Paeroa Pt. I: How To Get Your Bike Stolen

Here’s one of those things you are never, ever supposed to do: urban bike camping. One of the perennial questions on bikepacking forums is what to do about bike security. In one sense the question is oxymoronic: there’s really no such thing as a securely locked bike. I know of a case where instead of disabling the lock, the thieves put the entire bike rack in the bed of a pickup truck, bicycle still attached, and just drove away. The fact is, the only way to prevent a determined thief from stealing your bike is to make sure the thief never has prolonged access to it.

So in the most important sense, the question is not oxymoronic. The security question is how much of a pain in the ass you can make it to steal your bike so the thief just moves on to somebody else’s. And anyway, I don’t care about determined bike thieves. They’re a given. I’m more worried about dumbass fourteen-year-olds indulging an impulse or showing off to their friends. I don’t care what country you’re in or what the crime rate is there; fourteen-year-olds are impulsive dumbasses the world over.

One of the most touted maxims on the bikepacking forums is never let your bicycle out of your sight. It’s a nice idea, but I have questions for these people about where they poop.   The more practical advice on the forums is about little things you can do to prevent the quick grab-n-go kind of theft. And some of these are simple, creative, and cheap. Leave it parked in its highest gear, so it’s hard to ride away. Better still, take the chain off the chain ring. Dialing it up a notch, remove the pedals. Quick release saddles and wheels are no longer in fashion; they’re just another easily stolen thing to worry about.

Obviously you can lock your bike too, but that runs afoul of another perennial bikepacking concern: how to keep weight down. Locks that actually work are heavy. Lightweight locks are basically toys. But I have one anyway, basically a steel zip-tie with a combination lock on one end. It’s one step above wishful thinking but it helps me keep that fear culture instinct in check.

Far more effective, I think—and I actually heard it go off the other day—is my hypersensitive motion detector alarm. If you so much is nudge that bike, it erupts with a loud electronic burp, and if you do it again it wails like a banshee. I’m sure a thief with a well-trained eye knows the product and how to silence it, but impulsive dumbass teenagers might not.

By far the most important security measure one can take is to never, ever park your bike in a public place overnight. Darkness + plenty of time = bike thief heaven. And that’s the rule I broke. I camped in town.

Namely Paeroa, home of NZ’s favorite soft drink. L&P is, according to its own label, “World Famous in New Zealand.” Paeroa is a lovely little town that time seems to have passed by. Old-timey burger joints and hand-painted signs are the order of the day. Not exactly what you’d call a den of thieves, but several people warned me to keep a sharp eye out. Opportunists are everywhere, even quaint Paeroa.

But I had biked a long way that day and the next campsite was another fifteen or twenty kilometers away. When someone told me there was camping behind the grocery store, that was all I needed to hear.

So I laid Booster down next to my tent, ran a guyline through her back tire (essentially staking my tent to her), and tried to quiet all those fear culture instincts whispering in my head. As a last minute security measure I set my pot and pan in her spokes, because I am a genius and that will totally help.

Setting them down triggered the motion detector, which is no way to try to fall asleep. Also, if any bike thieves didn’t know where Booster was, they sure knew now.

I awoke to find I still had her rear tire in my possession.