I want to take a poll.

First I need to post a long winded story of my very unpleasant experience with this sport. I purchased a new Yamaha R1 back in 12/29/01 at an unnamed certified Yamaha Dealership and picked it up on 01/26/02. The new R1 was to replace my old 1994 Kawasaki ZX-6 which I purchased new.  I used it as a commuter and it had over 58000 miles on the odometer. I parked the new R1 in my secured apartment garage. I was shocked when I went down to the garage to go to work on 02/08/07 AM, my new R1 was no longer there in my parking space. I did the routine of filing a police report and since I only purchased basic liabiliy insurance, it was a total loss. (note: full coverage insurance at that time was about $1200/yr with my clean driving record and it has since tripled due to the uncontrolled theft of motorcycles) I went with basic liability insurance for the new R1 because I owned my 94 ZX6 for 7 years and I had no trouble with that type of coverage and I was saving about $900 a yr. Continue next post.....  

Oops I made a mistake. "I was shocked when I went down to the garage to go to work on 02/08/02 AM" was the correct stolen date of my new 2003 Yamaha R1.

Looking back I could see now that it was a big mistake and I caulked it up as a very expensive and valuable experience of life. Like most dedicated working class bikers with limited income, I started saving up for my next bike.(I'm also a dedicated subsciber to Sportrider Magazine even though I no longer own a bike. I've been  subscribing to Sportrider since it split from Motorcyclist Magazine)Continue next post.....  

After what seemed like an eternity without a bike, I was finally able to save enough money to purchase a 2003 Suzuki GSXR1000 on 08/05/03.  This time I purchased full coverage insurance that was a whopping $2,494 for one years coverage.  The bike was purchased from another authorized manufacturers dealer. (note I did not go back to the dealer I purchased my stolen 2003 Yamaha R1 because I suspect that it was an inside tip off that enabled the thiefs to find my motorcycle within 13 days from the date of pickup from the dealership.  My apartment garage can not be cased easily from the street because it's underground.)Continue next post.....  

This time I was going to outsmart those motorcycle thiefs.  I parked my motorcycle in my friends single family home garage with a door, so they would have to break in to steal the bike which would result in a stiffer sentence to jail for breaking and entering if they get caught. Plus my secured underground apartment garage that can be accessed by anyone by just following someone in the automatic gate was a bad place to park a desired bike. I also noticed when I scheduled my 2003 GSXR1000 for service at the dealership I purchased the bike from, I was followed very closely by a car when I was driving to my friends house to pick up the GSXR1000 for service.Continue next post.....  

So I started making right hand turns to see if the car is tailing me.  My suspicion was verified when the car started following my car as a made multiple right hand turns in circles around a block. I then drove to a police station and walked in the office, that's when the low life took off.  I then called to cancel my appointment for service at the dealer I purchased my GSXR1000 from.  I then found another authorized dealership a few days later and drove to my friends house to pick up my bike for the first 500 miles service.  This time there was no low life following me to my friends house. When I checked in my GSXR1000 for service at the new dealership I found, I gave a false address and paid in cash only and watched the technician service the bike the entire time.  On the return ride, I checked my rear view mirror frequently and made many turns to make sure no one was following be back to the bat cave.  I played this cat and mouse game until Feb 2006 when I was just fed up with it all and decided to sell the bike to an acquaintance of my friend (the same friend who lets me use his garage as my bat cave to hide from those low life thiefs)Continue next post.....  

When I sold my 2003 GSXR1000 to the acquaintance of my friend, he was advised to find another garage to park the bike or just use my friends garage, but he failed to heed the advise and his bike was stolen the day after he brought his bike into a dealership for service which was only about 8 days of ownership. (notice his bike was only stolen after he brought it in to a dealership for service and his choice for a parking place for his bike was similar to my secured apartment parking garage and even though the bike was chained down with 2 chains and one was a forgetabout it chain, the thief melted them with a blow torch like butter.)Continue next post.....  

To make a very very long story short the acquaintance purchased another bike after the theft and lost that one too because he failed to play the cat and mouse game and he like me finally gave up the sport and no longer owns a motorcycle.  I hope this long winded story helps some of the innocent bikers out there that just loves sportriding and are not part of that organized gang of lowlife thiefs.  And I hope the motorycle manufacturers think deeply about the future of this sport and start rooting out these gangs of thief and place decoys to put them in jail. If they do not, the sportrider community that purchases bikes instead of stealing bikes will diminish to the point when only thiefs own bikes and since they do not purchase them, the manufacturers will no longer be able to profit from sales.  So the poll starts here: How many exbikers are out there like me, that have experience this similar unpleasant problem of sportriding?  

Wow dude...that sucks.  Have you considered reporting this to the cops?  If it turned out that other folks were reporting this dealership, they might investigate.  As far as the bike goes, what about getting a smaller bike that costs less for full insurance?  That way if it gets stolen again, you'd at least be covered.  

Man, I don't know where you live, but I'd seriously think about switchin' towns, maybe states. Do some research, gotta be a state with low insurarce rates which goes along with low crime rates. I realize this is a drastic fix to an annoying problem,(money, time and phsycological factors), but how bad do you wanna ride? Although if you are thinking about this route, don't come to MI. Roads suck, not many jobs, economy in the toilet, and insurance rates are high. Did I mention we have 3ft of snow and it's 1 degree farhenheit? Sorry about your luck.  

...this sounds very strange, are you sure your not jerking our chains?  

Saintmole:
...this sounds very strange, are you sure your not jerking our chains?

I wish I was jerking your chains. I still own that $12,000 key and pink slip for the Yamaha R1. To give you a clue where this took place, it was somewhere in the good old California Sunshine State, where you can ride all year. Just drop by a police dept there that will let you look at the crime statisics of motorcycle thefts and it will open your eyes.(I only have statisics of Southern California who knows how other States are) I started keeping track of it at my local police station, the theft rate has more than tripled from the time my R1 was stolen.  When my R1 was stolen, I asked a detective at my local police dept whether or not they are trying to do something about this problem.  He stated it's not one of their priorities.  The acquaintance that had the GSXR1000 stolen after only 8 days ownership was in Feb of 2006, so I guess the police dept still does not look at catching these thiefs as a priority.  I also offered lending my GSXR1000 for bait but the detective declined.  The main reason I posted this thread is to let the information out, so all innocent current and prospective sportriders will see how bad the problem is and do a little research before they purchase their bike, especially a new bike that is on the thiefs list(note the high dollar or high horsepower new bikes are on the top of their list) and always have a Lojack device installed since it is available now.  It's too late for me, I will no longer ride because the experience has left such a bitter taste in my mouth.  

The only thing I do not understand is the insurance...the GSXR was brand new correct? Because if it was you would have been required to have full coverage insurance. (and for all *** its *** expensive here in Orange County)...  

Sounds weird to me.  Atleast in Florida, not as many thefts, just a bunch of murders.  But that's why I have insurance.  If they want it that bad they can have it.  And trust me, my insurance isn't that cheap either.  Between my bike and car, I'm tapped out, almost to the point of considering selling the bike, but I won't.  

And you said you have the key right?  I would try to start every single 03 R1 I saw, and write the tags down and just start reporting them stolen, you never know you might get lucky.  

Saintmole:
...this sounds very strange, are you sure your not jerking our chains?

exsportbiker:
I wish I was jerking your chains. I still own that $12,000 key and pink slip for the Yamaha R1. To give you a clue where this took place, it was somewhere in the good old California Sunshine State, where you can ride all year. Just drop by a police dept there that will let you look at the crime statisics of motorcycle thefts and it will open your eyes.(I only have statisics of Southern California who knows how other States are) I started keeping track of it at my local police station, the theft rate has more than tripled from the time my R1 was stolen.  When my R1 was stolen, I asked a detective at my local police dept whether or not they are trying to do something about this problem.  He stated it's not one of their priorities.  The acquaintance that had the GSXR1000 stolen after only 8 days ownership was in Feb of 2006, so I guess the police dept still does not look at catching these thiefs as a priority.  I also offered lending my GSXR1000 for bait but the detective declined.  The main reason I posted this thread is to let the information out, so all innocent current and prospective sportriders will see how bad the problem is and do a little research before they purchase their bike, especially a new bike that is on the thiefs list(note the high dollar or high horsepower new bikes are on the top of their list) and always have a Lojack device installed since it is available now.  It's too late for me, I will no longer ride because the experience has left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

The 2003 GSXR1000 was brand new when I purchased it and I did purchase full coverage insurance from progressive and no I did not loose that bike, please read entire thread above for details.(see insurance rate poll thread by briflight and you can see the full details of insurance coverage for the two bikes I owned) The 2002 Yamaha R1 was the bike that I had stolen. I did make a mistake posting 2003 as the year of my stolen Yamaha R1, it should be 2002, and on that bike I only purchased basic liability, which was a big mistake.