Dear fellow hubbers, Being a hardworking citizen with a moral compass, it is extremely difficult for me to comprehend the fact that crime is effecting our lives 24/7. I'm a regular mountain biker (switched over from road cycling due to riding on our roads just became to dangerous). And now I have to think twice when I want to go for a ride on a gravel road. I'm even considering going for serious self defense classes. Not your average choke and kick in the balls classes. Muay thai mixed with gun fighting. At the rate these incidents are increasing, I see myself in 5 years time riding in a bullet proof vest, carrying a hidden .38 special, Gps'ing the sh*t out of my goods, and a remote surveillance drone hovering above me/or my cycling group. I have given the mountain bike theft epidemic some thought...and please correct me if you think I have lost the plot. Surely the guy(s) doing the robbery won't have the ability/available market to sell these goods??? These are guys who live on the street, doesn't really care what the consequences are if they hurt somebody, or self get hurt in the process. These guys are what I call "nothing to lose guys". Unemployed, unschooled guys. Which actually on its own is a pity. If only these guys were skilled, trained, they could have been of the streets...but that is a different debate for a different day... Obviously there must be some kind of syndicate who handle these goods. They probably pay the guy robbing our bikes R500/bike... This is then being sold to either a bike shop who also have lost their moral compass, or as second hand goods on the internet. Now I just cannot go on with my life, adjusting my ways of living, to accompany these immoral creatures, ruining our daily lives. We just have to stop this. Can't we all pool some money together, maybe TheHub can start a campaign and raise some funds. We can then use these funds to hire private detectives, who can try to identify the bike shops buying these stolen goods, and the syndicates behind the bike thefts. The guys doing the robberies; we cannot do much about them, as long as our extremely competent government doesn't educate them, or stop them from crossing the border, they will always be there. But we can do something about the middlemen who have a market for these goods, either via bike shops, or online sales. And with enough resources we can identify these crooks...
