Posted on 03/27/2015 3:29:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Can a smart bike rescue itself if there’s no one around to see the blinking LED that says it’s stolen? Tuesday morning, Bill Kiriakis drove in from the North Bay to The New Wheel to pick up his brand new $6,990 Stromer ST2.
By noon it had been stolen. What could have turned into a real lousy Tuesday turned into an exciting tale of smart bike success.
Kiriakis made the mistake of locking his super bling electric bike up to his rack and walking away.
Dramatization of the bike theft. Dramatization of the bike theft. when he came back from work, Kiriakis found that somebody had snipped his cable lock that held the Stromer ST2 to rack on the back of his car. Rather than panic, he called The New Wheel, where had purchased the fancy bike. Normally you probably wouldn’t think, “Hey, my bike got jacked, maybe I should call the place where I bought it.” But this isn’t any ordinary bike. The Stromer ST2 is billed (by Stromer) as “The first e-bike in the world to integrate Bluetooth, GPS, and GSM, as well as communicate with the rider's smartphone through a proprietary, cloud-based platform.”
In other words, it’s really not a bike you want to steal.
Rather than tell Kiriakis he was out of luck, Karen Weiner of The New Wheel called up Stromer North American Operations Manager Oliver Dine, who was able to track down the bike’s location. But that’s not all – Dine put the Stromer ST2 into “theft mode.” This handy feature disables the electric motor and rear wheel so that it can’t roll anywhere. It also flashes the built-in LED lights (a kind of distress signal I guess) and flashes “Theft” so that when you, or the police find it, they don’t mix it up with some other $7,000 e-bike, that might be lying around.
Sure enough, the staff of The New Wheel and the SFPD managed to track the bike down and recover it near Eighth and Market streets. No word if there was an exciting e-bike vs. segway chase, or anything similarly futuristic. Nicholson said that, “For his part, the thief said he was impressed with the ST2’s top speed of almost 30 mph.”
Nicholson called this a, “wild proof of concept incident” that demonstrates the ability of a smart bike to help in its own recovery effort. When I brought up privacy concerns about the ability of Stromer to access, and take control of a bike remotely, he told me that, “As far as monkeying with the anti-theft features, only the owner can do so via their registered phone which they have paired with the bike. And, with the owner's permission, in case of emergency Stromer can do so remotely.”
So if Kiriakis had managed to pair his smartphone to his Stromer ST2 he could have disabled the rear wheel, turned on the blinking Thief sign, and alert the police himself. In any case, it’s a pretty impressive recovery effort, aided by the SFPD, who are probably stoked that there are finally bike theft that can be easily solved.
Some super bling electric bikes should not be left tied up and abandoned, no matter how secure. He is lucky this time.
Still, even with the locked rear wheel and Thief! sign blinking, someone could say, “I’m the owner, I just forgot the code to reset’, as with car alarms that go off shrieking in the middle of the night.
Can’t help but picture a Quinn Martin Productions, Streets of San Francisco cheezy early 70s cop chase, ... but with $7000 ultra gay bikes.
“Still, even with the locked rear wheel and Thief! sign blinking, someone could say, “I’m the owner, I just forgot the code to reset’, as with car alarms that go off shrieking in the middle of the night.”
True, but that certainly gives the police probable cause to detain someone until they can establish the ownership for certain (if the police care to bother).
Still, the story would have had a happier ending if the bike had built-in dual 45 semi-autos and was smart enough to use them. Now that would be a bike worth $7 Grand.
With 7K he could have bought a Wilson Combat 1911 and a Les Baer AR-10 in .308
Idiot.
lol
Red in Blue PA
FYI the SOF has spend a boat load on motorcycle versions of this thing. Think about it tactically, it is a great force multiplier. If you can charge it!!!
No, this is a good system.
And it doesn’t have to be a super expensive bike. When I was a kid in NYC, I saved up my dog-walking money to buy a modest basic bike, what we called an “English” bike (narrow tires), locked it to the post outside the branch library...and the kids from the projects (who couldn’t be bothered to walk dogs, clean stoops, etc. to earn their own money to buy something) had stolen it by the time I came out 15 minutes later.
I wish I had had one of these devices! In fact, I wish I had had a laser device that would have blasted those idiots into some common sense. I’m sure a few years later they were all in jail or dead, but that’s not an ideal outcome.
I think I recall hearing of the English Bikes years ago. Distinctive because of their narrow tires as you said, plus the light ticking sound they made when used for gliding down a slope. Classy. Nothing like those Banana Seat bikes.
We thought they were very classy! Also, they were lighter than the other bikes, so they were easier to handle. Not that the creeps from the projects cared....
Or two pristine matching-number S/42 Lugers or three perfect Remington Rand or Ithaca 1911A1s or an excellent 1886 Winchester rifle in .45-90.
Think classic. Think investment.
$7,000? Smart bike, dumb owner.
I’ve never spent more than $250 for a bike. I’ve ridden that one for 15 years and something over 12,000 miles. Halfway around the world.
But why is spending big bucks on a bike any more foolish than spending even more on a motorcycle, sports car, boat or other indulgence?
If you rode it half way around the world, how did you get back?
Hitchhiked. Tough with a bike.
Because, as you correctly observe, you can buy anywhere from around 10 to 25 very nice bikes for $7,000. That's why it's foolish. I myself spent $450 on a bike I've now owned for ten years. Before that, I owned a bike a spent around $500 on and used for 25 years [so in 1980 dollars, it was pretty salty. We were DINKs then. I wouldn't spend that kind of money now. Even so the amortized cost was $20/year.]
It's his money. He can buy whatever he wants with it. I don't say it's immoral, but at some point [I'd guess around about $1500-$2000] you aren't really paying for a bike anymore... And again, if whatever the extra $5 Large is for is what he needs it's his money to spend.
Hey, I saw a set of bike wheels in a bike store the other day. $3000. Just the wheels.
Just strikes me as odd that people object so much more strongly to someone spending a lot on a bike than to someone spending similar money (or a great deal more) on a yacht, watch or car.
You can buy a perfectly functional and even pretty nice looking watch for $100. But you can easily spend more than this guy spent on his bike.
People spend hundreds of thousands or millions on a yacht.
A Tesla costs $100,000+. Many other neat cars cost a lot more than that. But they have little if any more functionality than my 10-year old Vibe.
And don’t even get me started on jewelry or vacation homes.
The guy bought a toy. Not a choice I’d make, but I fail to see why his choice of toys is any more stupid than those of anybody else.
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