Angry citizens left without bikes

Central Oregon Biking Drama

By Joseph Friedrichs, 10-05-09

	Jack be nimble.

Seth Naylor isn’t upset his bicycle was stolen this summer.

“I didn’t have a lock, no,” he said. “It wasn’t that a great of bike, is the funny thing.”

Naylor is among many Central Oregonians who lost their ride this summer. Some of the bikes were worth a lot of money, others had memories and were prized personal possessions. Other bikes were total junkers.

All the same, not everyone is as accepting of the thefts as Naylor.

“It’s just not cool,” said Audra Buamhover, another local resident who lost her bike this summer.

According to Bend city officials and local law enforcement, a “rash” of bike thefts have occurred during the past few months. Who is responsible for said rash remains in question. Some blame a recent swarm of homeless people who migrated north from the Bay Area.  Others cite the “dope game” as the reason for the thefts.  The Bend Police Department claims there is no evidence it is organized crime.

“We’ve seen a definite spike in the amount of bikes being taken,” said Capt. Jim Porter. “There’s no question there.”

In the past year Bend has become the gathering grounds for all manner of strange individuals, as well as complete scum. The good with the bad, as most people will explain. Take a stroll down Third Street on any given day and there will no doubt be an abundance of miscreants staggering about. There will be mustached men wearing jeans and riding bikes. Vagrants will be soliciting funds. One might even come across the path of a lunatic from Alaska, as I did. She started asking what we should name our children and I fled the scene. In these tough times one can never play it too safe.

Where the bike thievery fits into the equation remains unknown. However, a man in his early 30s, who would only reveal his identity as Jack, explained to me that drug addicts are the heart of the chaos.

“It’s about the dope game, bro,” he repeated, over, and over and over and over again. And over.

Jack is an interesting character. He speaks slang and dominates every conversation he participates in. Long brown hair dangles over his shoulders. His clothes are not ironed, ever. The crunchy sound of dried grass under his boots reverberated across the Deschutes River, where Jack spends a bulk of his time.

“It’s not about stealing bikes,” he said. “It’s about the dope game.”

For example, he continued, if a person were to steal a $1,200 Trek they could then sell it for at least $400 on the Internet to a stranger.

“What you think people stealing the bikes for, bro?” Jack forcefully asked.

In a quiet voice, I responded: “The dope game?”

“You got it, bro.”

Porter said the police department does not believe the homeless population of Bend is solely responsible for the barrage of bike thefts in recent months. A number of bikes that are reported stolen end up on Websites such as craigslist.com or E-bay.com with Eugene as the place of purchase. This, Porter explained, has led local law officials to assume that thieves are traversing the Cascades from the Willamette Valley to Bend with the intention of stealing bikes.

“It’s a nice town,” he said of Bend, “but you don’t always know who is coming through town.”

Another problem with Bend bikers, Porter said, is they aren’t locking their transportation units to a secured location or device.

“For a town of 80,000 people, Bend still has that small-town feel to it,” the police captain stated. “But it makes sense to put a lock on your bike. It’s just a preventative measure.”

Both Naylor and Baumhover admit they didn’t own a bike lock, let alone have them secured the night their rides vanished.

“I’ve been in town for more than two years and it was never a problem,” Naylor said.

Baumhover had no intention of issuing acceptance.

“My sister and I picked out my bike,” she said. “It’s creepy to imagine someone out there riding it around.”

And if it’s the dope game, the infiltration of valley-based crime or perhaps random acts of thievery and degeneracy, all parties interviewed for this story agree on one thing: An abundance of bikes were stolen this summer in Bend.

“I was pissed for a couple weeks,” Naylor said. “But I got over it.”

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