Ever since the Bay Area Bike Share roll-out plan was unveiled, Mission residents have been fussing about the program's absence in the city's residential neighborhoods.  But where's there a demand, there's someone willing to fill it, and one of our city's many bolt cutter entrepreneur's did that.

According to @SFPDBikeTheft, one such thief was spotted cruising Capp Wednesday evening with the 44-pound ride concealed with toilet paper (and what looks to be a magic wand):

@teen_archer at 25th and capp he covered up the bay area bike share logo w/toliet paper covered the front part of the bike w/ a jacket

— SFPD Anti Bike Theft (@SFPDBikeTheft) September 5, 2013

SFist adds that there there “no word yet on how the thieves managed to make off with the bike in the first place;” however, Officer Friedman of @SFPDBikeTheft indicates that Bike Share users are struggling to re-dock their bikes properly.

[@SFPDBikeTheft] [SFist]

The stolen bike chop shop under the freeway: we've all seen it, we all hate it—and they've been operating in broad daylight with impunity for years.  Fortunately, thanks to Meredith Obendorfer and @SFPDBikeTheft, the operation has been (finally) taken down.

Meredith fills us in:

On my ride to work yesterday, I saw a bicycle “chop shop” in its usual operating spot along 13th Street [at Mission], underneath the freeway. Fired up by the recent theft of my beloved mountain bike, I stopped and pulled out my phone to take a picture of the scums at work. While it was a potentially dangerous situation, I figured… if they chase me, what are they going to do, outsprint me?

I snapped a couple photos, gave the guy yelling at me the middle finger, rode away and took to the Interwebs. I tweeted out a picture, notifying @SFPDBikeTheft (which as you might now, is manned by an SFPD officer who has been advocating for SF cyclists with stolen bicycles.)

By 6pm yesterday evening, I received the following tweets in return from @SFPDBikeTheft, as well as from SFPD Mission Station, informing me that the area had been cleared up:

@meredithob @ionfeldman 13th St/Mission ST Off ramp alley as 1800 Hrs today. Thank You @SFPD_Mission #outofbusiness pic.twitter.com/WS4s4jJWqc

— SFPD Anti Bike Theft (@SFPDBikeTheft) August 21, 2013

@SFPDBikeTheft @meredithob @ionfeldman it was our pleasure. Lots of help from @sfdpw & SF @_Recology pic.twitter.com/9j4WNc79JM

— Mission Station (@SFPD_Mission) August 21, 2013

Pretty rad, right? I think this shows that SFPD is doing something about the recent epidemic around bicycle theft and effectively engaging with the community via social media.

Definitely rad. Thanks, Meredith!

Have you heard of Critical Mass? No? Well, it was 21-year-old pro-bicycle protest ride frequented by clove cigarette-sucking intellectuals who continue to think Che Guevara tshirts are acceptable. Or something like that.

Anyway! The SF Weekly has published quite the story about the slow leak in Critical Mass' tires:

Sixteen years ago this month (and 101 years to the day after the 1896 demonstration), Critical Mass was important. Some 7,000 riders inundated San Francisco and were violently confronted by police. It was a watershed moment for cycling in this city; Critical Mass served as a catalyst in changing San Francisco. But, like all catalysts, Critical Mass itself didn't change, even as the landscape around it did, both literally and figuratively.

Instead, a movement created 21 years ago to shake this city out of its institutionalized torpor has, itself, become institutionalized. It has become yet another San Francisco experience, a ritualization of something once vital and meaningful in a city increasingly preoccupied with celebrating what it once was.

“I don't find it to be the same ride anymore,” says Joel Pomerantz, a Critical Mass co-founder. “The Haight has museums of counterculture — but it doesn't have any counterculture. Critical Mass doesn't have critical mass anymore. People go to see it the way you go to see the Exploratorium. It's more like an amusement park ride.”

Read on for insight into the abandonment of leftist ideals within the SF Bike Coalition, the passive-aggressive war of words (and ideals) from the SF Bike Party, and a bit of Critical Mass political history.

Unclaimed stolen bicycles recovered by SFPD.  SFPD holds onto the bikes for 120 days, before selling them at auction or donating them to charity.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has finally figured out something that we've all long known: bike theft is a serious problem in the city.  It's such an epidemic that a report issued by the Board of Supervisors Budget & Legislative Analyst revealed that the value of the city's stolen bikes topped $4.63m for the year of 2012, and the theft rate in the Mission's legislative district increased 348% since 2010.

In fact, bike thefts outpace iPhone thefts 3:1, despite—as the SF Bike Coalition points out—iPhone theft “has gotten widespread media and police attention, while bike theft has not.”  (To be fair, iPhones help us do disruptively helpful things like fling cartoon birds at cartoon pigs and summon cabs, whereas bikes are only useful for fun and transportation.  Also, iPhone owners relentlessly complain about everything (battery life, AT&T, font choices, BART laborers, Tartine's lines, the Giants' 2013 season), so the police quite understandably don't want to be the other side of that tsunami of tears.  But I digress…)

The report states that many of the usual factors are fueling the trend: insufficient secure bike parking, people not knowing how to properly lock their bikes, owners not being able to identify their stolen bike for police recovery.  But more concerning is the lack of SFPD enforcement, confirming that bike theft is a relatively “risk-free crime” in SF:

There is no central SFPD approach to bicycle theft. While individual SFPD stations devote staff and resources to investigating bicycle theft as well as attempting to reconnect recovered bicycles with their owners, other stations devote little to no time investigating such cases. This is largely due to competing priorities and insufficient staffing levels. SFPD staff report that bicycle theft is typically a lower priority when other, more serious crimes are on the rise.

But instead of merely recognizing the problem, the Board of Supervisor's are looking to do something about it.  Supervisor Eric Mar, who initially called for the report and has been the victim of bike theft himself, added a $75,000 line item to this year's city budget to create a voluntary bike registration database, making it easier for SFPD to track stolen bicycles and reunite recovered bikes with their owners.  Additionally, the report calls for SFPD to create a dedicated bike theft unit, increase enforcement in bike theft hot spots, increase the number of undercover “bike-bating” sting operations to catch thieves, and create an online database of stolen bikes so buyers can determine if they are purchasing stolen goods.

You can read the entire 25 page report here.