After a nearly $20,000 theft, a local cycling advocate urges more action on bike theft

After nearly $20,000 in bikes were stolen from Windsor Bike Kitchen, executive director Lori Newton is urging Windsorites and police to adopt new tech to help fight bike theft in the city.

It started with a call Newton says she got at 8:30 a.m.Saturday morning the day the bike kitchen was supposed to be moving to its new location on Walker Road.

Shearrived to find a window broken and garage door open, about 20 bikes stolen nowhere to be found.

"They walked over bikes that they weren't interested in that were of lower value," Newton said. "And even with our refurbished bikes, they managed to take the best and two customer bikes, which is really upsetting."

She says it appears the thieves used a piece of tile to smash a small window on the bike kitchen door, using that to slink in and load the bikes, possibly onto a truck or trailer, before opening and leaving through the garage door.

Newton says she believes the thief or thieves were experts she believes it's clear they knew the place by what bikes they stole, targeting the most expensive bikes. They also left behind tools and a donation box.

"They had definitely been in here and cased the place so they knew exactly what they wanted to take," she said.

Newton said that unfortunately the bike kitchen's cameras weren't operational at the time of the theft. They're in contact with neighbours to the bike kitchen to try and get any footage they have and hand that over to police.

But in the bike kitchen's new location she says they're upgrading the door locks and cameras to help deter this kind of theft in the future.

Over seven years in existence, Newton said this is the first incident they've had with even the bike repair station in the front of the shop full of repair tools untouched.

She says some of the stolen bikes appear to be on Facebook Marketplace right now, and some of the tags of the stolen bikes were found scattered in the neighbourhood.

"We're really flummoxed Hopefully we'll get some answers in the coming days. I'm hopeful."

Newton said they immediately contacted Windsor police, who sent officers out and have started an investigation.

Windsor police did not respond to requests for comment.

Windsor police operate bike registry

However, Windsor police have a local bike registry, where cyclists can register their bike for a better chance of getting it back if it's been found stolen.

But Newton said she's urging police to use 529 Garage, an app adopted by other cities that allows cyclists to both add their bikes, and also lets prospective buyers check bikes against the registry to see if they've been reported stolen.

The app is now used on London, Guelph, Waterloo and Ottawa, among other cities.

"We had two people have their bicycles returned to them last summer that had been stolen because they had [529 Garage]. So it really works," Newton said.

Other tips include investing in a book bike lock some people spend as much on a lock as they do on the bike, Newton said and buying from and working with a local bike shop who will have records of your bike in the event that it's stolen.

And despite the very sour start to the weekend, Newton says she's thankful for the Bike Kitchen community.

"It kind of doubled up on the the stress for everybody, but you know I've got the greatest team here," Newton said. "They just pushed forward and we had some 30 plus volunteers that came out to help with the move. So that [felt good]."