My stolen bike!

Have you seen it?
My baby girl was was parked on the corner of Rockwell and Augusta, locked to the bike racks over night, Feb 14-Feb 15. Went to take it out for all of it's energies this morning and she was gone! Lock cut. Keep a look out please, she's not that pretty but is a warrior!

Giant Bowery...single speed
Chrome.
Clip-less.

Distiguishing features:
A dent on the top tube frame...close to the handlebars.
A chainlink sticker!
A "R" sticker.
"Your car door kills me!" sticker.
Messenger shwag.
A blue hankie wrapped around the seat post.
(the dent is prob the only thing left!)

I type this through tears...

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Permalink Reply by justJason on February 18, 2009 at 4:11am
That is so FREAKING AWESOME!!! Congratulations x 1000!!
Permalink Reply by Kevin on February 18, 2009 at 5:08am
What a great story - I'm sure I would have given myself away with either nervousness while making contact or sheer excitement once seeing my bike again. Making the call while taking her for a test ride is classic; I'd love to hear any details you know of what happened to the perps.
Permalink Reply by RodimusPrime on February 18, 2009 at 6:02am
lolz

Dubi Kaufmann said:
well done.

in your face Lance Armstrong!
Permalink Reply by Jim "Niterider" on February 18, 2009 at 5:34pm
What is the punishment this guy will get? Did the police have the time to search this fellas place for more bikes and or parts? Does this fellow have a long crimnal record for theft? Do you have to appear in court to have this guy proscuted Jen? Is he going to be wanting to seek retribution and try and kill you or your friends? Has this turd posted bond yet and is he back out on the street? Hope the DA works him over good and the judge does not give him probation. Never can tell what the judge will do. I am glad you got your bike back. I never got any justice with the last 4 bikes I had stolen over the last 10 years. Glad the police responded in a timely manner and you were not assulted by this creep. I bet you do not let your bike out of your eye-ball range. Get a picture of this guy from the cops and the Chainlink can create a caught bike thief group for some public shaming! HAHAHAHAHAHA
Permalink Reply by Dottie on February 18, 2009 at 5:56pm
What an exciting thread to read!! So happy for you and your bike. This has renewed hope for me to continue checking Craigslist for my stolen bike. Very cool.
Permalink Reply by Jen P on February 18, 2009 at 10:31pm
Not going to lie, I have been a bit on edge since the moment of theft…rather, my realization of theft. Briefly, this is how it all went down…

Using a medium sized kryptonite u-lock, I fasted the rear wheel, frame and my helmet to the bike racks located on the SE corner of Rockwell and Augusta for the night as I have on so many occasions. Woke the next morning to an empty rack and a cut u-lock. My lock had a curved prong thing so just one cut was necessary to manipulate the lock enough to free the bike. Inspection of the breached lock leads me to think that it was done with an electric saw…NO SHIT! Two distinct circular sawing motions in opposite directions…real clean. I don’t know, can you use a bolt cutter on u-locks? Anyways, first thing I do is dramatically crumble to the ground and shake my fist towards the sky. That does not seem to help so I run upstairs and start calling, e-mailing, chain-linking…getting the word out that my bike has been stolen. Then I start checking Craiglist like a crackwhore. In addition, I took off work (sick).

Found my bike on Craiglist moments after it was posted. Compose. Called the guy, was a bit flustered and I think he might have felt as if something was up. Set a meeting for the next evening. He wouldn’t give me his address and ask me to call a half hour before. Next day…Jen is super antsy but working her way through it via bong-hits. I’m supposed to meet him late in the evening. A few hours before I am supposed to meet him, we plan for my gentleman friend to call and see if he can get him to open up more…I forgot to mention that I had a few name tags on my bike, specifically all up on the fender so the guy new the bike once belong to a girl named Jennifer…my guy friend gets an address and a “see you in ten minutes” meeting. With two others, we go there prepared to throw down but hopeful that the cops would come through. I probably called the 311 police five times in those three days. We had called again on our way there and they said a unit would meet us there. Didn’t happen. Stalled the guy for a good half-hour…took bike for final spin around the block during which I called the 911’s and demanded assistance! Fifteen or so minutes later they show up…blah blah…I show them my original sales receipt…guy gets arrested for possession of lost/stolen goods…I gots my bike back.



There was some funny and questionable banter that whole evening involving the us and the cops and the thief. This whole story is best told with a beer in hand…see ya’ll at the Nicks.
Permalink Reply by brandon lee* on February 19, 2009 at 10:07am
yeah, i have to say i'm surprised as well to hear the cops actually showed. how often do you hear of a stolen bike being returned... let alone the thief actually being arrested. calling the police five times and still not seeing them; resorting to calling 911 makes perfect sense. does anyone realize that there are a lot of people who use there bikes on a regular basis?! i mean, not just for recreation, but transportation. some people depend on them!

h3 said:
Huge thanks for the detailed account. Sounds like you did everything right. Obviously if you could avoid leaving a bike locked outside overnight you'd fare better, but I'm sure you would have avoided doing so if there was a way.
The most amazing part of your story to me is that you called the police and got them to show up at all-- 20 minutes is some kind of a record without having mentioned guns and gunshots.
The address you had posted seemed familiar-- nobody "known" in the bike community, right?
Would be interested in some planning around how to do something about this particular thief in the future.
Thanks again for taking the time to type this out.
Permalink Reply by LeslieB on February 19, 2009 at 11:32am
Yay!! Best story ever. I was sooo excited at work reading through the threads.
Permalink Reply by JJ on February 19, 2009 at 6:57pm
Wow!! Thats incredible!! I'm so happy you got your baby back!!!
Permalink Reply by Reddog (Cliff) on February 20, 2009 at 8:11pm
This is a fantastic story. I will have to confess, that I have become cynical through the years. I have had two bikes stolen from me in this city, on my third now. When I first read this thread I thought "it's lost to the ages now" A measure of my dim view of humanity I suppose. But WOW! you played it smart and got it back! how often does a tale like this have a happy ending? and good job keeping cool and doing the smart thing concerning getting your ride back. I probably would have done someting stupid, like splitting the guy open from crotch to throat when confronting him.
I am glad to hear this ended well.

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