IPassGas

2017, we were touring in the Gaspe peninsula (Quebec). We camped in a small rural campground with no other campers. We tour on a tandem. I normally put the bike close to our tent, but it was raining so I put it 50 feet away in an overhang. I locked it with a small ulock, but I was tired and no one else was around, so I didn’t use the cable we carry to join it to something substantial. When I woke in the morning the bike was gone. This was before coffee, I thought I was dreaming. I call out to my wife that our bike was gone. Thinking I’m joking to get her up, she said…stop it, I’m tired. We looked around for a while and found nothing, the feeling of despair was strong. I called a regional constable but it would take them sometime to get to us. Lost our transportation and still no coffee. I wandered off somewhere on a trail to find someone to ask for a ride. Perhaps 1000 ft along the trail, there was the bike laying in tall grass, still locked. The thief had dragged the bike to that point and apparently gave up and stole the tool kit from the bike. I really liked that tool kit.

kroozer 

My Motobecane Grand Jubile along with my brother's Grand Touring were stolen from the high school bike rack back in 1977. They were locked but they really stood out among the sea of low-end bikes. I was of course heart-broken, but a friend had seen the kids (a couple of low-lifes at school) steal them, so that pretty much changed everything. My dad drove to school to pick us up and we headed over to their house. We hadn't even arrived when I saw one of them riding my bike down the street. When he saw us he dropped it ran, but I chased him down, tackled him, and dragged him back to the car. I had thought I wanted to kill him, but I had my bike back and I couldn't get myself to hit him or anything. My dad called the cops and they picked him up. We got the Grand Touring back a day or so. I still have the Jubile.

thinktubes 

Yeah, this was around 1990 in Urbana, Illinois.

It was almost 2 years after it had gotten stolen. I definitely didn’t have a plan and went on instinct. Older and wiser now.

rustystrings61 

I had forgotten about this one -

In the early '80s I picked up a used Raleigh DL-1 Tourist to replace the too-small Frankenbiked Raleigh Sports I had been commuting on. And I LOVED that bike, because on poorly maintained road surfaces in town it just glided along. You could cross the railroad tracks at Pressley and Seaboard and not even feel it, it was that smooth.

So one day I had left it unlocked in the rack behind the theater department - complete with the lock coiled up under the saddle. I got dragooned into going to help my mother do a grocery run, then was unable to get back to the bike until the next morning. Of course it was gone. But a few days later, my father was in town, and we were driving somewhere when I saw a 13 or 14-year-old kid on the bike. We turned around and followed, and lo, there was a police car. I flagged the cop down, he stopped the kid, and I walked up, pulled the key from my pocket and unlocked the lock beneath the saddle. Cop took the kid in, and we took my bike home.

It had been trashed - trigger shifter and cable gone, brake linkages and rear stirrup missing, fenders pulled off, stuck in high gear. I wanted to see if the parts taken were still in the kid's possession so I could put it back to rights, but my mother absolutely wigged out over the fear of some sort of retaliation and insisted I drop the whole matter. In the end, I sold the bike to the LBS, the rear rim was relaced to a 20-hole coaster brake drilled out to 40 holes and ridden by some tall guy, and I wound up buying an early Schwinn World Sport converted to a single-speed coaster brake.

2wheeljonz 

Three bikes stolen; one in my youth and two as an adult. None were ever recovered.
The one in my youth was when I was about 11. It was my first new bike and I bought it myself with earnings from a summer job. It was stolen while I was at a Wednesday youth church meeting. My mom took me out of school the next day to check the bike racks at elementary schools in the area. No luck. My parents said that since I was where I was supposed to be they would buy me a replacement bike. While I appreciated their generosity, the one they bought was a brush painted, heavy clunker with balloon tires.
‘The second one was as a newly married student living in an apartment. I was using it as transportation to ride to college so my wife could use the car to get to work. I had put it outside on our carport while we did some cleaning inside. When I went to bring it back in, it was gone. It was my first “nice” bike; a Centurion Super LeMans bought in 1972.
The third bike was the one that replaced the Centurion; a ‘75 or ‘76 Raleigh Gran Prix. I was starting to get into bikes at that time and was and was proud of having a bike with a Reynolds 531 frame. It went with us to dental school and I would frequently use it to commute the 13 miles to school. The school was a seven story building near downtown San Francisco. It had underground parking with a gated, guarded entrance. I felt confident parking it down there chained to a large water pipe out of sight of the general public. One day I came out to find it gone with the cut chain lying on the ground. I figured it had to be one of the school employees that stole it because of the guarded entrance/exit and the chain being cut with bolt cutters.
The only good thing about the last two being stolen was that the replacement bike was an upgrade. The Raleigh was replaced with a ‘77 0r ‘78 Trek 714 (?) with a silver soldered 531 frame that I bought from Presidio Bike Shop.

DiabloScott

I've heard a lot of tricks like this - one was to put a business card type ID in the seatpost with a note like "if you find this note, the bike was stolen from me, please call". Then if a legit mechanic has reason to pull the seatpost out for some reason, they might call. I don't know of any time something like this worked.

As far as proving the bike is yours - each of my bikes has a photo page with serial numbers and receipts and such - I could pull it up on my phone in seconds. But the cops probably won't do anything unless you filed a report.

Best story I heard was a guy that had his custom bike stolen, and he had his name on a professional decal. He found the bike, found a cop, and the thief said "oh yes, this here ... Roberto Squadra bike is mine", and the owner told the cop - "My name is Roberto Squadra and this bike was custom made for me and here's my driver's license".

USAZorro

I'm 0-4 lifetime. All occurred between 1970-1981. Would really like the Fireball back.

bharrisonb

The bike I took cross country in 1979 ( NYC to Vancouver,BC) was stolen in 1980 ... never saw it again.

Here is was, fully loaded (a Panasonic frame with Suntour Cyclone / Sugino components) , along with all that remains ... the freewheel which I needed to replace after the ride (broken teeth, etc.).

3875 miles in 60 days ...


My bike at the start ... George Washington Bridge, NYC

All that remains ... the freewheel mounted on a display plaque

L134 

1982 Trek 720 stolen 3/26/17, frame recovered 6/25/18 through a bikeindex listing.


as set up before theft. Bags did not get stolen.

As recovered

Last week

easyupbug 

We have lived on an acreage on the edge of town and in the last forty years have had three bikes dumped just off the road to our place, an MTB and a hybrid together and years later a Viscount w/ the Tange death fork replacement. I reported serial numbers and descriptions to authorities and stolen bike registries and still have them in the hanger.

blacknbluebikes 

I found a man riding my stolen bike, but I killed him on the spot and never told anyone until now.
Totally worth it.

santa fe 2926 

omijay 

I had a similar thing happen in college with a Schwinn bike many years ago. I had a beater Schwinn I got as a kid that we used as a group bike in the house I shared with four other people. It was used on a first come first serve basis, but never locked it. One day it was stolen while one of my flatmates was in class. He originally thought someone else in the house had taken it as this was considered fair game between the five of us. About a week later, we realized someone had actually stolen it. We were all shocked and amazed as we thought this was the bike that would never be stolen. It looked that bad. About 2 months later I saw it in front of another building on campus unlocked in a bike stand, and I just took it and rode it home. Since it was a bike I had performed a custom paint job on as a 10 year old , there was no case of mistaken identity. After its recovery the bike needed a few minor adjustments from some serious neglect (who knows where it had been), but it served us unlocked for another two years until we graduated. This was in the 1970s, so gun violence was less prevalent and never a consideration. I guess I might be more careful in todays world. In case anyone is wondering, yes the bike was way to small for everyone, but it served the purpose.

jonwvara 

"Mister Natural, where will it all end?"

robobike316 

I've had 2 stolen and 2 recovered. First a friend found and grabbed it from the guy. Second I saw in front of a coffee shop and promptly put my lock on it. An argument ensued between me and the new owner who likely bought it cheaply and knew it was stolen. Police came and eventually after describing a few things about the bike that could not have been known the police let me have it back.

lasauge 

1 of 2 was recovered - thief made the mistake of taking both stolen bikes directly to a pawn shop. Sadly the pawn shop only took in the newer one, and not the actually much nicer but older bike with C&V components they didn't think they could resell...

jonwvara 

When I worked at a bike and mountain-equipment shop in Burlington, Vermont many years ago, one of the bike mechanics--a really nice guy named Bill--had his Subaru stolen. It was a rusted beater, but the only car he and his wife owned. When he went to the cops, they didn't seem very interested in finding it once they heard what a junker it was, so Bill spent the next few months looking for it himself, and finally found it parked in the lot at the Holiday Inn, as I recall. He told the cops where it was, and they got it back and even nabbed the thieves, who were a couple of local teens who kept it parked where he'd found it when they weren't joy-riding around town. But the great part of the story is that the kids were apparently interested in cars, and had done some work on it--changed the oil, replaced the spark plugs, and installed one of those loud glass-pack mufflers. It even had a full tank of gas. So it all worked out pretty well, except for the thieves themselves.

bulgie 

Maybe 15 years ago I bought a bike on ebay, a very nice circa-1970 Frenchie, brand unknown. I didn't work on it for a long time, a year at least, because I couldn't get the stem out of the steerer, so I set it aside and forgot about it. Finally melted out the stem, and began setting it up. On disassembly, I found the BB spindle had "this bike stolen from" (with his name and phone number) lightly engraved in it with one of those vibratory metal engravers. I called the number and he answered. He said that bike was stolen in 1974! I asked if he wanted it back, and he said no, keep it. He was not young in '74, and was by then too old to ride any bike. Too much time had passed between the ebay sale and the overhaul, so there was no going back to ebay about it either. Oh well. Sometimes crime does pay.

The wife and I have gotten 2.5 bikes back that were stolen. Two that came back pretty much intact and one where we only got the frame (no fork), the seatpost, and the BB spindle and bearings. I built the frame, a Ti MTB XC-racer (hardtail), in '94. Luckily the bike shop selling the frame believed me, because I had no proof, other than it was a one-of-a-kind custom I made for my wife, so there was no doubt in my mind. It was a stripped-down frame, no parts, but then I found the BB for sale there too, on a different day. I had machined the Ti BB spindle down to make it shorter -- I milled all 8 faces of the tapers on both ends, plus shortening it from the ends, to bring the cranks in narrower (lower "Q"). So it too was a one-of-a-kind custom, and they let me have that too, "on my own recognizance".

Then years later I found the custom Ti seatpost I had made for it, at a swap meet. At a table for a local bike co-op, a charity. The guy wouldn't give it back to me, so I had to buy it! The thief (or the bike shop) had shortened it (it was very long originally), so we couldn't put it back on the wife's MTB, but it was nice to have it back anyway. Maybe it'll go on a bike someday but I just like having it as a keepsake, one of the very few examples I have of my work as a Ti framebuilder. I never got around to making one for myself! The superlight XC-racer frame got repurposed as a utility/hauler, making it one of the most silly-light grocery-getters I have ever seen.

The RockShox Mag-21 originally on the bike had been tuned for a light rider, and lightened considerably by me, mostly in the crown but also some other parts had been shaved down. It is my fond hope that the thief lost some teeth when the crown broke, assuming he was heavier than the rider it was tuned for. The cranks had also been milled down for lightening, and the wheels were scary-light too, so plenty of ways the thief could have gotten hurt. If there's any justice in this world.

The other two recovered stolen bikes have stories too, but I have told them here already (probably) and this is too much typing already...

-Mark B

nlerner

My Trek 412, purchased new in December 1982, was stolen outside the Menlo Park, CA, Caltrans station around 1989. I may or may not have locked it up as I had a bit of a hate-hate relationship with that bike. It was initially perfectly fine, but I collided head one with another cyclist on Stanford's campus a year or two after buying it, which bent the top and downtubes but left the fork perfectly fine. I continued to ride it, twitchy handling and all, and even sent a letter to Trek in Waterloo, WI, complaining that the fork should have absorbed the impact of that crash, but they didn't respond. Once it was stolen, I felt some relief that I didn't need to ride it anymore and anticipation that the thief would crash on a gnarly descent.

thumpism 

That reminds me that I did recover the stolen Witcomb of my then-boss. It had been taken from his garage and some time later I was driving with my girlfriend to a Fourth of July cookout when I spotted the bike being ridden. Followed the guy for a couple of miles until he rode into some woods and I followed on foot. Confronted him and unwisely wrestled the bike away from him. He could have hurt me. Anyway, drove straight to the shop and parked the bike in the work area, then went to the cookout. Got in early the next morning so I could see his expression, which was priceless.

Velo Mule

celesteguy 

My girlfriend at the time's Bianchi was stolen from a bike rack in front of her studio while she was working inside. It had a Brooks saddle and Shimano 600/Sante components. Near and dear to her. She called me crying when she went outside and found out it was gone.

I said, "Well, it's not gone. It's somewhere," and I asked her how long ago it could have happened. She said it happened in the last two hours.

I went over to her studio that was in a large art district with one way in and one way out. "I'm going to look for it," I told her. I went out the only exit, and onto the main street. I started thinking like a thief. Looked to my right: massive hill. To my left: Flat. I turned left. Immediately there was a dirt road to the left which got you off of the main road. Took the dirt road. It turned to pavement eventually, and on that street I saw three kids on bikes, one of them on my girlfriends bike.

I rode up on my bike as fast as I could, braking hard right up on them, visibly scaring them, and sternly said, "give me that ****ing bike back."

The kid had the nerve to act like he didn't know what I was talking about. And I said "Get off the ****ing bike," in the meanest voice I could muster. He was off the bike and handing it back before I finished the sentence. Ghost rode it back to my girlfriend, and she couldn't believe that I had recovered it and so soon. I couldn't either. I threatened the kid without threatening him explicitly since he was a minor and I'm not going to hurt anyone anyway, to stay way from the art district, and to never touch someone else's bike.

I was actually impressed that the kid had already fished the multi-tool out of the bike's seat bag and used it to set the setpost at a correct height for himself.

Anyway, as I recall, girlfriend bought me dinner