Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Scary story from MyUpperWest reader David that I wanted to share. He e-mailed earlier in the week detailing a brazen attack in broad daylight:

A ‘heads up’ for other NYC UWS cyclists: Yesterday shortly after noon, I got pushed off my bike as I was riding southbound at about 15mph on Riverside Drive right where the bridge (above Dinosaur’s) ends and the Grant’s Tomb’s park starts.

As I reached a guy standing in the street, he shouldered me hard and sent me crashing to the ground. He was waiting there with 2 accomplices for a cyclist to ride by and steal his/her bike. It is an ideal location to mug cyclists: little traffic at that time, almost no pedestrians, easy get away.

I only suffered abrasions and contusions on my right side. I shudder to think what would have happened had I not worn a helmet. It would seem they have no qualms putting someone in a coma to get a bike.

They left, with the bike, towards Broadway. The police canvased the area but couldn’t find them.

Description: skinny, shirtless, short hair, African-American, early twenties, males.

Call me naive but this kind of assault had never occurred to me. From other cyclists I am hearing that this used to happen a lot but hadn’t for some time. So watch out and ride clear of young men standing in the road.

Stolen Bike: Brown Scott Hybrid/MTB with cleats. Serial number: EN 147 64

David stressed that that the police response was “great.”

“An [NYPD] car was with me before I could hang up with 911. Several other cars, including a lieutenant’s, got involved in the canvasing. And the detective in charge of the case spent lots of time with me and has been in touch since.”

The exact location of the attack can be viewed here.

According to comments on the New York Cycle Club’s website (NYCC.org), this type of attack is not new. One poster wrote that the method was prevalent years ago, both on the GWB and 110th Street hill in Central Park.

Hopefully this is an isolated incident, as David notes he’s cycled through the same location numerous times without any problems. But…

“In case it isn’t, I want to let other cyclists know so they can be on their guard,” he wrote. “For some reason, it never occurred to me that someone would do that. Those guys had it planned out and were waiting for someone to rob.”

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Tags: bicycle attack, BikeJacked, Crime, cyclist attack, Grant's Tomb, mugged, Mugging, New York City, NYC, NYPD, Police, Riverside Drive, Upper West Side, UWS