Saw my stolen bike yesterday!

HDratz said:

At least it looks like it's being kept inside and taken care of.

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HDratz said:

So about 2008-09 someone stole my at the time favorite bike I had ever owned, a 1998 (iirc) Specialized Hardrock. Not an upper echelon mountain bike I realize, but I loved that bike. Never saw it again... until yesterday. I saw a guy sitting on it having a conversation with someone else, on the same road it was stolen from.

Do I know for certain that this was my bike? No. But it looked exactly like it, and this is a short rural road with only a couple dozen homes on it. And it's an area where probably 90+ percent of bikes are of the cheap Walmart variety. The Hardrock may not be upper echelon, but it's a couple notches above the typical bike around here.

At least it looks like it's being kept inside and taken care of.

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AndyA said:

When my younger brother Len was about 12, his muscle bike (I think it was a Sears) was stolen from the local swim club. A couple of days later, he saw it chained to the rack at the swim club (another example of a not-too-bright thief). Len went home, got a hacksaw, and started sawing the chain. Someone at the swim club called the police. Image the scene: Len standing there with a hacksaw in his hand and a partially sawn chain. The cop saying "Son, what are you doing?" Apparently, Len convinced the cop of the righteousness of his action and got his bike back.

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ParkRNDL said:

Two stolen bike stories:

One was from around 1984. My first "real" road bike was a Zebrakenko Wind, which I know nobody has ever heard of, so I took the liberty of robbing a couple of pics from Google. Mine was the same orange as this one, but it still had its Suntour Blue Line derailleurs.
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Long story short, I forgot it out in front of the house one night and never saw it again. Dad's homeowners insurance paid for a new Motobecane Jubilee Sport to replace it. I still have that one.

The other was just a few years ago. I built up this Murray junker for my kid to ride around campus at college.
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He came down to the bike rack outside his dorm one day and all that was there was the cheap lock he had been using, broken apart.

In the next week or so, a friend called him to tell him he saw the bike sitting unlocked outside an academic building. My son rushed over and stole it back while the friend waited as backup. Never found out who the thief was, but he got the bike back intact. Still have that frame waiting to be built up into something new.

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ParkRNDL said:

Two stolen bike stories:

One was from around 1984. My first "real" road bike was a Zebrakenko Wind, which I know nobody has ever heard of, so I took the liberty of robbing a couple of pics from Google. Mine was the same orange as this one, but it still had its Suntour Blue Line derailleurs.
View attachment 164498View attachment 164500

Long story short, I forgot it out in front of the house one night and never saw it again. Dad's homeowners insurance paid for a new Motobecane Jubilee Sport to replace it. I still have that one.

The other was just a few years ago. I built up this Murray junker for my kid to ride around campus at college.
View attachment 164504

He came down to the bike rack outside his dorm one day and all that was there was the cheap lock he had been using, broken apart.

In the next week or so, a friend called him to tell him he saw the bike sitting unlocked outside an academic building. My son rushed over and stole it back while the friend waited as backup. Never found out who the thief was, but he got the bike back intact. Still have that frame waiting to be built up into something new.

Click to expand...