Sorry I could not find a picture..

ATLANTA
Jimmy Carter’s bike stolen from Carter Center
Thieves also make off with wife Rosalynn’s bicycle; both were gifts from local shop owner
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Monday, January 12, 2009

If you see our nation’s 39th president hoofing around the center that bears his name, feel sorry for the guy. Someone snatched his bike.

Jimmy Carter’s bicycle was stolen earlier this month from the Carter Center in Atlanta. The bad guy(s) also made off with former first lady Rosalynn Carter’s cruiser, too.


ALLEN SULLIVAN

The bicycles were given to Jimmy Carter and his wife by Peter Wicker, owner of Outback Bikes.
Police acted quickly when they learned of the Jan. 2 break-in and theft at the center. You can imagine the report: Stolen: two (2) bicycles; one blue in color, other cream in color. Eight-geared. One ridden by a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

And now? “They’ve probably been sold for a $10 rock of crack,” fumed Peter Wicker. He’s the owner of Outback Bikes, a cycle dealer in Little Five Points and Hamilton Mill. He gave the first couple the bikes in November 2007. He was prompted, Wicker said, by a sense of duty.

The Carters, he learned, like to two-wheel around Freedom Parkway when they aren’t doing something important. Earlier in 2007, the center sent the couple’s old bikes in for maintenance. He cast a learned look at the battered cycles and declared they weren’t much better than rolling junk. His wife, Cate Rockett, suggested that he give them something more befitting a duo who has built houses for Habitat for Humanity and consistently urges us to conserve energy. And there is that Nobel Peace Prize.

He listened to his wife. Wicker gave the Carters fancy machines manufactured by Specialized, a bike company that rolls out good stuff. Each was a Globe model, distinguished by a rear-wheel hub containing eight gears. Since the gears were enclosed, the president and first lady wouldn’t have to worry about their chains coming loose as they whizzed along, followed closely by a Secret Service agent on a crummier bike. The retail on these beauties: about $1,000 each.

At last report, no one has been nabbed in the theft of the First Bikes. The Carters, like so many of us, are another Atlanta crime statistic.

The former president’s reaction?

A spokeswoman for the center said Carter is in bicycle-friendly China.