Sooner Rider

It was a Cannondale Six13 Team 1 frame (aluminum joints w/ carbon tubes) with DA, Mavik Ksyriums & a Garmin Edge 305. A really sweet bike. Stolen from my garage summer 2010. Keep reading for the happy ending.

I filed a police report, then distributed the standard "missing bike" posters at bike shops, pawn shops, to local teams & clubs - no luck. My homeowner's insurance paid for a Cervelo S2 (replacement value, not ACV), so I did OK. Eighteen months went by.

The LBS owner who sold me the bike receives an email with a link to a CL ad. There's my bike. Four photographs showing it in exactly the condition when I saw it last except for pedals & bottle holder. The Garmin is still on the stem. I call the police and meet with a detective minutes later, convincing him that this is my bike. One of 12 team frames built up, one of only two in this frame size, and I've got the Garmin's serial number and BIOS chip ID.

The detective meets the seller the next morning, badges him, takes a look at the bike, tells the seller that it's stolen, brings it to the station and calls me. Less than 24 hours after seeing the CL ad, I'm looking at my bike in the stolen property room. It'll take a few months to work through the legal system, but I've already struck a deal with the insurance company to buy it back, and I should get it back sometime this summer.

The thief nicked my bike from my garage (still don't know how the door went up) and pawned it later that day, signing a form swearing that it was his bike (that's a felony). He provided his name, ID and cellphone number, and the pawn shop gave him $80. (Eight Zero. Scroll up and read that description again.) A guy walked in a few months later, paid $900 for the bike (still way too low), changed pedals and rode it - he estimated - ten miles. His daughter had a trip planned, cash was tight, so he put it up on CL for $1,000. A cop knocked on the door a few days later and left with the bike.

Lessons for everybody out there: 1) Make your bike a little unique (it was in my team's livery, one of only a dozen built like it); 2) Record your frame S/N (the LBS and I both missed that one); 3) If you mount a GPS, record the S/N and internal BIOS ID number (the S/N can be removed, but not the BIOS number); 4) Take good photographs; and 5) If it goes missing, tell the world - you never know who's going to see it, remember it, and forward a link.

dstrong 

Since my bike was stolen from my garage 6 years ago I've recorded all the serial numbers on the bike and lock the bikes when not in use. My Schwinn never showed up.

kv501

Did they catch the guy who stole it?

Street Pedaler

^^^^^ This.

Congrats on getting it back. Sometimes the good guys actually win one. Lucky day.

bikecrate

Glad you're going to get your bike back.

I wonder does the pawn shop have to pay back the money they made on it?

Bobsled

But don't carbon framed bike just use a sticky-back label for the S/N? That can easily be removed. I photographed my 3 bikes but only the Litespeed actually has the S/N stamped into it while the other 2 are stickers. I didn't think of recording the BIOS Number of my Edge 500.

I keep mine chained in a locked garage with the dog in the back yard and the neighbor's security camera focused right at the only enterance to it 24/7.

therhodeo

Glad to hear about your bike. Sorry about the whole sooner thing though.

MikeyBoyAz

Awesome Story! Personally I would be to anxious to keep the bike in the garage... mine is in the living room... oddly enough the wife doesn't mind. She's happy I get the workout.

eippo1

Wow, cool. So are you going to keep both? Sounds like you are. I'd assume that the guy who bought the bike gets the $900 back because the shop sold stolen goods.

Sooner Rider

thehodeo - I play both sides - My wife is an OU grad, but her daughter and our money go to OSU. I save my venom for motorists who tell me that I'm riding on their road.

I omitted some of the details - The pawn shop did not return the guy's $900 right away, although I was told by the detective that reputable pawn shops usually do. Inference understood. I believe that the pawn shop is obligated to return the money.

The detective knocked on the bad guy's door a few times and spoke with him by phone, and he agreed to come in for questioning but didn't. So a warrant was issued for his arrest. If he can't be found/fails to appear/starts dragging this thing out, then there's a process to return stolen property to its rightful owner, which is me now that I've struck a deal with my insurer. It will be months - not weeks - but not many months I'm told.

amandadun

What an awesome story!

AltheCyclist

I'd have been more surprised to hear about a bike for sale on craigslist that wasn't stolen.

therhodeo

I'm a non grad KU fan who just happens to live here. I enjoy the atmosphere of a college town though. What team do you ride for? I assume from the Cannondale and Velo that you're a Schlegel guy?

Sooner Rider

Steve and Marty take very good care of me. I was in OKC Velo, but three consecutive years of medical issues (2009 beta blockers, 2010 bad crash & 2011 asthma diagnosis) have beaten me down pretty badly. I hope that this year is better because I look like a real poseur riding my Cervelo at those low speeds!

therhodeo

You should come up here and ride sometime. We've got some great hilly roads around here and a pretty good club if you're not looking for super fast race type riding.

MikeyBoyAz

Thats funny

Seattle Forrest

I love this story, it's wonderful!

Having lost a bike to thieves, I had always wondered what might happen if I had had insurance, got it to pay for the bike, and then it turned up later. Now I know.

There have been people breaking into homes and stealing bikes, among other things, in my neighborhood lately.

RT

Good plot, nice character development, great ending! A while back I read a post about a dude who stuffs a business card down the seat tube, something I have done ever since.

alexaschwanden

interesting story, glad you got your bike back.

LemondFanForeve

You said you posted flyers in local pawnshops, was the shop who sold it one of those? If so, they can get into even more trouble, as they knowingly sold stolen property. I would definitely mention that to the cops. The ps couldve taken your flyer down & so forth. They sound VERY shady to begin with.

Jed19

What is it with pawnshops? I do not know anything about these "underbelly" of society, but it seems to me that it does not take a rocket scientist to figure that a guy that is willing to take $80 for an almost two thousand dollar bike is most likely not the "owner" of that bike.

Are these pawnshops (some or most of them) complicit in fencing stolen properties? I don't mean to libel/slander anyone, but are pawnshops criminal sometimes, in that they know/should know a stolen item from ten miles away?

IFLUX23

The guy who sold the bike is an idiot. So you were in good luck for the seller to be an idiot.


My friend who was going on a national championship race and was expected to win the big race because he finished second the year before had his super road bike in which he spent around $12000, a full carbon frame and fork plus dura-ace Di2 drive train and great wheelset. The guy was planning to go for a pro in the future.

What was amazing (in a bad way) about how his bicycle was stolen is this:
My friend first left the bicycle in the bicycle station, earth-locked with two keys and one U-locks for extra safety. However, one day, there was a paper taped on the bicycle saying "This bike is excellent. Please sell this bike, we will buy it with good offer". The friend got scared and quickly organized his small apartment room and put his bike in there. Few weeks later, his home got broken in and he became a victim of robbery. What was only stolen in his room was his bike. His bike got stolen two days before the race.
My friend of course went to the police, but of course, that isn't going to work most of the time. My friend put posters of his missing bike, and he went to the lawyer to write him a bill of indictment to give it to the police to make the police actually look for the bike. The bike isn't found yet.

What the ****, right?


The only good thing is that he had insurance on his bike so he did get enough money to buy another bike, but he had to cancel his race, and it was all chaos.



So I'm really glad you got your bike back.

PinkBabyMonster

There was a woman here recently who had her bike stolen, saw it posted on craigslist, and met with the seller. When she determined it was definitely her bike, she 'test rode' it, then threw it in her car and drove off. Win.

3373jones

i had a set of dura ace wheels stolen out of the back of my truck during a triathlon - at 5:30am (the back of the truck locks, but a window was broken into - they were also in a wheelbag, so you couldn't tell what wheels they were... fortunately, i was racing my carbon wheels). 4 mo later, they appeared on CL. I called the police depart where i filed the stolen property report... took a good 2 days of phone calls to finally convince them to help me out. Finally, they agreed to have a team meet the seller with me - they confiscated the wheels and had me "ID" them (i didn't have serial number or anything, but i had replaced two spokes, which were obviously different) - so they gave me the wheels right then and there. they didn't want to go through paper work. The seller claimed to have bought the wheels from someone who walked into a bike shop trying to sell them.

at the same time, i also has my bike pump stolen from the back of my truck (seriously?) - never got that or the wheelbags back.