One of the bikes stolen so far was this carbon fibre nearly new Cervelo R5.
With thefts booming in Ireland, anyone who owns expensive bikes should familiarise themselves with new scams or robbery tricks.
And while tales abound of thieves monitoring social media and even cycling sites such Strava and Map My Ride to gather intelligence on where they might find expensive bikes to rob, some of them are going back to basics.
News of a new scam Down Under should put cyclists on their toes in Ireland and the UK because the starting points for the crimes were on exactly the same sites Irish cyclists use when selling bikes.
In Australia the police are on the look-out for a thief who arranged to meet those selling expensive bikes on both Gumtree and Facebook.
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Once face to face with them, he admired the bike for sale and then threw his leg over the crossbar, asking could he take it for a short test ride.
In each of the three cases he left a mobile phone and empty wallet behind as an insurance policy that he would return.
However, in each of the cases he left the seller standing in the street and was never seen again.
When examined, the phone he had left behind turned out to be the one he had contacted the seller on.
But in all three cases it was an untraceable pay as you guy model that appeared to have been sourced specifically for one theft and had not other activity on it that might identify the thief.
And, no surprises for guessing; the wallet was also empty, with nothing in it to point to his identity.
The thief has been active in Victoria for a number of months and the police there fear he may have stolen more than the three bikes they have been made aware of.
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The most recent bike stolen was a nearly new Cervelo R5, taken from an owner in St Kilda.
And on that occasion the thief had called to the seller’s house, after contacting him via mobile phone, on his own bike.
He then later arranged to call back and have another look at the bike and pay for it, only to arrive on foot and make off with the bike during the test ride.
The first bike stolen in near identical circumstances was Polygon Cyclocross, followed by a Yeti Mountain Bike and then the Cervelo R5; all with a combined value of well over €10,000.
So if you’re selling a bike and someone wants to take a spin around the block before they decide to buy it or not, you might want to go with them on another bike.
At the very least get some photo ID from them and satisfy yourself that it’s the same person in the photo. Also hold the ID while the test ride is underway.
And you may even want to take a quick photo of any buyer before they take a bike you’re offering for sale on a test ride.
If you are being targeted, it’s highly unlikely somebody will go through with a planned theft in this way if they know you have their photo on your phone.
You can promise the person you’re taking the photo of that you’ll delete it when they return on your bike.
That way, at least you protect yourself against your expensive bike being robbed and you won’t seem rude if the prospective buyer is genuine.
There's no doubt that most people looking at sites like Gumtree and Facebook buy and sell pages are genuine.
But there is clearly a very lively and lucrative market in used bikes and good prices to be fetched for high end models, making it very attractive to those out to con others.
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