I've noticed exactly the same thing. But its not universal. My local Costco did that in two separate store locations, but eventually moved them near the front door (but put them in bad places; like in direct sunlight and next to a fire exit that has to be kept clear).
Being a cargo biker / shopper, I use bike racks of one sore or another almost every day. One thing I try and do is scout out locking spots in advance of actually needing them in local shop areas. Generally speaking, I don't have trouble finding something suitable, although it may be a metal fence railing and not an actual bike rack. If I don't find anything then that means I don't patronize that store out of necessity.
It frustrates me too. It's primarily longer-term parking that presents the biggest problem in my biking years. There's a movement in many cities to improve bicycling infrastructure and along with it better lockup facilities. Sadly that's a very slow process. I keep thinking the increase in riders due to eBikes and a growing number of concerned riders we may see some improvements. The only shop in the downtown area of a 25,000-pop city here to provide bike lock posts is my dentist. He's a road cyclist. The local hospital has a bike rack that has to be 50 years old and sized for 2" max and smaller tires.
A nearby grocer has a rack and nearly every month there's a bike stolen report in the paper. Usually, a big box store bike owned by some poor sod gets dumped when the thief is near their intended destination.
A local fellow did us a service.
Winona entrepreneur fights crime
- May 18, 2016 Updated Sep 27, 2021
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by CHRIS ROGERS
For years, bicycles have been relatively easy prey for thieves. A quick snip with a pair of bolt cutters is enough to slice through most cable locks and then the bike snatcher is riding off into the sunset. But thanks to new technology, Winona thieves no longer know whether a bike is an easy target or a trap. This spring, a Winona entrepreneur who was the victim of bike theft used his tinkering skills to make bicycles throughout the city safer. Like any good crime story, it starts underground.
The basement of Greg's small business evokes the Bat Cave. It is full of complex-looking gadgets, that he has, of late, used to fight crime. A 3-D printer and coils of different kinds of plastic filament — the ink in 3-D printers — lean against one wall. A desk-mounted magnifying lens and soldering equipment sit on a table top. A GPS-outfitted drone rests on the floor. Little widgets are scattered about. Most of them are all sensors of one kind of another. Gyrometers and accelerometers detect movement, barometers measure changes in air pressures, and more sensors monitor temperature and water flow. Greg's usual clients are manufacturers who want to track the performance of factory equipment on their smartphones. When Greg's bicycle was stolen this winter, he thought there must be a way to find it.
Usually when a person's bike is stolen, they are out of luck. Out of nearly $1.3 million in reported bicycle thefts in Minnesota in 2014, only $159,000 worth of bikes were recovered. Bike theft may be getting more lucrative these days, too. The average value of bicycles stolen in Minnesota rose from $225 in 2000 to $377 in 2014, and while the majority of stolen bicycles may only be worth a few hundred dollars, some are worth several thousand. Greg's bike was valued at $1,200.
Greg is not his real name. The local owner of a technology startup asked that the Winona Post not use his name. It is understandable since he played a crucial role in apprehending a man that stole upwards of $2,000 in bikes and now faces a felony charge.
Greg did it by designing his own GPS units that he hid inside a "bait bike." There are other companies that make bait bikes, but Greg said he was surprised that there were few products on the market that would work well for the task. So, he assembled his own GPS devices that deliver notifications to his phone anytime they leave a designated "geofence." The geofences were basically one-block boxes Greg drew around his bike using mapping software. Greg set up geofences around all the places he planned to ride the bait bike to. Whenever he rode from place to place, his phone would buzz with a note from the GPS unit that the bike had left location A and was now in location B.
Greg contacted the Winona Police Department (WPD) ahead of time to tell them about his bait-bike plan. They were interested — and impressed. "The guy is super intelligent," said WPD Sergeant Chris Nelson, who worked with Greg to investigate the case. "We'd been putzing with GPS on a bike ourselves for a while, and it was hit and miss. There were lots of false alarms that set us on a wild goose chase," Nelson explained. "He came to us and said, 'Hey I can do this. I want to do this.'"
It was a challenge to make the GPS units small enough, Greg said, and to make sure that they would not run out of batteries. Some GPS units are programmed to go to sleep when they are not moving, for instance, he explained. That is great for saving battery life, but it means that they do not always wake up in time to document their own theft. If it is not the battery, something always goes wrong with technology, Greg said. So he worked hard to design a system in which every part was redundant; if one part failed, there would be a backup that could take over. Once he perfected it, he started riding his bait bike around.
One day, Greg was working out at the Winona YMCA, with the bait bike locked up outside, when his phone buzzed, alerting him that the bike — without him on it — had left the geofence. Greg threw his clothes in the locker and dashed out. The hunt was on.
Greg's GPS system mapped out a neat trail leading back to the thief's house. He alerted the WPD, they sent officers to knock on the door. When that did not work, they went about trying to get a search warrant for the house. That took a while because the police were not accustomed to getting warrants based on GPS evidence, Nelson explained. "It's not like TV where you can wrap it up in 60 minutes and there's time for four commercials in there," he said. Together with help from prosecutors and lots of details from Greg on how the technology works, they got a local judge to sign the warrant, and they found several stolen bikes and a collection of bike parts at the house. Officers described it as a bicycle "chop shop."
"In 28 years, it's never happened," Nelson said when asked if he had ever seen such a successful amateur sleuth/victim. Unfortunately, Greg's bike — the one that was originally stolen — was not recovered. Police are still working to find the owners of the other bikes and bike frames found at the house, and are still looking for Greg's original bike, a black Surly Pugsley brand fat bike.
Greg said he sympathized with the thief and anyone who felt that they had to steal to get money, but he was also glad to be discouraging future bike thefts.
Greg's company is continuing to experiment with bait bikes — including using things like hidden cameras and microphones, in addition to GPS — and Nelson said the WPD will use bait bikes in the future, as well. If he can perfect a bait-bike system, Greg sees it as a business opportunity for the company. Police departments and college campuses across the country might want to use it to discourage bike thieves. Nelson was excited about all the other potential applications of GPS bait, from backpacks to valuable parcels. "We could do all kinds of stuff with GPS," he said.
Daniel James Glubka, 45, of Winona, was charged with felony theft in the case early this month. He has not submitted a plea in the case yet. Stealing property valued at over $1,000 is a felony in Minnesota.
