BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – A group of volunteers working to help recover stolen bikes in the Burlington area is still going strong three years after they first started, having recovered nearly 900 bikes to the relief of theft victims.
Lauren Philie of Johnson knows firsthand how the group works. Her son, a junior at the University of Vermont, relies on his bike to get around Burlington.
“He uses the bike to get around more frequently than he uses his car to get around,” Philie said.
Earlier this month, he left his bike at a friend’s house on Converse Court, locked firmly to the building. When he returned the next day, he was shocked to discover what had happened.
“Brought his car back the next day to pick it up and discovered that the thief had cut through the deck rail and taken the bike with the lock attached to it,” Philie said. She says it wasn’t like they hadn’t taken precautions. “We warned him that this was a real possibility and we bought him a top-notch bike lock, which he uses religiously.”
They filed a police report and made a post in the Facebook group BTV Stolen Bike Report and Recovery. Within a few hours after the post, the bike was spotted and returned. “Just complete disbelief. Both he and my husband were just absolutely shocked,” Philie said.
The volunteer-run group formed in 2022 in response to an increase in bike thefts, attempting to reunite people with their bikes through crowd-sourcing of sorts.
“It’s a community thing; it’s not just a bike, it’s a transportation thing. People use them to get to work, to get to classes,” said Asah Lauren of Burlington, one of the group’s leaders.
The process works like this: A victim files a police report, then posts about it online and in the Facebook group. The group tries to find the bike. When spotted, they contact the police, who then recover the bike.
The group’s success requires collaboration and partnerships with many others in the community, including law enforcement. “We relay information to the appropriate place, and if there are officers available to respond, they will respond, which is fantastic,” Lauren said.
She said bike thefts are still happening at a steady rate, but believes most are staying in the region, being used for transportation and traded for drugs. To keep bikes safe, she recommends using a U-lock, taking a photo of your bike, and registering it to bikeindex.com.
As for the Philie family’s recovered bike, they’ve learned a lesson about security. “From now on, he will only be locking it to metal items… let’s put it that way,” Philie said.
