praivo

Another "self-thief" here. Middle of August, 2014. I had a job at certain electronic connector making/assembly plant in the Czech Republic. My family has two houses, one "main" in a town and another one in a small village where we mostly go on weekends and during the summer holidays (what's the English name for this?). We were there so I was commuting about 15 km one way instead of the 30-something I'd have to ride otherwise but sometimes I'd take a round trip to the town, mostly to go to the post office or water the plant in the other house, 70-80 km in total. One day, I clocked out as normally and went to unlock the bike and ride to the town to get my hair cut. "Oh *****, the key's gone!" I had the key in a pocket in my backpack and it apparently managed to fall out. I spend about half an hour searching for it, found nothing, and decided to give up and cut the lock. The problem was I did not have anything to do it with and nobody seemed to have anything more than some small wire cutters. Another half an hour later I've managed to get what could well have been the only hacksaw in the entire plant... Another "Oh *****!" moment: it's really NOT easy to cut an 8+ mm diameter steel cable like that. It took me maybe minutes to do it, then I returned the saw and went on to finally GTFO. And "Oh sh!it!" one more time: I thought I was supposed to be at the town 3 hours later, decided to make sure by calling the hairdresser. Well, it turned out I only had about 1:45 to do those 40 kms... On top of that, I had been riding an entry-level MTB that was a bit too small for me (now it's waiting to be converted to a drop bar touring bike), which meant I was about as non-aerodynamic as I could be, and I wasn't very fit either (not that I now am). Ended up calling the hairdresser to wait for me (I was supposed to be the last customer that day) and arriving about 15 minutes late.

My way of proving the ownership of the bike would probably be knowing almost every part of all my bikes (except the newest one; none of the bikes is stock or even a common model (my 2008 Hardrock XC Disc is the only one I've ever seen, even on the internet), and I've used some uncommon parts), older photos of the bikes, hidden signatures (e.g. inside a rim or on the end of the seatpost), and if it were really necessary, I'd call my dad and have him get the purchase receipt(s) I keep at home and read the frame ID written there.