An Obie with a stolen bike is like a New Yorker with an empty Subway pass. We, at the Review, cannot imagine how these students and townspeople must have felt in the bleak year of 1977, known in Oberlin as the Year of the Pilfered Pedals. Not really, but it should have been.

—The News Team

“Bikes peddled…Thieves ride off”

Sept. 19, 1978

Nearly $19,000-worth of bikes — 99 in all — were stolen from the town of Oberlin in 1977, with about half of the losses to College students. But according to College Security Director Dan Denney, this toll was “about average.” Bike thefts are “one of our worst problems,” Tenny said.

In an attempt to alleviate the problem of bike thefts on campus, Oberlin is for the first time working with Police Crime Prevention this year to step up security measures.

Because the thefts occur primarily at night, Security plans to improve the lighting around dorm bike racks.

Crime prevention Officer Willie Gilbert hopes that engraving a name, social security number, or bike registration number on parts of the bike, “will help trace parts of those cases where parts are taken and curtail those numerous thefts where the real purpose is for the parts.”

Gilbert noted that of the two thefts of engraved bikes already this year, one has been recovered, “almost solely because of the engraving.”

As to who is responsible for the thefts, Tenney feels that they are primarily the work of local people, ages 12 to 16. Officer Gilbert guesses that those bikes not recovered are taken to Elyria, possibly by van. Tenney discounted any rumors that the thefts are the work of a gang.