Stolen bicycles and the men that recover them.

[shwsrvcs]

A while back I had posted a bicycle I had at the time. It was a Firmstrong, the Chief model and i made it blue. No sooner than i had posted it, it was stolen when it was locked up in front of a store down the way. There goes #2 I thought and kissed it goodbye. for closure I went online to our police dept and filed a ereport on it being stolen. I uploaded a pic of it just in case.

But I can't imagine anyone getting stolen bicycles back so I let it go.

Well lo and behold, I was riding over to get Del Taco one late afternoon and there it was. Some person was at a bus stop waiting to go someplace and after turning around and wiping my eyes to make sure i was seeing correctly I decided what i'd do.

The local police just so happened to have a squad car pulling into the 7-11 next to del taco when I was on the line with the police station and so in very quick fashion, I explained what Id seen and brought up the police report on my cell phone. He was able to see the bike was indeed the one i'd filed a report on so he went over, talked to the people who had the bike and minutes later, I'm riding back home pulling the chief along next to me.

It had taken some damage, the rims, the pedals, the frame, well just everything... I had to go back and give it some attention. This time it came out black with white accents. I added triple tree forks I had picked up for $10 and finally it was let back out giving rides to the nephew of a good friend of mine. He called to ask if I had anything a taller person could ride, I said.. yes I do, the chief.

here are some before, after, after after, and then after pics.

 

[Alienfac3]

it's rare to hear of people getting there bicycles back so it's good to hear a story with a good ending
Thank you

 

[LukeTheJoker]

it's rare to hear of people getting there bicycles back so it's good to hear a story with a good ending
Thank you

+1! Very cool story!

Luke.

 

[horsefarmer]

Good idea you were carrying the police report around with you on your phone! Glad you got your bike back.

 

[Indyjps]

Great you got it back. I preserved the old city, police registration sticker that was on one of my old bikes. Kind of cool.

 

[shwsrvcs]

It was such a empowering feeling to get handed back the bike right then on the spot. The ride home also had just a swweeeet satisfaction to it rolling into my driveway with the recovered bike being brought alone by holding the handlebar. I have to give credit for the PD on having the e-filing process available. As long as I could access my email, I could bring up the report from the link filing the report gave me.

But I think the big credit goes to the people and stylish mods that we post about here. if not for this site, I wouldn't have done any mods to that bike and it would have blended in on the street, but the paint, the rims and tires all made it stick out like a sore thumb and made it undeniable for the person with it to deny to the officer that it was the bike in question....

The city I live in, finding the bike let alone getting it back would be a seemingly impossible task. There are so many people here.
from wikipedia:
Santa Ana is a very densely populated city, ranking fourth nationally in that regard among cities of over 300,000 residents (trailing only New York City, San Francisco, and Boston).

Since I was so lucky, i've been thinking about how to spread the word on my outcome without it sounding like some bologna sales pitch. When I make bikes and sell them, I usually will have pics of the work done and serial and stuff, but none of that woulld matter if the people don't file a report they can access in a pinch like I was able to.... once i get to thinking to this point, my mind starts throwing in all kinds of factors that make it all sound more in an exercise of futility than some noble cause...

but i guess the bottom line is, customizing bikes makes them a little easier to get back if you get lucky enough and it all works in your favor...
so i'll keep making them and sending them back out for a new chance with a little bit of rat rod style and a lot of elbow grease.

take care gents, and ladies!

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

I built this bike for my neighbor a few months back and this Tuesday he said somone had cut his lock and stolen it downtown (happened on the 16th). It's a pretty unique build, so I told the usual suspects to be on the lookout and that included @Mr. Monkeyarms when we were catching up Wednesday evening. Being that Eric has a highly tuned bicycle eagle-eye, he asked "Does it have gold hubs? I think saw it downtown a couple of days ago."

I spent most of yesterday patrolling around downtown and was looking in all of the nooks and crannies around that part of town that hold a high probability of finding it. No luck...

This morning I needed to hit up Ace for some hardware and when purposely driving to and from, was taking a look around. Well, lo and behold there it was at a bus stop next to a residentially challenged individual who was in the process of stripping what I later saw to be a dark green Fuji Esprit. I parked a little ways away, called the police and was told there would be a wait because they were busy with in-progress calls.

After about 20 minutes the character appears to be packing his crap up and readying to pedal away. He got about two pedal strokes before I snatched the bike out from under him and removed his baseball bat from the scabbard he had it in. I told him the police were on the way (knowing it was probably a lie, which it turned out to be) and he had three choices. Deal with me, deal with the cops or bail. It was someone I worked with briefly in the restaurant business about five years ago and he attempted to somehow talk his way out of the situation, but chose the bail option. I waited a bit for the police, called them back and they eventually had a report taker call me for follow-up.

It was a bit abused, but that wheelset is still arrow-staight. The owner came over a few minutes ago and was beyond stoked. It's going into the stand to get cleaned, tuned and recabled after cabling up my newphew's Alpinestars.

Oh yeah, the police didn't want the bat so it's residing just inside my front door now.

 

[Captain Awesome]

I built this bike for my neighbor a few months back and this Tuesday he said somone had cut his lock and stolen it downtown (happened on the 16th). It's a pretty unique build, so I told the usual suspects to be on the lookout and that included @Mr. Monkeyarms when we were catching up Wednesday evening. Being that Eric has a highly tuned bicycle eagle-eye, he asked "Does it have gold hubs? I think saw it downtown a couple of days ago."

View attachment 194858

I spent most of yesterday patrolling around downtown and was looking in all of the nooks and crannies around that part of town that hold a high probability of finding it. No luck...

This morning I needed to hit up Ace for some hardware and when purposely driving to and from, was taking a look around. Well, lo and behold there it was at a bus stop next to a residentially challenged individual who was in the process of stripping what I later saw to be a dark green Fuji Esprit. I parked a little ways away, called the police and was told there would be a wait because they were busy with in-progress calls.

After about 20 minutes the character appears to be packing his crap up and readying to pedal away. He got about two pedal strokes before I snatched the bike out from under him and removed his baseball bat from the scabbard he had it in. I told him the police were on the way (knowing it was probably a lie, which it turned out to be) and he had three choices. Deal with me, deal with the cops or bail. It was someone I worked with briefly in the restaurant business about five years ago and he attempted to somehow talk his way out of the situation, but chose the bail option. I waited a bit for the police, called them back and they eventually had a report taker call me for follow-up.

View attachment 194859

It was a bit abused, but that wheelset is still arrow-staight. The owner came over a few minutes ago and was beyond stoked. It's going into the stand to get cleaned, tuned and recabled after cabling up my newphew's Alpinestars.

Oh yeah, the police didn't want the bat so it's residing just inside my front door now.

Score one for the good guys

 

[Wildcat]

I wonder. The people with the Chief, did they face any repercussions? As for the drifter who snagged the cool lemon Schwinn, he's probably still going around stealing stuff. That's where most of the stolen bikes in Oahu wind up, under a tarp under the bridge.

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

As for the drifter who snagged the cool lemon Schwinn, he's probably still going around stealing stuff

He has been advised that he is no longer welcome here, though you are probably right that he is still stealing. As mentioned, we had worked together briefly when he was clean and though his drug-addled grey matter has him sinking to this low of a life, he realized who had snatched the bike from him and that he was SOL. He heard me when I informed him that his welcome is worn out here, but who knows what he is going to do with that.

The Kool Lemon Yellow Le Tour was back with the owner yesterday, repaired and with the same rideability as when he bought the bike from me. The abuse was underestimated and in a mere ten days the litany of idiotic mods was astounding. The worst offense was someone jamming a 22.2mm Nitto quill stem into a 21.1mm steerer tube/headset.

 

[RustyGold]

Beautiful bike!

A huge Bravo Zulu to you and @Mr. Monkeyarms !

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

Another one of my sharp-eyed agents gets props for this one. In fact he's the one who named it the Azz Blast one day while we were drinking beer and stickering it up. It was stolen from the youngster next door about a year ago and looked just like this:

Strange, but it's no more clapped out in a year than the Le Tour was in ten days. It'll probably get in the stand within the next few days to become rideable again.