When I moved to the Netherlands my boss told me to never spend more than 20 euro on a bike because it will get stolen. I didn't listen, and lo and behold two weeks in my 75 euro bike and the 35 euro heavy duty lock disappeared

I'm skeptical:

* Where do you buy a ≤20 euro bike?

* Most people on the street have bikes that look to be at least 200 euros new, from what I can tell.

Presumably from the bike thieves. There's a glut in the stolen bike market so the price competition is fierce.

It seems like that that point the bike thieves are just a bike rental company.

You get the bike for < 20 Euro and then, presumably, at some point in the future it gets stolen again, but you already got 20 Euros worth of use out of it.

"Discount Variable Duration" rental program.

Efficient market hypothesis proven.

I've never done it, but you buy it from the thief (junkie) directly. So it could be that you find them by word of mouth, like you would use to buy drugs when they were illegal. But you can also buy a second hand bike very cheaply, some are even free (just an example: https://www.marktplaats.nl/v/fietsen-en-brommers/fietsen-her...). New bikes are usually more than 200 euros, dutch brands are 500 euros and up

Last time I bought a bike for £20 even second-hand, the Euro had not yet been introduced.

Even in 2011, when I made the mistake of spending £90 for a new bike… well, the pedals came off while riding it due to metal fatigue.

Adjusting for inflation*, I'd expect similar build quality from a bike that "only" cost €200 today.

* hard to do when there is also a currency switch, especially when the exchange rate has changed so much

This was 2010-ish and I found one on Marktplaats. Might be going for 40 or 50 now with inflation. People selling them on the street also had for cheap, but these were most definitely stolen.

They didn't mention the year of the story, it could've happened a couple of decades ago.

Police unclaimed bike auctions maybe.

That is rather sad to hear.

Does the Netherlands have a law against knowingly buying stolen property?

Every place in the world does probably. But how would you prove an unmarked, cheap bike was stolen?

You wouldn't but nowadays no bike is unmarked, even the cheap ones.

Can’t you trivially deface an identifier?

In Belgium, it's a hard to remove sticker on a consistent place with a qr code.

It would take work to remove it cleanly and/or cost money/time to paint over it.

So it's less attractive.

Ps. You'll still need to take care of your 10 k. Bike ofc.

Ps. 2 : engraving isn't done anymore since bike frames got smaller.

How would you know a marked bike was stolen? Does the police offer a public listing of all the stolen bikes?

(I do not think so, but this probably would make sense)

If you can't and the owner can and if you are caught then you are liable.

If the seller threatens to "steal it again".

The Netherlands famously has more bicycle thefts per year than citizens. At this point you could almost think of cheap commuter bikes as public property.

People in countries where bicycling is not seen as a personality statement generally ride very cheap city bikes around town. Last time I bought one of those in college it cost about 30eur. Is not like in SF where people ride 3000 dollar bikes to work because omg you’re a cyclist now and this is your whole identity.

Here in the part of Canada I live in, you see some of the $3000 bike identity stuff, but most people ride something in the $500–$750 range. Something practical, comfortable, reliable, etc.

There is also a growing segment of people who use $5,000–$15,000 cargo/kid carrier bikes as replacements for their cars, which is cool. But I do worry about theft of those increasing. Right now I rarely hear of it, but it seems likely to increase. Even the motors and batteries in them cost thousands alone.

> think of cheap commuter bikes as public property.

Didn't Amsterdam try that with 'white bikes' in the 1970s?

> The Netherlands famously has more bicycle thefts per year than citizens.

No, it definitely does not!

750k bike thefts for 17.7m people. So roughly one per 25 people...

It famously has more bicycles than people!

Of course they have more bicycles than people, the bikes keep getting stolen!