Not a lawyer, but talked about this with one once and this is what I remember. By definition you can't steal something that belongs to you. The fact that someone else stole it doesn't make it stop being yours. However it might still be illegal to take it back if doing so involves breaking other laws, like breaking and entering, assault, or what have you. It might not be crazy to risk a trespass, since those generally aren't enforced even when they should be. On the other hand in the USA entering someone's home uninvited can give them legal grounds to use deadly force on a presumption of self-defense, even if your bike is in their back yard. So not only would that be illegal, it could be very dangerous. I'd bet dollars to donuts that anyone inclined to give advice on the subject would say eat the loss and move on.

Strangely there are jurisdictions where if your stuff is in a pawn shop and the pawnbroker claims he didn't know it was stolen, he might have the legal right to recoup what he paid for it from you!

So given the privacy horror that is cell phone location data selling if you know someone's home address and name you could probably arrange to pick up the bike where they normally tie it up.

>bet dollars to donuts

Donuts are now over $14/dozen each where I live. Another casualty of inflation I guess.

You just call the police, say it is your bike, they verify the serial number (you need to provide some proof, or register the theft prior). Then, if everything is in order, police just cut the lock.

I wonder what country this actually works in?

Our police had a policy of not attending house burglaries with odd street numbers to cut their required response rate in half. I can't imagine them even answering the phone over a bike.

The only reason i would call the police is to get a reference number for an insurance claim.

At least for a short while, and I do not understand why, bicycle theft was somehow linked to terrorism by London's police. See [1] for example.

I had a bicycle stolen, and after filing the report the police phoned me to ask for more details on the lock I'd used.

I later found it on Gumtree, with a description ending something like "Call Peter on 07123456789, meet at Forest Heath Station". Putting the mobile phone number into Gumtree's search brought up about 50 bicycles, "Call John" "Call Dave" etc. I emailed this to the police, and had another phone call thanking me for my incredible investigation skill.

They said they would go to find Peter/John/Dave, but would only contact me again if they found my bike, which they did not.

I'm very suspicious of accounts like [2] "Mr T" with "Cash only" and a huge selection of bicycles.

[1] https://www.bikeregister.com/news/putting-a-value-on-protect...

[2] https://www.gumtree.com/profile/accounts/48e9b2ff00d3f04e27f... or similarly https://www.gumtree.com/profile/accounts/b8b756750f2960d115b...

That first Gumtree link is absolutely insane. It looks like a full time job for multiple people.

> At least for a short while, and I do not understand why, bicycle theft was somehow linked to terrorism by London's police.

Counter-Terrorism Patrol Unit.

IME speculation: for security-adjacent personnel, recovery efforts (equipment, fraud, etc.) are a great way to quantify the work you do when you don't otherwise generate revenue. You can't take credit for disrupting events that didn't happen [because you intervened], but nobody can argue with you recovering or clawing back $x in lost/stolen assets.

They were probably tasked with patrolling for misplaced explosives and other drama, but since incident count is low, they were given supplementary tasks (like tagging bikes they come across on patrol) to justify their salary and foster positive PR.

Japan. All bikes must be registered with the local government. Bikes are one of the things police are vigilant about bikes. Police routinely pull over cyclists, especially if you’re a foreigner, to confirm you are the owner of the bike.

Driving a bicycle while intoxicated is also treated just like driving a car.

Electric bikes going 25km an hour or faster, or have larger than a 250watt battery needs to be registered as a motor vehicle. You’ll need a driver’s license, insurance, etc.

IANAL but I don't think you can "steal" your own property.

You might need to do something else though - e.g. trespass or cut someone else's lock etc. You are on my shaky ground then I think.

I guess it depends on local law, but I guess that trespassing is trespassing, and the thief can sue, and it probably already happened.

It is a little different but on one occasion, in France, some guy sold a computer online, sent it, and never got paid. Pissed off, he broke in the crook house and took back his computer (plus a few other things, not smart...), they both sued each other, the crook ended up in prison for 2 months, and the one who broke into his house had 4 months suspended sentence. But even if he just took back his computer, he would still be guilty, but the judge would most likely have handed out a lighter sentence.

With the stolen bike, if the vanmoofs are stealthy enough to no get caught in the act, it might go pretty fine as I assume the thieves won't file police reports. Now if they already sold it, things might get hairy... in my place when your car gets stolen and you file a report you need to provide all kind of documents which a stolen bike owner won't possibly have. So I guess approaching the same way for theft of expensive gear (need to provide ownership proof) could curb it a little. And yes, I know also cars get stolen.