oneclick 

Just read a post on the local buy&sell site, fellow posted to say thank you to all who helped him get his bike back; I was one in a very small way, told him to keep trying, tell EVERYONE, post in the bike shops, tell the street people...that's what I did when a bike got stolen and I got it back.

So, have you, and how did it work out?

p.s. reading his post made my ******* day.

Reynolds 

Years ago, I had my old clunker stolen from my building entranceway. Usually left it there unlocked, one night I came back and it wasn't there. I had the feeling that no one would ride this bike and like it, so I went searching for it on foot... and there it was, 2 blocks away, under a tree!
True story.

r0ckh0und 

Not bike related but..........A couple of years ago my mother left her purse in her shopping cart in the parking lot of a big box store with about $500 in cash not to mention all her personal effects. About a week later a gentleman brought it to her front door completely intact, which was about a 45 minute drive from where she left it.

repechage

None recovered.

I keep hoping with CL and eBay that one bike will resurface. An early twin plate Masi GC from Carlsbad. Stolen in 1976.
one day, hopefully.

bikingshearer 

About a month ago, occasional Forumite pohlf got his stolen Melton back after five years. Really Here's the story and some pics (scroll to post #17).

Eyes Roll

Not a bike, but lost a laptop bag, containing a laptop, external hard drive, thumb drive, speakers, books, DVDs, etc. worth $1,000 to a theft from my car in a McDonald's parking lot. Had the laptop bag in my car's rear seat (without locking the car doors, stupid me, I was in a hurry), went into the fast food joint to grab the mobile order, and went back to work to only find the whole laptop bag missing.

I filed a police complaint, posted it on Craigslist and stuck brightly colored posters in the McDonald's parking lot offering a reward of $1,000. No Cigar.

Now flip the script... I've found cell phones on the street twice on two different occasions and returned to the actual owners by calling one of the people in their contacts.

Moral of the story: Only Good Samaritans who find the lost articles will return. Not the police, who apparently have much bigger problems to worry about. Or, maybe, finding the public's lost articles aren't worth their time, so they do not care.

Desert Ryder

I've only had one bike stolen from me. I was in elementary school. New York, Sometime in the ealry 70's I had my bike stolen off our front porch, Base housing for Stewart Army Annex Base now N.Y. Stewart International Airport.
Our mailman found it a few miles up the road in a trailer park and brought it back to our house. I still remember his name was Herman.
It was exactly like this one, flamboyant gold color LOL

thinktubes 

Twice

In grade school, a had a Stingray with a chopper fork get stolen. Cops found it a year later in a field outside of town. The sun had faded the paint on one side and the tires rotted. Lots of rust.

In college, I gave my girlfriend a vintage beater Schwinn Hornet, which she refused to lock up. It was stolen off our porch one night.

About a year later, I was coming back into town from a ride in the country and I saw the Schwinn leaning on the side of a house. I did a quick u-turn and knocked on the door.

A college girl answered and I said “that bike next to your house was stolen off my porch”. She replied “that’s my boyfriends’ bike - do you want to talk to him?”. I replied “no - I’m just going to take my bike back”. Nobody tried to stop me, but I could feel many eyes watching me as I left.

repechage

Brave man in today’s world, marginal foolhardy, you had might and right on your side.

DiabloScott

I bought a used mountain bike, had it for a few months before I left it on my roof rack overnight and it got stolen.
I had good renter's insurance, so they bought me a brand new bike for the deductible.
Then the cops called and said they stopped a guy and they ran the bike's serial number and found my report and said I could come get the stolen bike.
Picked it up, told the insurance company about it and they said it was theirs now, and I told them I had a friend who wanted to buy it so they sold it to him for about half of what I paid.
Friend rode it to work for a few months and then someone stole it from HIM.
Then his insurance company bought him a brand new bike.

50PlusCycling

My old Fixie was stolen, it was locked to a light pole in front of my apartment, and one morning it was gone. I found it about 3 months later, minus the seat and rear wheel, in a pile of junk bikes by the Sumida River.

Insidious C. 

My Daccordi was stolen in early 90s. Found it some weeks later at a local bike store. Luckily I had a police report and original receipt with detailed documentation.

thumpism 

Yep. Had a polished Giant ATX 890 frame that I'd built up and had it in my van with my laptop bag in my (urban, just off an alley) driveway. Someone broke in and got 'em. Never saw the bag and contents again but I put up flyers in shops in town and got a call from one a few days later. Being prepared for this I went over with a cable lock, walked in and spotted the bike and locked it to something in the showroom. Some random guy asked me what the hell I was doing and I flashed the flyer I carried on me and suggested we call the police. They arrived and spoke with us and, upon seeing my flyer with the serial number matching the one on the bike, let me take it home. I think they busted the guy for having stolen property, but before I left he had the nerve to ask me if I'd reimburse him for what he'd spent to buy my bike.

jPrichard10 

I recovered my first ever road bike: a Panasonic Sport 500. It was not a great bike, but I didn't know it at the time; it was a Christmas gift that saved me from walking 50 minutes home every Sunday morning after my overnight shift. I learned how to do everything on that bike by replacing the garbage components with different garbage components (but I thought they looked cooler) from the local co-op. I also learned the important lesson: a hidden bike is not a locked bike. Stolen from my porch where it wasn't visible from the street.

I scanned Craigslist for almost a year until it popped up. There aren't many Panasonic bikes in Spokane, WA. $25 and a really bad picture confirmed for me that it was a stolen bike, even if it wasn't mine. I was at work though, and somehow convinced them to meet me at a coffee shop so I could test ride the bike (the coffee shop being my place of employment). One burly customer, an enthusiastic regular, was maybe more excited than I was. He acted as bodyguard while I rode the bike around the block. I didn't need to test ride it, I just had to get the bike in my hands before I told them that it was mine and I wouldn't be paying them. I told them I had called the non-emergency line (true) and that the police were on their way (false). I also showed them how I had written my name in sharpie on the handlebars under the cloth bar tape, which they were impressed by.

I don't think the young couple that sold me the bike stole it, but they certainly knew it was stolen. And while it was a rush, I had already upgraded to a much better steed: a Centurion Accordo with moustache handlebars. I couldn't believe how much I had "upgraded" in less than a year. I gave the Panasonic to a bike-less friend.

Still, as it was my first bike theft experience, it gave me an unrealistic expectation of bicycle recovery. When my second (and hopefully last!) bike was stolen out of the supply room of an English school I taught at, I spent four or five years checking every local city's Craigslist for it. But there's a lot more Miyatas out there than Panasonics.


​​​​​

DiTBho

Usually when I ride a road bike I don't park it to go into a shop. I usually travel long distances and during stops to fill the two bottles when they are empty I never lose sight of the bike. So I never go into a supermarket, and if I have to buy fruit (bananas and apples), I do it in those shops where you can park your bike in front of the window, very close to the door so you never lose sight of it and if someone gets too close I can run immediately towards the it.

Paranoia? Even to get an ice cream?

Well, an ice cream and flirting with a too cute ice cream seller girl cost me to stay on foot about 150km from home, because while I was in the ice cream shop they stole my bicycle.

I have even more paranoia about the titanium 90ish bicycle I'm building.

Not so much for the value, we are not talking about a Passoni, nor a DeRosa, but about a completely wrong and uncompleted handcrafted frame that I have been working on for years, and which I am fond of precisely because of the number of hours I am spending fixing it.

merziac

Way back in 7th grade the bike I first learned to work on was a Sears Krate version sting ray, thieves snapped a crappy lock and it was gone.

Later I proceeded to stupidly get 3 more pretty nice 10 speeds stolen, basically gave them away, none were locked but a nice clean Schwinn Continental was taken from inside a grocery store when I stopped to see my Mom who was shopping.

Many years later a nice upgraded Raleigh SC was stolen out of the bar I was at, police were there watching the thief but was around the corner and did not actually see them with my bike.

I got in the car with him and we proceeded to the house where the thief was associated with, no luck. cop followed up but still came up empty.

7-8 years later I went to look at KZ 1000 in Troutdale and the Raleigh was hanging up in the garage. Managed to get the Sheriff that knew this guy involved but didn't have the S/N, this guy produced a bogus receipt for a traded gun so no dice again and the statute had ran out.

Many years later my son picked up where I left off and let 4-5 bikes stolen, a couple were not his fault but the others were. I found his first one on CL, wound the seller up, went to the police, they didn't care much and by the time I got back to the seller he was spooked.

So no recoveries despite a few close calls.

Fortunately no more bikes stolen yet since I jumped back in, knock on wood.

DanseMacabre

In 2016 I had my bike stolen, a seventies Peugeot camping bike. It was locked overnight at the train station. I learned a lesson and after that always stored it in the guarded parking inside.

6 weeks later I was walking to an appointment in town through the snow. From the left, 20 meters away, I saw someone walking with my bike towards me. There can only be one of these in town He had added twin bags at the back and had a flat tire on the rear.

I told him "that is my bike" and he proceeded by taking his things off of it and handing it over to me. I didn't have a phone on me and had to go to an appointment, so that's where we split up.

The symbolic meaning of a bicycle is around sexuality. In respect to the Austin Powers movies, during these 6 weeks I felt very much that my mojo was gone (and came back).

Anyway, first photo of this topic



Peugeot camping bike 1977

oneclick 

Fork's bent.

DanseMacabre

It is? I never noticed. I will check later today.

Spaghetti Legs 

No, I have had 2 bikes stolen from me, both mtb, and not gotten them back. On a similar note I had a friend in SF in the early 90’s whose Honda Accord got stolen 3 or 4 times and the police would find it each time in worse and worse condition. One time the seats were gone. After the first time, she hoped she wouldn’t get it back but they kept finding it.

ascherer 

In my early days. Once I stopped riding my mid-60s Varsity it just collected dust. My older sister decided to ride it somewhere and it got pinched. Even though I was not in the least bit interested in that bike any longer, I was pissed. Not long after I spotted it parked and unlocked outside a local pizza joint, just a few blocks from home. I rolled up, grabbed it by the stem and rode home with it. TBH I don't remember what became of it after that. It had gotten kind of beat up and I was uninterested in fixing it up.

rustystrings61 

My father bought me a new unsold 1976 PuchRoyal X in 1978. I rode it lots and all over, did a three-day tour on it with the Southern Bicycle League, and generally loved it. It was modified from stock early on, and by 1982 it sported a wider range rear derailleur, Berthet platform pedals, a 6-speed SunTour Ultra freewheel, an Ideale 90 and a set of Weyless hubs on Mavic Montlhery tubular rims. During the years I rode it, it was the only one I ever saw, though allegedly there was one other one in Atlanta I heard about. Then I got into guitars, amps, cigarettes, and the bike languished. During a move to a new apartment in in 1986 or so I discovered there was a nasty vertical scar on the decal headbadge, and I remember feeling bummed and disappointed that I had allowed that to happen. I remember thinking, "Maybe I can find a replacement decal," and then went on with my day.

In 1987 I wasn't riding, and I sold that bike to a friend in Macon, Georgia because there was this blackface mid-60s Fender Vibroluxe Reverb Amp that I absolutely HAD to have. A couple of months later I thought better of it, and went to buy the bike back. Unfortunately, it had been stolen from my friend's backyard when he had ridden home to eat lunch. I was bummed, and kept an eye peeled, but no luck.

When I got back into bikes in '98, I discovered that the bikes I loved were now considered vintage. I remembered my old Puch and scoured the internet for one like it. For about a decade I actively looked for a white 23-in PuchRoyal X, with zero success - I could find white 21-in, or salmon-colored 23-in, but that was it. Eventually, I gave up and stopped looking.

In 2019 I was idly browsing FB marketplace and on a whim searched for "Puch." Up popped a white 23-in Puch Royal X in Stone Mountain, GA for $100. I studied the photos and found it odd that all the bits I had swapped out on mine were swapped out on this one, too - the replacement parts weren't MY replacement parts, but the rear derailleur, pedals, saddle, wheels, were all non-stock. It took me maybe an hour to arrange for the seller to take it to a shop there and collect his money, and for the shop to box it up and ship it to me.

When I pulled the bike from the box a couple of days later I was vibrating with excitement. I had wanted a Puch Royal X like my old one for many years, and at last I had one. Then I saw the distinctive scars on the headbadge from 1986, and realized it was my old bike from the late 70s. Here it is today -



Oh, yeah - I contacted the friend I had sold it to, because it was his when it was stolen. And being the prince of a guy that he is (he runs a large Meals on Wheels program) he simply gave it to me with his blessing. It was also nice that I got it back, and back running, in time to tell my father about it a couple of weeks before he passed.

Pompiere

When I was in the Navy, stationed at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Virginia, my Fuji Royale got stolen from the balcony in front of my barracks. Several days later, I say a guy riding it on the base. I confronted him and convinced him that I had proof that I was the rightful owner and he surrendered it without getting the police involved. He claimed he had bought it from a "friend". Two years later, the same bike was stolen a second time at the base in Alameda, California. After that, I never saw it again.

gthomson

There's a local guy in the city closest to me who is infamous for his bike shop, massive vintage bike collection and the antics he gets up to in his Instagram videos. One of his videos, he talks about his bike getting stolen. Not his good bike, but his grocery getter where he got it nicked. He then starts to video tape his search and find mission of riding around the city to the local homeless encampments where he figures he might find his bike. Sure enough, riding by one of the tent camps he sees the bike, walks into the encampment and says does anyone own this bike? no one speaks up and he grabs it and rides away with it.
Epic

storckm

I've had two bicycles stolen and never recovered either. The second one was a fixie, though. I found some of the stuff from my saddlebag in a nearby parking lot, and a few more items a little further away by the side of a MUP: I have to believe that the thief didn't know how to ride fixed and fell off at those points. (That does give me a little bit of rather grim satisfaction.)

But when we lived in an apartment, we left some bags of topsoil and manure near a fairly high retaining wall one evening. The next morning, they weren't there.

So my wife made a sign asking for them back, and, to our surprise, a day or two later someone brought them back and left them in the same spot.