Was the bike in a place where lots of people were walking by? Maybe that was in your favor. Just wondering, what do you use for a lock in a situation like that?

It was outside the gym at night with 1-2 people walking by, the bike rack held like 10 bikes, all pretty broken down beaters.
I had a u-lock for the frame and a cable loop around the wheels into the u-lock.

Sounds lucky to me. Especially in the dark. I've started to use a pannier, so I can throw the lights or the computer etc. into the pannier and the pannier is easier to remove than a seat pack or a strap on rack bag to bring inside. That's something I never hear about, most panniers go off and on very quickly. I make my lights as easy to remove as possible. It's great until you toss a taillight into the bag and it turns on inside the bag. I just check that now.

Be grateful that they didn't take the bike. Where I work, a halfway house for people getting their lives back, some of their only transportation is bicycles. This week 5 bikes were stolen, one recovered. And these aren't top of the line bikes. I feel bad for the dudes in the house, like I said, for some it's their sole transportation until they get enough scratch for a bus card. A couple of their housemates were joking about the going rate for crack is a good MTB. I suppose I could get on my soapbox about the war on drugs and stuff, but I don't have any answers. I have a couple old ten speeds that will magically appear in the bike rack. They'll be used or stolen. I'm tired of tripping over them.

I wonder if the house could find a sponsor to put some U locks on the bike rack? Or something along those lines?

They tried to take my brakelight a few weeks ago too. I guess they gave up when they saw it was hardwired.