Hussein Saffouri was biking up Redwood Road, a wooded artery in the Oakland hills, when he noticed a black Mercedes creeping behind him.
The car rolled by and stopped at a turn-out, where two men with guns and ski masks jumped out. They took the money pouch that held Saffouri’s cash, keys and driver’s license, and grabbed his bicycle — a white Cannondale racer with pink and green stripes, its tires barely broken in.
At one point during the harrowing encounter on Father’s Day, Saffouri said he heard a sharp click, and felt fear welling in his stomach. One of the gunmen had racked the slide to put a round in the chamber. But the thieves peeled out moments later without firing their weapons, leaving Saffouri to flag down a passing motorist for help.
He counted himself among several victims in a string of increasingly violent bike-jackings, a symptom of the robbery surge in Oakland, and of bicycle thefts rising throughout the Bay Area. In Marin County and San Francisco, burglars are prying open garages to swipe luxury mountain bikes, some worth thousands of dollars.
Law enforcement cite several converging factors, including growing enthusiasm for tricked-out bicycles, the spike in home burglaries during COVID and the ease of selling stolen goods through online marketplaces. In Oakland, the prevalence of firearms has added a new, alarming element to the crime wave.
“Ten years ago there was a white van stopping cyclists and stealing their bikes, then around COVID there were a bunch of thefts of mountain bikes,” Saffouri said, recalling stories swapped among the cycling community. “Now they’re armed with real guns — loaded guns. And my fear is that it’s going to happen again.”
Four days later, it did: A group of three armed men held up another cyclist at the intersection of Skyline Boulevard and Joaquin Miller Road, snatching a light blue Speedvagen roadster.
From a post the victim shared on Reddit, the robberies appeared to unfold in nearly the same way. A silver BMW parked in front of a cyclist, roughly a mile from where Saffouri was attacked. The driver and passengers jumped out, brandishing handguns.
Police cited three similar incidents nearby in 2022, illustrating a disturbing pattern. Back then the department issued a safety advisory, saying officers were “closely tracking” the series of robberies. A department spokesperson said the investigations are ongoing, and did not indicate whether police had made any arrests.
Over the course of a year, the bike-jackings seemed to escalate, the thieves’ methods becoming more brazen.
“It’s nerve-racking,” said Todd Brydon, who, like Saffouri, has raced competitively and is a member of the Berkeley Bicycle Club. Brydon described his fellow cyclists as “a hardy lot,” braving the East Bay hills in thick fog, or wispy rain, or as the sun sets over a dense tree canopy. But even tough athletes feel vulnerable confronting a spate of armed robberies, Brydon said.
This week’s episodes, both discussed breathlessly in email chains and social media posts, appeared to have a “chilling effect,” Brydon said. He began riding an exercise bike indoors during the evenings, rather than travel on remote roads outdoors.
Bryan Hance, co-founder of Bike Index, a nonprofit registry and database that helps recover stolen bikes, has warned people not to showcase their two-wheelers on social media, on the theory they may inadvertently lure thieves.
“The new thing we’re telling people is, ‘get your name and your bikes off social media,’ ” Hance said in an interview early this year. He discourages cyclists from “posting humble brags of, ‘look at my amazing stable in my garage,’ ” which makes them potential targets, he said.
To Saffouri and others, the thieves’ strategy is more simple: They prowl the scenic roads that serve as popular bike routes, seeking out lone cyclists at times when traffic is light. Many bike-jackings occur at dawn or dusk, often on hills where riders have to slow down, according to Brydon.
Perpetrators might be enticed by deep carbon wheels, fancy paint jobs, or other signs of value, Saffouri suggested. His bike was a top-end racing vehicle; the one robbed Thursday was a “beautiful bespoke custom bike.” Shortly after the robbery, his bike computer tracked to the intersection of Skyline Boulevard and Redwood Road, then his phone pinged to a spot at the bottom of Keller Avenue — seemingly from inside a house. He drove to both areas, scouted for a familiar car and searched the weeds for his possessions, but found nothing.
Later he detected a signal from a tracking device in his bike saddle bag, apparently at a home on 47th Avenue in Fruitvale. Police met him at the house around midnight, but since they had no warrant, they could only knock on the door, Saffouri said. No one answered. By then Saffouri had given up hope of retrieving his bike.
He continues biking every day, trying to push away a cloud of apprehension.
“Bikes are happiness machines,” Saffouri told The Chronicle Thursday afternoon, as he headed to meet a group of youth cyclists at the Orinda BART Station. “It’s the time of your day that you find joy. That’s why this is all so depressing.”
Within two hours of the ride, Saffouri discovered the Reddit post about the second bike-jacking this week. His heart sank.
Reach Rachel Swan: rswan@sfchronicle.com
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