to steal or not to steal?

[sam264]

As many have said, leave a note or take the chain off the chain ring,. I still probably wouldn't condone stealing it though as
1. it's not yours
2. it's only a lava dome....

 

[sam264]

I agree, cover all bases, leave a note, ring the council, or whatever americans call it ermm municipality??? check out the new york laws on abandoned property, drop the chain, ask around, give a donation to the church then take the bloody bike!!!
Then it would be legally as well as morally the right thing to do

Its been abandoned folks, you can not steal it if it the owner had intentionally reliquished ownership and responsibility for it, Its new york after all, he probably got killed by some mafia crack hos when a drug deal went bad or something :twisted:

charlieboy

if you've left it for a few months, is it not still your property? our house hasn't gone anywhere since we bought it, i'm fairly sure it's still ours though....

 

[sastusbulbas]

Quite simple really.

If teh original owner did not want to keep it, WHY did he lock it.

Your a theiving freeloader, now piss off

 

[Sithlord]

Does it belong to you ? ...NO.. so leave it alone, if you want it that bad, put a letter in an envelope for the owner.. or contact authorities to see if it has been reported etc..

Imagine if this was your bike, and you had gone on holiday, Ill.. etc.. only to return to find it had been stolen, stealing is stealing fella..

 

[SeeingisBelievingGTMuseum]

S-T-E-E-L...heck yes steel, but don't steal.

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

Thanks for all your input, a lot of very valid opinions here. Last night I went past again and left a note on the bike expressing my intentions. I also did some checking with NYPD and it seems as though its completely legal to take a bike so long as its been abandoned for over 6 months and you can prove it.

luckily Ive been taking pictures of this bike every month or so to be able to see weather its been being moved and those digital pics have time stamps. Now as many of you have correctly assumed I'm encountering some moral dilemmas over stealing a bike. I work in a bike shop, I have been an avid biker my entire life and I have had a ridiculous number of bikes stolen from me (both from under me and coaxed out of my various locks).

As someone on here said "its just a cindercone" and while they do ride pretty well its no Lobo or Yo Eddy. So Ive decided to keep checking on it until first snow (probably another month or so) and if my note hasn't been answered and the bike is still there I'll get the cops to cut the lock for me and go home with it.

ah, a fellow new yorker; don't steal that, man...seriously, the owner might be unable to get to it due to being institutionalized. Just think of how incredibly life affirming it will be when he gets out to find his kona beater exactly where he left it.

Karma can be a bitch...let some other vulture come feast on it, and know you passed on the chance to soil your hands with stolen goods, that you could've bought free and clear for under a buck...it's a freakin cinder cone.

 

[stauqmuk]

Ive left my note so now well see if anyone responds but the outcry to leave it has swayed me. I never really wanted the a cinder cone to begin with and although the "theft" itself would be executed by the police I'm not going through with it. When asked this afternoon the fellas at my shop answered the same question with a resounding NO and then went on to berate my taste in cycles (nothing out of the ordinary). So now I can think of about 8 good reasons not to take this bike under my wing and show it some love and only 2 semi ok reasons to go ahead and grab it up. I will however take some more pics of it in the seasons to come and post 'em up here. Anyway thanks again for all the input.

 

[Charlieboy28]

Oh well!
I still think the point is being missed, if the bike has 100% been abandoned, i.e the owner has no intention of ever returning for it, then it is not theft it is salvage. and that has to be the most noble means of aquiring anything, to take something that has been discarded and not wanted and care for it, anyway!
I must say i'm also more than a little disappointed in the whole bike snobbery elitist thing too, oh its not high end its only a kona cindercone. like a better make of bike would have been legitmate to take. The thing i like about this site is that there is love for all makes and models, or at least so i thought
for me the interest was the moral dilemma regardless of make and model of bike,
and it will be the bottom to mid range jo schmo bikes that will be the rarity in the future due to this attitude, or is it that i have an 89 Muirwoods, and I'm on the look out for a small steel frame kona,lol, its the purple one with the big colourful decals, if someone could enlighten me as to its name and year too,lol, oh an if you have one at a reasonable price.

anyway, I will say a little prayer for that poor abandoned cindercone

sorry to rant

charlieboy

 

[lewis1641]

Charlieboy, the tricky thing is how to know it has truly been abandoned

 

[lewis1641]

i have figured it out. why its there, why it is still there and why it hasn't been stripped or vandalised.....

it is a set up by a twisted vigelante. he is on a mission to rid the streets of n.y.of bike theifs. he is monitoring the bike. anyone who attempts to damage or steal it he swoops on and tortures, saw stylee.