Originally Posted by mtb_addict

Possession is nine-tenths of the law

which means you'll have a hard time proving you're the lawful owner since whoever locked it up has "possession" of the bike...
so they start out with 9 points and you have only 1 point. You have to score 9 points to win.

but thieves are often very dumb...so they often quickly confess under pressure

This reminds me of the movie: the guy follows the bike thieve (a teenage) home. He knocked on the door and asked to talk to the parent...and asked the parent about the bike...the parent realized his son could never have afforded such a nice bike...proceeded returned the bike to the rightful owner without incident...and the theif afterward got a deserved beating from Dad.