$10K bike stolen during race, organizers say they are not responsible

It's definitely an inherent risk of racing.  Like Ben said, it wouldn't be that hard to sign up for a race and design a fairly simple scheme to rip off a bike.  Volunteers can check transition, watch the course, etc. but they can't monitor every square inch of the course to see if a racer is taking off with a bike instead of finishing the race.  

I suppose an RD can put some type of plan in place to check that every athlete checked in to race has a bike racked before the race starts but I just don't see that happening, especially at bigger races.

If people want to steal your stuff badly enough, they'll find a way whether it's at a race, in your garage, from your car or from your house.  You just can't safeguard everything you own at every moment.

^ /thread

x3.  That defense would be a joke under U.S. law.  It's not something I worry about at races.

True, but the as Noelle said, that's the case with almost everything in our lives.  You can't keep the dishonest people from being dishonest.  All you can do is make them work harder for it.

Regarding the topic at hand, many races I've done lately have checked for matching body markings and/or wrist bands for bikes going both into and out of transition.  I'd think that it would be easy enough for these same conscientious RD's to post a couple volunteers at the bike out during the race to watch and make sure that everyone riding out had body markings that matched the bike number.  Again, it's not a guarantee, because someone could slap on some fake body markings and grab the matching bike or put a fake number on a bike, but it's still making them work harder for it.

I have a related question on this for the legal types. At my local YMCA they post in the locker rooms that they are not responsible for lost or stolen items. But some are saying they are? How does that work?

I have had a cell phone stolen out of a locker at the YMCA - literally the only time I've forgotten my lock and risked it. Lesson learned.

I've known a few people who leave phones, car keys etc in their transition bags. Easy enough to steal more than bikes if someone wanted. While not perfect, there's quite a bit of attention paid to matching bikes to participants in races around here. Transition bags, not so much.  

So if that happens do you still think you can hold the race responsible?  What's to stop me from saying someone stole my bike just to get the race to pay?

We take a lot of theft reports from health and fitness center locker rooms......I don't know of any cases where victims were reimbursed by the facility. 

No matter what gets posted here.....it's VERY hard to collect for a loss through civil means when the loss involves a property crime.

LB, you spend enough time on these boards to know that we can come up with all kind of scenarios and speculate on the legal liabilities all day long.  It wasn't my intent to speculate about whether the RD would be liable in that scenario, rather it was to agree that you can't stop someone intent on theft, and threw out two possible methods off the top of my head that would be difficult to protect against.

Regarding saying someone stole your bike just to get the race to pay, we run into that sort of dishonesty occasionally at the gym I work at.  We recently had one member claim another member stole his cell phone, but it turned out that a review of our security camera footage showed that the first member had fabricated the entire thing.  I guess the answer to your question is there is very little stopping someone from making that sort of claim.  I'd imagine it happens fairly regularly.

  It just is what it is......I wouldn't want to venture a guess on how many theft reports I've investigated or led investigations of in 30 years....I don't see victims getting reimbursed by the "responsible" entities.  Insurance is a different matter altogether....and the games those companies play could be another discussion.

But yeah.....sue away!

Eh.....I didn't take any offense at all to your post.  I just get tickled when I start reading posts like this where some folks are sure the RD is responsible and you can get remedy through the race.  That would be very rare.  You'd have to be able to prove they were grossly negligent.  One bike stolen out of hundreds or thousands doesn't go very far to prove that.

As I read this, I am thinking you placed it in a locker without a lock????? is that right?  Not sure anyway they could be held responsible there.

Right. And I also place my bike in transition without a lock, yet some are saying the race organizers should be held responsible. Maybe an unequal comparison in terms of dollars but the same in theory....