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Bike thieves got to a Trek bicycle in Southeast Portland by sawing through one of the city's metal sidewalk "staple racks" on Monday morning.

(Photo by Bryan Hance)

There was a time when slapping down a day's pay for an indestructible bike lock pretty much guaranteed that your commuting bicycle would never be stolen.

Pfft! Indestructible, schmindestructible.

Portland bike thieves have figured out that they can just saw through the thousands of steel bike staples along on the city's sidewalks and carry your beloved two-wheeler away.

"It's concerning," said Bryan Hance, operator of the online stolen-bike registry BikeIndex Portland. "All bets are off when all these idiots need to do is saw through the bike racks."

On Monday morning, Hance posted an alert of the latest case of a thief snatching an expensive bike – a Trek Lexa S – using the method.

A #bikethief in #pdx sawed through staple rack on Morrison/SE 7th & stole a Trek Lexa S https://t.co/6DMLhnzXeA pic.twitter.com/XdhhH4VN0g — BikeIndex Portland (@stolenbikereg) January 5, 2015

The owner returned to the Star Bar at Southeast Morrison Street and Seventh Avenue, where he left his bike overnight, to discover nothing but the blue U-shape rack sawed in two.

Other than not leaving your two-wheeler unattended in public view for extended periods of time -- or creating a complicated chain of multiple bikes locked together -- Hance said there's really no way to combat thieves who can through metal with power saws in a matter of seconds.

Portlanders chatting about the theft on Reddit have suggested filling the city's bike-staple tubes with concrete. "I don't know if it's feasible for the city to go around filling all of city's bike staples with concrete," Hance said.

Plus, in a city where an estimated 6 percent of daily commuters get around on bicycles, thieves have shown no mercy with their diabolical methods of getting at bikes, he said.

"We've had reports of them sawing through trees and front porch posts," Hance said.

Cutting through bike racks "is not uncommon," he added.

In fact, the strategy has become more regular in Austin, San Francisco and other cities.

Diane Dulken, a Portland Bureau of Transportation spokeswoman, said staple cutting is still a rare occurrence.

"But it's a shame when it does happen," she said.

Each rack, made of 1.5-inch-diameter pipe, costs $80. There are about 6,000 installed around the city. Other cities have explored putting a lose piece of metal rebar in the tubes to at least slow down saw-carrying thieves.

When it comes to frames for cyclists to lock up their rides, "the city goes with what's simple and effective. These staples are intended for short-term use, not long-term parking," Dulken said.

That said, PBOT officials say they are looking at using different design in the near future, after the contract with the current supplier expires. Dulken declined to go into details. "We don't want to tip off thieves," she said.

A short time later, Dulken expanded on the topic in an email: "While we are always looking at the possibility of design adjustments to improve safety (e.g. the possibility of a square tube instead of round) we also weigh the tradeoff between added costs of any change versus whether a changed design would have additional safety benefits. Again, cutting through a bike rack is rare in Portland. Plus, higher costs mean fewer bike racks available for us to install on city streets."

503-221-8029; @pdxcommute