90-99, R1-99, XT600E-04, GSXR-750 K4, CRF250L '16]

[ZRX61]

I had that problem when I lived in London. I was living in a tower block & the bike wa schained to railings in the carpark.
Shot some fucker sitting on it right in the top of his noggin with a .22 air rifle & never had a problem after that...I think his afro saved him from a more serious injury.

[growler]

[Dr. DaveJPS]

[spakmitten]

lock it up how stinkwheel says also have the chain proper tight so it has way less freedom to wobble back and forth and get pushed over


also have every big bastard mate you can hang about in the dark and bum rush the filthy little cunts when they touch it

also steak it out and follow them home and cause as much damage as you see necessary

[LordShaftesbu...]

[map]

[Azonicben]

[s44678]

How about seeing if anyone close by will let you store in their yard / garage / drive whatever? Just have a walk about and see what you see. A bike takes up next to no space, and if you are polite and explain your problem I'm sure someone will eventually be willing to help you out. Can always offer some cash as well.

[pa_broon74]

That area is really bad for feral kids, its unavoidable. Only thing you could do as far as I can see is move.

I lived over in Pilrig and had my KTM stolen, that was from a private complex, dead end road, no through traffic, when I think about it, it was probably one of the neighbours.

I've explained when flat hunting it needs to be ground floor facing the street, preferably main door. The estate agent however bang on about private secure parking which you get a fair bit of these days. I always say to them, yeah thats fine as long as you trust all your neighbours who are probably all renting bought to let flats and by extension all their pals.

As for beating the crap out of them? Don't even bother trying, unless you can raise an army of friends willing to get involved in a war of attrition with countless feral children, there brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, aunties and uncles, grandparents etc etc etc forever et al, you cannot win.

Well, unless you kill one but even then, these type of people will not let go.
____________________
Didn't catch anything.

[T0MMY]

I've lived in Marchmont on and off for about 4 years over the last decade and had a CBR400RR and Bros400 pushed over and then a Rieju SMX125 stolen so the area isn't free of this stuff! Plenty of chavvy students these days too by the way
____________________
ZX6R + CBR600RR

[stinkwheel]

[LordShaftesbu...]

[smegballs]

[stinkwheel]

[smegballs]

[Glory Hunter]

Personally I'd go for a variation on 3:

If you could put a taut chain between the point on the signpost where it broadens then through the top half of your forks the tension would make it very difficult to tip the bike.

I had a similar problem with my old CB500, it must've got tipped over 10 times in the four years I owned it and each time I had to replace the break lever at £10+ a pop. I now do this with my current bike with two chains looped over the top of a set of railings.

I realise your situation is slightly different to mine, but if you got some chain from B&Q and a small padlock, you could wrap it around until there was no slack at all (after all, it's not your main security device).
____________________
2003 Suzuki VanVan - Sold
2000 Honda CB500 - written off by a spoilt brat with no manners
2005 Yamaha XT660 - I'm in lurve....

[LordShaftesbu...]

[stinkwheel]