ha ha... I guess my definition of decent and yours probably are not the same.
van= early-mid 90s touring van, "late" as in "not recent".
I live in a working class part of DC. Folks around here throw out or abandon beat-up entry and occasionally mid-level touring and road bikes from the 70s and 80s--not tons, but I run across a few in fields and alleys every once in a while. Maybe they are stolen, and broken/abandoned on joy rides. Looks like most of them are just utility riders (inverted handle bars, rust, etc.) that get tossed aside when they break down. The one I found last night was neither of these, it was an early 2000 model, decent quality ($2000 range) road bike, torn, not sawn, in two pieces, across the top tube and down tube and no way could anybody have done that joyriding. But I could see some clueless doofus throwing it on the side of the road--"uh, it's broke, I'll just toss it."
Anyways, no sh*t I have a notion it could stolen, was I not clear about that? The question is: what should I do about it? How do I go about finding its owner if it is?
re: unattended bikes. is it bike theft to take home and fix up an abandoned, non-functional bike that is going to get junked anyways? I'm not so sure I like your insinuation that I'm on the prowl to grab up bikes on porches, etc., or any other place attaching ownership. If this was the case, don't you think I probably would NOT be posting on a cycling bulletin board about an ethical dilemma regarding an abandoned bike?
If anyone has a good line on cheap, good quality second-hand fixie-compatible frames in the DC area, I'd love to hear it. Value Village in College Park is not cutting it; College Park bikes is mostly super high-end; Goodwill is totally hit-and-miss and usually crap; shaw ecovillage has like 4 bikes.