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news
Wheel from stolen bike © Simon MacMichael.JPGDamon Albarn's bicycle security tips... just buy a new one
Blur frontman Damon Albarn has emerged as an unlikely hero of West London’s bike thieves with the news that the musician has had no fewer than 30 bicycles stolen during the past few years. However, it’s less to do with a run of wretched bad luck and more a result of the musician’s rather singular approach to bicycle security – he doesn’t bother with a lock and instead simply buys a new bike when the inevitable happens.
As a multimillionaire, it’s an indulgence that Albarn can clearly afford, though his devil-may-care attitude suggests that he has less of an emotional attachment to his bike than most other cyclists, who on average spend just 23 months enjoying their pride and joy before it’s nicked, according to a study we reported on last week. Albarn is getting rather less use out of his bikes than that.
A friend of the singer and producer told The Sun: “Damon’s wild for having his bikes nicked. He always buys old-school style racers that cost about £600 a pop. He’s spent around £18,000 since 2007 getting his stolen bikes replaced. It’s all because he can’t be bothered to use a lock.”
Each time a bike is stolen, Albarn heads down to Halfpipe Bikes on Golborne Road to buy a replacement.
The friend added: “Staff asked him to use a lock but he said, ‘I can’t be arsed’. They even offered a lock installed with satellite tracking technology but he refused it.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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29 comments
OMG - I posted on something almost a month old.... Well done me!
It was me. I lifted them all. If it's not locked, it's left, right?
Seriously, if you are that loaded, and couldn't give a monkeys, it doesn't make you a dick or a wanker - just fortunate.
what a twat more money than sense .always been a Jarvis wanabee .Mockney wanker
He should do it like I handle Strava: I hire someone to do it for me.
So he could hire someone to ride along and carry a lock and lock his bike for him.
I never use a lock meself, but out in the sticks here we're honest and keep an eye out for one another, so nowt vanishes.....
Makes you wonder where the seemingly endless supply of old school racing bikes comes from...
Now there's a solution to two problems - those pesky locks AND the N+1 issue, since
N-lock = -1N requiring N+1 to = N
Simply beautiful in its simplicity - the balance of nature is preserved
A bike stalker is obviously on to a good living, follow and take, simples!
Doesn't he shop at 'I Saw You Coming'.
"That's £600 for the bike
+ bell = £700
+ Vat = £1000."
Well I never lock or carry a lock for my bike. I do remove my Garmin, but to honest I think that even that is a bit unnecessary. But then I live in rural Brittany, where people welcome Lycra in bars and coffee shops. Make mine a double espresso si vous plait.
That was unnecessarily smug LostinFrance.
Hoping to get over your way in the summer so I'll be in touch if I do.
I've been there, I can believe it.
However, I believe it's due to more respect for cyclists, not generally less theft?
I wasn't allowed to bring my own bag into the supermarket there, and had to check it in (meaning trusting them with any valuables in my bag, whilst they wouldn't trust me to NOT steal something, bit unbalanced methinks).
Apparently this was due to shoplifters, but not everyone was having to do it, so I took offence, thinking it was due to my appearance. Maybe instead of looking long-haired and metal-music-loving, I should wear lycra and shave my legs?
Seeing it was in the Currant Bun, it might not be true. Or it might in all likelihood be based on a half truth, in that he admitted he forgot to lock his bike once and it was nicked, but he's had other bikes nicked too.
So.... where does he live?
So much hate...
& NEVER trust a sun article
I wish I didn't have to use a lock... they are annoying to carry more than anything.
Wanker.
Please tell me this isn't true!
I quite fancy a £600 old school bike where does he live?
Well Chris, I believe he lives in a house, a very big house in the country......
I'll get me coat.
I quite fancy a £600 old school bike where does he live?
posted by Chris Deacon [82 posts] 11th January 2013 - 19:18
The shop owner probably nicks them and sells them back to the pleb.
After doing his best to ruin African music and Elizabethan mysticism for me, the less cycling Allbran does the better.
"A friend of the singer and producer told The Sun" -
-or, as some would put it "fabrication" or being more generous "exaggeration"
Is this the Trickle Down theory of economics? Even a simple lock has to be less bother than replacing your bike 30 time forgetting the money. He might think he is helping the shop, but helping the thieves out too is not cool Damon.
Could we have a section in Road CC purely devoted to 'celebrity' BS like this? then I could avoid it like the plague.
Seriously, how is this relevant to any 'normal' cyclist?
Some Fella's got this one sewn up.
Just to remind everyone that this comes from the Sun... make of that what you will.
Lets be honest...we all would like customers like that!
Dick
That sums it up well,