Aaron Gwin’s Race Bike Stolen in Edinburgh
Aaron Gwin’s race bike was stolen last night as the team were en route to the Fort William World Cup.
The Intense Factory team were stopping over in a hotel near Edinburgh airport last night when the van was broken into and Gwin’s large race bike was stolen. The van was left damaged and the trailer was also targeted but nothing else seems to have been taken. A cash reward has been offered for the bike’s return.
The missing bike pictured in Maribor
 | Please be on the lookout for Aaron Gwin’s M29 large race bike stolen from team van in Edinburgh last night. Cash reward for return. |
Aaron was switching between a large and XL frame in Maribor so hopefully he will still have a frame and enough parts to practice and race with in Fort William this weekend. We’ll update this story when we get more details.
Update 14:00 PST: Team Manager Todd Schumlick says that the team has another Large M29 being built tomorrow for Aaron thanks to Intense UK!
Author Info:
Member since Nov 14, 2018
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
Since being in Australia, the supposed land of the convicts, all my stuff seems to be safe so far. (9 years to date) Pretty safe here in Adelaide anyway.
I am an anarchist
Don't know what I want but I know how to get it
Cos I, I wanna be anarchy!
Anarchy for the U.K. it's coming sometime
Paraphrasing of course. LOL
They got a lot of people there it sounds like. Lol
#blessaaron
He may be a douche- but he's our douche and we love him for it.
U got my vote
@WAKIdesigns:
-Masters 27:5
I wouldn't think someone is a dick based just on Pb/vital comments
However, at this level it's expected and makes a big difference to your presence in the pits. Which is important if you want to sell bikes. I guess the fix is a) better security, whether that's in the form of a better truck (a 5 year old transit isn't exactly the most secure vehicle vs the truck YT/Spesh/Canyon have).
Shitty deal, but you have to have your brand on it I guess.
I don’t get the logic here of leaving a £15k race bike in a stickered up van in a car park
Right? The real security question is could you trick thieves by putting 26" wheels on your big wheeled bike when you don't won't to mess with actually securing it? Basically, it would create a whole new market for 26" wheels and be sold as a "system" using "unrideable technology".
I mean if you rolled a 26" wheeled bike into a pawn shop, you're likely to get beat up.
Well then you sleep in the van. I don’t mean to be a dick but leaving bikes in a van with advertising wrap on it like that, this is what you can expect to happen. Thieves will break into a plain white van just to see what’s inside, when they saw this thing I’m sure it got their full attention.
Or maybe maybe live in the van...down, ya know, by a river.
There are sh1tty people everywhere just looking for a quick score, and those who seemingly serve it to them on a platter.
I would personally not stay at a hotel that didn't allow bikes in the room, if I had my bike. Even leaving it outside on the car roof when I'm in the motorway services gives me the sweats. I always eat my burger king in eyeshot of the bike, ready to jump up and run out if someone tries to half-inch it. I've also post a bike from the roof rack before. Never again I hope.
Welcome to the real world. It's not victim shaming, it's reality. If you leave your bike out, unlocked you can't expect it to still be there in the morning.
Nah, just leave it in the flashy factory team van.
Appreciate it doesn’t usually result in direct harm to an individual but the associated financial losses are significant.
Hope the bike is found and karma catches up with the individuals involved. That said leaving the bike overnight in a van covered in branding probably wasn’t the smartest decision.
Will keep an eye out.
The younger kids do the scouting or the quick steals like this one, and the adults come back later and do the bigger jobs like garages and sheds. The police know who it is but can't do anything about it.
I say this as someone who knows that if I found a thief in my home the response time of the police is likely to be well over 30 mins and even then they will be unarmed police. We are pretty much defenseless over here.
Maybe Scotland should go independent and help bring down our crime rate and we’d get Brexit for better or worse !
Joking obviously.
What exactly is this based on? Even if you just read this site, let alone the follow the actual newspapers here in the US you would know none of that is true.
www.pinkbike.com/news/jeff-lenoskys-bikes-and-camera-gear-stolen-in-california.html
www.pinkbike.com/news/california-bike-shop-targeted-in-organized-crime-robbery.html
www.pinkbike.com/news/bike-shop-employee-seriously-injured-attempting-to-stop-theives.html
Also, most states's laws here in the US do not allow you to simply shoot someone who might be stealing your bike. Like i said the laws differ but most of the time you have to be in some kind of life threatening danger. You can't simply go out and open fire on someone breaking into your car or shed. Anyone who did that would be charged with murder.
A tool is a tool, and it can do as much bad or as good as the user wants. A car lets you kill 10 people easier than a firearm.
Also, charged with murder/manslaughter and convicted are not the same. I would bet that a jury of my peers wouldn't convict if i shot someone on my property in the process of committing a crime.
And the lack of theft in those specific places you mentioned is more related to how rural/small town those areas are.
The problem is societal and the solution needs to be along the lines of elimination of poverty and fair distribution of wealth, but if an intruder enters an inhabited home he's risking death and I have little sympathy if they are killed.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/gun-deaths.amp.html
This is the top search result on google, also most car “accidents” are accidental, the same cannot be said for most gun deaths.
WTF? Elderly people are being beaten to a pulp on a regular basis? And what do you think Elderly people don't use banks? They keep their life savings in cash in the house?
Also, most burglaries occur during the day when no one is home, not in the middle of the night. Most of these people are not stupid. If they want your shit they aren't going to go in while you are there, risk getting sceen, etc.
65% of those 40,000 are suicide, 15% are police killings (us police can be a bit trigger happy but most of these are considered lawful), 3% are accidental and 17% are actual gun violence and the vast majority of that is gang related. And of that 17% the numbers are clustered in a handful of cities (25% happen in 4 cities alone). Now to me that sounds like the average US citizen is never likely to encounter gun crime in their lives. And having lived in a good few countries I can say that America felt far safer and appears to have much lower levels of petty crime than any other western country I've been in. Walk around Paris, Rome, Barcelona or any of these cities as a tourist and you are very likely to encounter pickpockets. I've never experienced that in the US. America has its flaws but it's definitely got some things right and the right to defend yourself and your property is one of those.
www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/world/americas/21iht-canada.4.15521252.html
Regardless of politics, being an unarmed victim is probably not fun. Ask the sheep how they feel....
@CarlMega: lots of people get held at knife point in all of the cities I listed. A knife is often even more lethal than a gun when it's in range as the wound it would leave is far bigger and if you are robbing tourists you are very likely to have them within your range as they will have their guard down. I've never once in my life heard of a friend or family member being held at gun point while on holiday in the USA. Having a gun brandished at you in the us is incredibly rare unless you go into a very bad neighborhood. It's not South Africa I'm pretty sure you know this.
Almost every girl I know who has been in Barcelona or Rome has been pickpocketed on the street or had all of their valuables stolen from a hostel. It's rampant over there. The whingey segment of American society really don't realise how lucky they are and have this utopian picture of other countries that doesn't exist.
Not trying to start a debate or get political because I don’t want to. Just pointing out something obvious.
Not only the stats of pretty much every comments are wrong but they are also terribly skewed.
"Let's remove the gang related gun violence from US stats and compare with other countries including their gang related gun violence" genius, really.
"Let's remove the suicides from US stats, but not from the stats of other countries" genius again.
"Let's consider that a drug user dying from an OD is exactly equivalent to a guy that gets shot by a crazy guy that bought legally a gun" oh you're really a smart guy aren't you ?
Guess what, I would rather have some gypsy stealing my wallet in Paris without me noticing than being held at gunpoint by some random guy "should be in psychiatric hospital but US health system blows and we let them buy guns because business matters more than life" in US with the risk he decides to press the trigger.
My thoughts -
The argument that a gun is just a tool is a good one - it is and the decision to use it and how ultimately falls to the holder. However, not every owner is responsible and it is easy for criminals and irresponsible people to get hold of them. Perhaps I'll be educated here but, taking school shootings into consideration (where there is no argument that the shooter was right) the us has a lot of them. In the uk we had one in the mid 80's which resulted in increased gun controls and we've not had another. I feel it reasonable for me to suffer additional controls to safeguard people - not owning a gun is something I am happy with. The argument that you need a gun to defend yourself from a gun works both ways - for the criminal and the person who is being wronged - so that seems a flawed argument to me. Additionally holding a gun changes your psychological outlook - you feel more powerful and are more likely to use it. Again that works both ways. More funds means more people hurt, sometimes seriously, and I would guess that 50% of the time the person hurt is the criminal and 50% the innocent party. Isn't there statistics to say a significant proportion of cops in the US are shot with their own weapons?
Here in the uk you can own a gun. Shotguns are most common, and you also have some sporting pistols and the like. This is strictly regulated. Some get into criminal hands, or others are smuggled into the country. We do have shootings and we do have a problem with their use. However this is mainly confined to criminals using them against each other and rarely touches the general public beyond covering the medical bills for the person shot. I struggle to justify any violence of this nature but this is better than innocent people getting hurt. The reason we have comparitively few shootings is because of strict gun controls.
We can also lawfully defend ourselves from attack - in the last year a guy killed a burglar and it made national news. He didn't get prosecuted. However, the guys live has still been ruined, having to live with killing someone and moving house for fear of repercussions. It's very easy to trivialise killing someone, but it is not something we are used to in civilised society and it is impactive in ways you'd never consider.
Guns do cause harm and this is not confined to the US - that mountain bike got shot in France and killed by a hunter recently, Pinkbike will show clips of people being shot at whilst in the Canadian wilderness, people will be held up at gunpoint in a Robert of their bike in South Africa, etc. Some of this is irresponsible and wouldn't have happened without the gun. The criminal stuff may have happened without the gun regardless, but I'd rather try and escape a knife than a gun.
So overall I think that, in a perfect world, it would be absolutely correct for anyone who wanted a gun to have one, but we don't live in a perfect world and real people get hurt. In a balance of what is more important to me, the right to bear arms is less important that the risk that people get hurt.
Burglaries here seem to mostly happen on a night, i think their have been three attempted break ins on my estate now (which is a nice one in a nice area) all seemingly to steal reasonably high end German cars. someone also tried my front door at about 8pm whilst my girlfriend was home alone. Someone on the estate recently had their garage broken into overnight and their bikes stolen. Thieves aren't scared of breaking into your house whilst you are there. Police recommend leaving your car keys half way up the stairs as if someone breaks in and will risk coming half way up, they will most likely be happy to come into your room and threaten you at knife point for them.
you do realise everything you have said up there is a complete straw man argument designed to avoid the points I riased. You'll notice that I'm not the one that has spoken in absolutes once in this debate. You and your other halfwit buddy up are the ones who have things like "you can't even understand stats" and "well this stat shows X which proves beyond argument that guns are bad with no exceptions".
Your both just throwing your opinions around as facts and behaving like morons. I can't believe you actually believe you would be getting the upper hand on me or anyone with this tactic. The only people you are appealling by insulting your opponent and talking in absolutes are people who already agree with you. I'm pretty confident most people on this forum can see that is your debate style and that you aren't actually making many decent points. But please continue telling me how much of a "stupid guy" I am.
That last paragraph is hilarious and incredibly out of touch with reality. I'd imagine the odds of being pickpocketed in Paris near the Eiffel tower are probably something like 1 in 50 or 1 in 200. I'd guess that the odds of being held at gun point by a junkie in Time Square are something like 1 in 10,000 or more. If you would actually prefer accept those odds in Paris then you really are a paranoid fool who is out of touch with reality and doesn't understand probability. Kind of like people who won't go to Paris because they are afraid they wil be killed in a terrorist attack. Ludicrously paranoid about something that is incredibly rare.
They need to GPS track decoy bikes. I am sure the thieves prep for this in some experinced rings, but there is a window of time when it is traceable.
It worked a few years back when bikes were getting stolen up at a big event in the US or Canada I believe. Chased down a van on the highway and caught some people.
You can take one weapon away and a different one will pop up.
Not the weapon but the person
I still stand by my opinion that people having guns will increase the chances that they'll be used. I believe guns run a higher risk of innocent people being hurt - it's one thing to stab someone and another to shoot from range, and even a trained person (which most shooters over here are not) will suffer the consequences of panic/fatigue/adrenaline/etc.
Clearly I'd not want to be faced by either a knife or gun - both are deadly weapons - but I'd fancy my chances of escape against a knife as higher (you just need to be able to run faster, which you can't say about a gun)... Please don't think I'm diminishing the effects of knives though - we've a problem with those over here for sure!
I would like a world where responsible people could own guns for hunting / sports / etc. but sadly I don't think that is possible in the world we live in. The main reason to own a gun seems to be protection from other armed people - the gun controls here have meant that that argument is far less valid to me. If I lived in the US I may feel very differently about owning a gun (perhaps I may even consider it as much as I don't like the idea - the threat is different) . I believe I wouldn't own a gun but I'm not in that position and won't judge people in different circumstances by my own. I will say that I'm glad to be in a position where the threat of facing a firearm is so far removed to be inconsequential to my daily life because of the controls that are in place.
I think most countries could do more to help those who are prone to using violence and removing the causes though!
Watching the news they use bombs cars bats what ever they can get there hands on. My dad was a hand to hand combat instructor in the military and he will tell ya the most feared combat is hand to hand. Your in a knife fight your gonna get cut.
I do agree with most all of what you said. But still some one wants to do harm they are going to it regardless of what weapon choice they have.
Listening to people like you try to justify your positions is laughable.
I am a firearm owner. I own long/shot guns and pistols. They are for sport, not self defence. If I'm not on the range or in the field they sit in the safe. It's 2019 not 1889 wild west.
Dunning Kruger is strong in this thread.
I know I come from a country where there are strict gun-ownership laws (The U.K) and have lived in another one for over a quarter of a century (Japan) and have had the pleasure of the company of a wide variety of Antipodeans, Europeans and North Americans all of who have brought their own opinions to the table about the issue.
One of the themes that keeps coming up for me is how much damage the weapon of choice will have, on both the intended target and innocent bystanders.
I'd be interested to hear what you'd both think about the following, which is my personal take on the situation after years of considering what is best...
As brncr6 says, people who want to hurt you, are going to hurt you whether it be with a gun, knife, pencil (John Wick) or whatever, and as slimboyjim points out, the availability of anything, weapons or otherwise, has been shown to tend to lead to an increased chance of them being used.
However, as far as damage is concerned, there has been a large body of evidence to show that the type of weapon matters, and very much. But i want go beyond that, to the damage caused to the innocent bystanders who get caught up in the melee..
And it seems to me that John Wick and his pencil are far less likely to cause as much 'collateral damage' as a drive-by shooting from someone armed with a higher-calibre semi-automatic.. and I am prepared to believe that there is likely a linear (or close to) relationship between collateral damage and weapon as we move through the pencil-knife-small arms hand gun-semi automatic assault rifle continuum.
So, for me personally, I, similarly to slimboyjim have no way of knowing if our opinions would change if we lived in countries with alternative histories, yet am happy to suggest that countries that legislate for reducing the potential for bystanders to get hurt will have just that, fewer bystanders that get hurt.
And I am happy with that, even at the expense of not being afforded the freedom to own weapons to protect my family. We don't feel under any danger though, and that is something I think no-one should forget when discussing the weapons-control debate
Will the threat ever be zero? Of course not, just look at what happened at a elementary school bus stop in Japan the day before yesterday. A guy armed with two sushi knives cut up 17 people killing an 11 year old girl and a young man in the process (you have to go back to 2001 for anything similar here so they are few and far between).
Thanks for reading both of you; enjoy the day and stay safe out there people. There are some idiots about with weapons of all sorts.
Till then, eat shit.
I've been a victim of home invasion, and other crimes. You aint gonna see me living scared.
Did I mention that I live in Canada? We don't have wanksters running around with guns everywhere like south of the border.
You seriously trying to talk to me about the real world? Holy Dunning Kruger Batman! LoL
Guns lead to an increase in collateral - in the recent terrorist attack in the UK (London Bridge) an innocent member of the public was killed by a police bullet if I recall correctly? Clearly there is no question there over the deadly use of force there but I use it only to illustrate that trained people under difficult circumstances can miss with serious consequences. When you more away from trained persons to criminals that likelihood increases.
Knives are no joke though and, despite my flippancy above about running away from a knife, in the circumstances of a serious and determined attacker the knife injuries would likely be much more serious. Luckily that is a very rare thing, but that same that will always exist whether in a country with strict gun control or without.
Debate has been good though so cheers brncr6 - happy trails!
@zede, for the record the reason that people remove suicide from the stats is twofold a) "gun deaths" isn't a stat that is quoted often about other countries and usually only gun murders is quoted b) suicide by gun is far more common in the us than other countries (51% in the us Vs 9% average in Europe) jech.bmj.com/content/62/6/545
Similarly, gang membership in the US dwarf's all other western countries combined. Gangs on the scale of crips, ms13 are not a thing in more of Europe (although they are growing). If you take out the gang murders in Chicago, Baltimore, LA, (all heavily gun controlled cities) then you have roughly 300 million Americans living with more guns than there are on the rest of the planet combined with a murder rate similar to other G20 countries. And some states are even safer than average despite having guns everywhere. So yes America has problems and the gun exacerbates that in certain places but there are many caveats to this and large parts of America with huge numbers of guns are amongst the safest places in the world. Now if you can't have a civil conversation about it without shouting your uninformed 14 year old teenager level arguments then STFU.
Arguing on the internet is like paying a hooker to watch you beat off.
I've spent more time than I should have already 'discussing' this here.
I'm done anyway. Ciao.
Boxxerace
The people in this thread seem to completely disagree with you. I certainly know which one I would choose having read through that.
"it's sure a kid who did it, who else could have sneaked through that hole ?"
(you don't get this joke if you've never been to whistler)
I'm kidding! chill out people
I don’t know what the answer is but the situation is certainly getting worse, my wife works in a primary school and often gets told to Fu#k off by 6 year olds !!
Pretty true - though my new home in Red Deer is pretty bad for bike theft.
GPS trackers could be a solution, especially with a carbon frame.
But there are some disadvantages to this too:
- won't work if there is not at least low GSM signal. Almost all GPS trackers have LBS positioning so you could find at least the area in which the bike is located
- it is a pain to install (most frames don't have access points and head tube would be the most accesible)
Even with a small 500mAh battery it's almost sure you'll have to get the tracker out of the original case before installation.
-you need to install a SIM card and get some Data Plan. With these guys traveling a lot over the world means they'll need more SIM cards.
- they're not always reliable and documentation is not that good
- you need to get a little experience with configuration
But there is no other sollution ....... once the BIKE LOCK fails! I have an old beaten bike but I still lock it inside the car (some anchor points are not so hard to find inside).
Or just take it with you in the room as others said.
youtu.be/1ryye-v-8j0
Aaron Gwin signature grips
Aaron Gwin signature bars
Aaron Gwin signature brakes
Aaron Gwin signature stem
Aaron Gwin signature pedals
Maxxis minions, logos removed
@onemanarmy: You re thinking like a mountain biker, this may never see a mountain again, they will flog it to someone in their circle, friend, someones mate that wants a bike for their kid ... , take all the stickers off, jam on some daft bars and a big padded seat and use it to go to the shops to buy cans of beer . .. and you will weep as you see it under the ass of a ten year old kid, having trouble riding it as its several sizes too big, nope, more often than not its just cos "they want a bike".
Other theory is, its Fort William, a known event, gangs will come from all over to see what they can rob, strip and sell for parts (note - not online - too much hassle, sell to a mate of a mate of a mate down the pub) to those that dont give a hoot where it comes from,
Most of them show up at the flea market for sale, in ditches ditched by homeless or being ridden by tweekers. Either that or they get taken apart and the pieces end up on 8 different bikes and then those are sold.
Something like this might get sold to some idiot that doesn't ask the right questions. But the first time they try to get it serviced they're going to lose it. Everything on that bike is registered in a computer somewhere.
A stretch maybe. It might end up in a ditch or parted out. It would seem that someone knew what they were going after though.
You can see the van is wrapped with blacked out windows so you cant see in,those suggesting blank vans and graphics vans in sure they would love you to pay for the extra vehicle drivers and costs involed.I guaranty other teams are leaving bikes etc in in vans,I think intense just got unlucky could have been any team
Edinburgh is awful for bike theft just now... usually idiots leaving on top of cars though....
That’s the same as saying having your curtains open to your living room and your tv being stolen is giving consent. Grow the f*ck up
Here in Germany we also have no solutions for this big problem, but therefor an insurance, which is responsible for thefts (if it was in the house or garage). This way, I've twice come to new bikes and the pain is quickly gone while search for the rig :-)
Trump is a moron, Mexico is beautiful, but it's also far from safe
I’m sure true to form the police will have zero interest.
Sincerely Sherlock Holmes
to unlock the door.
Then the entire door can be opened using the handle
Sherlock???
Clouseau maybe...
yea! I stabbed a man in the heart with a trident! "
youtu.be/dFaAIylVHfI
God definitely hates us all.
Tom Araya
Minnaar did it because the pressure got to him
or
Gwinn himself because the pressure got to him
or
As an Americans American bike Trump used it as the first stone to build his wall