KraneXL

Locked my bike outside of the rec. center just to return at closing to find that it had been stolen. After scouring the neighborhood for over an hour I finally gave up searching for it, and consider it my tough luck. Dishearten, since I hadn't owned the bike for that long, I walked to the near by bus stop to go home.

As I was sitting at the stop with my head down lamenting over my loss, some guy walked up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a bike. Extremely annoyed at hearing some peddler rubbing in the salt at this of all times. I looked up to tell him to piss off and glanced over at the bike just to notice something very familiar about it.

Well I guess you can figure out the rest of the story? I guess the moral here is, fate can sometimes have a strange way of teaching us a lesson. Both for me, and the bike thief.

livedarklions

When I was a kid, we would often find bikes stolen from our yard within a few blocks. Sometimes I think they just took it to joyride, but your story makes me think some thieves are just too stupid to figure out what to do with their "find."
I take it you got your bike back. Did thief keep his teeth?

backonblack

Balloons too dude, caaaamon I know your still reading take the damn balloons or Ill lose it &^%$ ^%$$!!! Im just so damn mad BRO who can refuse balloons ^%$#

JessicaSinclair

When i was in high school i parked my bike at the bike rack in my school, by lunch time my bike got stolen. 2 weeks later i saw a guy riding my bike he also went to my school but he had repainted some stuff but i know my bike pretty well. I told the head master he then called the cops and the guy was arrested and i got my bike back luckily there were no damages aside from the crappy paint job he added.

freeranger

No theft story to share, but I do have a tip. Leave your quick release loosened when your bike is parked. If someone tries to steal your entire bike, it might end up with a scratch or two, but might save your bike from being stolen!

Rootman

Stopped to get a bite to eat. Took everything I could off, including my Garmin Edge 200 computer. Came back and the Garmin's mount was gone. I thought perhaps the rubber bands just broke and it fell off, but nope, no bands or base anywhere around there. It cost like $15 bucks for a replacement! Grrrr.

Metieval

you can also scratch your name into the seat post on the part in the frame. most people that steal bikes (out side of chop shops) won't know. but if the police are involved it's game over for the guy riding your bike around.

Metieval

people knowingly steal $1 lighters, I wouldn't ever put it past cyclist to steal from cyclist. mounts, lights etc.....

Actually on the tubes, lights, tire levers, frame pumps, QR skewers being stolen, I am pretty damn sure it is cyclist stealing that stuff!

blue192

I had my seat and seat post stolen once on my Jamis Allegro 3x bike only four days after I purchased it.... and less than a block away from Parliament with 100s of cops around too.

DimplePimple

Countless blinkies. The $3 type.
Bike lock in a rack pack. Abus u-lock with no key.
Detachable rear fender in a rainstorm.
Come out a pharmacy to find a guy with quick-releases off and going for the hydraulic brakes. Bike was a week old.

livedarklions

Those $3 blinkies come off by themselves so easy that it's never occurred to me they might be getting stolen. Now you've got me wondering.

nslckevin

A bit over 20 years ago I was living in Davis, CA where my wife was going to school and commuting by bike to my job in Sacramento, CA. One morning I went out to the garage to hop on my bike and it was very empty. The thieves stole my road bike, my TT bike, my wife's road bike and some wheels, etc.

The "funny" part of the story is this. I had a Zipp disk wheel IN my TT bike. The thieves took the disk wheel OFF and put on some other ****ty clincher I had laying around, leaving the disk. Also, I had a one gallon jug of Tri Flow in the garage. They stole my ****ing Tri Flow.

They left a $1000+ disk wheel and stole my Tri Flow.

rollagain

It must not have been on their shopping list that day.