To top off a start to a very bad week, both my wife and myself awoke to our two bikes stolen off the back of our car last night, locks cut off. We have been staying in the Travelodge in Richmond since we learned upon arrival into town (from Wisconsin) that the apartment we were promised still does not have a roof.
We are both extremely stressed. All of our belonging, besides what we had in the car, are still in the ABF truck shipping which we still don’t have a location ready to receive. We are living like hobos, my wife’s PhD program is starting and I haven’t found a job yet… I guess I’m just venting here.
that sucks.
i’m no where nearby, and doubt your bikes will be showing up in philly, but you have all my sympathies. i remember starting up my doctorate program, more stress was not what i needed.
hang in there.
-charles
HOLY shit. We reported the loss an hour ago, officer came 30 minutes ago… while the officer was talking to us, a nice lady / gardener at a nearby church was trimming some bushes and found our bikes shoved deep inside. There is no way anyone would have seen them without prying branches away, she only looked because she was upset about the broken branches. She called the police and they called us while we were talking to the officer. We picked up our bikes 5 minutes ago, all is good. Bikes are now laying comfortably in our hotel bed. My body is still pulsing with adrenaline.
They will not be fingerprinted, I’m just happy to have them back. We learned from our mistake. As tempted as I am to wait around tonight to see who goes to visit that bush, I think I’ll just leave them a note.
Alls well, that ends well. Having found my bike tied to a bike rack with one last hanging thread on the cable lock many years ago (the thief must have been scared away at the last minute), the bike always comes inside. Looks like we were both lucky.
Reminds me of my early college days, we got a knock on our door one night, Mr. Police man was there with my roomates checkbook, seems, and I am paraphrasing here, “Dumb Leon tried to cash your check at the local check cashing place”, my roomate didn’t even know he was missing it, this all went down in about three hours.
Wow! Amazing result. Chances of that happening were zero…but after this, odds of getting a stolen bike back have increased to 1:5,000,000.
Years of traveling around to bike races and seeing many bikes stolen revealed that a lock is only a deterrent to somebody that would never think of stealing a bike. It’s merely decoration to a thief, so it’s best to never leave your bike on the car unless it’s moving.
After having a motorcycle stolen in a small town with no crime, my outlook is now solidly cynical: If it’s not bolted to the ground, it will be gone…and even that doesn’t work some of the time.
Glad to hear you got them back. Vancouver is the bike theft capital of the world, too bad you didn’t know that or you would never have left your bikes locked the way that you did.
For anyone else who has a bike stolen in Vancouver. Make sure to report it to these guys