A brand new bike is locked up in NYC and left abandoned, but photographed daily in this video. I’m very impressed with how long it takes for stuff to get stolen – literally months! And although the bike does eventually end up entirely gone I don’t look at it as bike theft in the normal sense [ie. your spanking new commuter bike is taken while you have lunch]. It seems to me just a function of urban salvage – once something is clearly abandoned and decaying the smart move is to use it for what value it has left and at the same time prevent it from becoming an eye sore.
I’m not sure what the point of the video was intended to be, but for me it was amazing to see how long the bike remained unmolested in a city famous for bike theft.
The Lazy Rando Blog... 
This must be an exceptional case, perhaps due to the type of bike or the location. From several online stories I have encountered, looks like bikes usually get stolen much faster than this.
At any rate-though was kinda funny to watch over n over-it’s a sad thing to see 😦 Bikes are GOOD,theives are BAD and should be horse-whipped before being perminently deported to oblivion.
The DC
@DC – in my books taking bits of a rusty abandoned bike that has been left to gather dust for months and using them is not the same thing as snatching someone’s shiny road bike while they run into a 7-11 for a snack.
That’s a good point,but still…bike theft is bike theft,what if it was yours? 😉
Interesting that the first thing to disappear was the fat U-lock, around day 220.
@DC – if I left my perfectly serviceable bike locked up on a street for months to rust and decay I would abdicate my right to complain that someone started harvesting parts off it to use.
Is it better for the bike to turn into a pile of rust or get recycled?
I agree with ya about recycling it..I suppose it wouldn’t really be stealing though,since it was abandoned well past any statutes anywhere I know of would have,LOL! 😛
@nthn, probably owners removed it to get things going, must have been too boring 🙂
There are so few bike racks in this city that “recycling” a bike that’s been abandoned is less theft than civic responsibility.