Anyone ever catch someone in the act of stealing your bike?
 

If so, what did you do?

Years ago in Seattle I had my Cannondale mountain bike chained up outside Pacific Place. This was when the Helly Hansen store was still there. Anyway I come out and there was a guy trying like hell to unlock my bike. Turns out he had an identical bike chained up 2 racks over. We wound up exchanging email addresses and I went on some neat rides with him and his friends.

I was driving home, a block from my apartment in San Diego when I saw a little guy riding a bike identical to my Bianchi Eros. It was too big for him and he was dressed in street clothes.

I realized that he was on my bike, and I also realized that meant that our garage door was open, leaving my wife's things vulnerable. As a husband, which do you protect, your wife's stuff or yours. I got to my apartment and saw another fellow running away with my toolbox. I yelled at him to drop it and he did as he ran off.

When the cops came, they wanted to know why I hadn't run after the 2nd perp and apprehended him. You just never know.

Several months after we moved out of that apartment, a neighbor of ours came home to find someone across the street on a bike just like his wife's. He checked their porch and her bike was missing. He went across the street to get the bike back. All the man on the bike was willing to give him was a bullet. I don't know if his widow got her bike back.

What is your wifes stuff doing in the garage?

No but once I caught someone "aluminuming" my bike. :)

That's a real stupid question.

You seem to have poor judgement in picking a neighborhood. :)

Learn how to take a joke!!!

I believe your story but I would have thought twice about your new friend. Unless both bikes were absolutely pristine, I would be able to tell my bike from another even if it was the exact year, model and color. Not to mention the lock securing the bikes.. Though if he really was trying to steal it what's the chance his key would fot your lock,

God damn, that's crazy.

I was coming out of a grocery store w/ the wife one day and she asks " are both the bikes on the truck?" as we walk up to it. sure enough a cut cable lays on the ground and the clamping mechanism of my spare tire rack is bent to hell. Her trek hardtail is there but my GT rts isnt.

pissed off I start looking around the parkinglot, assuming someone saw something. 2 rows over I see this guy, sitting in his running car, staring at me. as I walk over to him he puts it reverse and starts pulling out. I run the rest of the way over to him and reach in his open window and grab him wheel as Im saying "wait hold on".

I look in the backseat and see my gt. I said thats my F'in bike really loud. he starts into a story about how some guy just sold it to him for $100, and how hes on probabtion and doesnt want any trouble, yada yada. I tell him I just want my bike back.

He gets out of the car, I reach in the back, see a small pair of bolt cutters on the floor, grab my bike, and walk away.

I know I should have reported him or restrained/kicked the living snot out of him, but all I really wanted was my bike, and it all happened in like 40 seconds. the wife didnt even get a license plate number or vehicle description.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=271324

Learn how to tell one.

One time my bike was outside a gas station for 3 min and as I walk out some guy has it in his hands, I ask what's up and he just says " I cant believe how light this thing is". He didn't look like the type to appreciate such a thing but I just shrugged it off and bought a krypotonite lock for next time.

It was nice when we moved in. Things change.

:thumb:

It wasn't a theft per-se, but in trade school there were several antagonists that couldn't come to terms with the value of a good bike and I caught one of them rolling off with it one day, walking. He didn't know I saw him take it out of the school secretarie's office, walk out the door, then turn around when he saw me.

"I was bringing it back when I saw it out here..."

I grabbed it back(this is after 5 months of minor 'incidents' looked him in the eyes point blank and growled that the next time he or any of his peers laid a finger on my bike or accessories it would be his *** in the back of a cop car. Normally I am quite forgiving, but we all have limits.

6 months followed until graduation with not so much as a fly landing on it ;)

Not stealing my bike, but one day when I was in Summer School, I saw another kit removing the nuts off of my rear wheel. When he saw me coming he throws them up on the roof of the school.

The kicker is that he claimed to be friends with the bike owner and was asked to remove them. Hmm, even if that were true, which it wasn't, why did he throw the nuts up on the roof?

Okay, I'll bite, what's "aluminuming" a bike?

I had my bike leaning up against a pole in front of a grocery store in Hancock, MD. I was at my car about 8 feet away and saw a guy walk over to it and slow down then start looking at it. He started righting the bike and looked like he might try to get on it right as I got there. He then said, "Nice bike, I have one just like it."

I was thinking, "Yeah.. just like it.. minus all the fredly accessories."

That's actually the trouble with my bike. It's fredly accessories get it WAY too much attention from people. A lot of people seem to think the airzound horn is cool and I've more than once seen kids playing at honking it. People stop to check out the dynohub and usb charging system. The lights. The remote for the bicycle speaker. The hammered fenders. The tandem trail-a-bike w/ baby seat. It seems to be a real curiousity draw. One thing I have notice though is that I've never had someone consider taking it while I have the trail-a-bike hooked up. It seems that thieves hate the thought of stealing from babies. :)

steal/steel ...

They were both relatively new and from the same shop in Bremerton. We were both using the free lock the store gives out with a bike purchase. He was a YN1 over at NavSta Bremerton and I was an EM3. Generally first class petty officers don't go around stealing bikes. Mine was a little bit dirtier and my seat was higher, other than that no real difference. If they had been parked side by side it would have taken me a minute to figure out which one was mine.

What makes the coincidence more bizarre is that I was a bit of a Cannondale fan boy at the time. I had 3 Cannondale bikes, an older hardtail, a full suspension, and a commuter style bike. The only reason I took that one out is because it was closest to the door. I was too lazy to shuffle the bikes around.

Take a look at the OPs title again.

Oh looks like a mod corrected it. It was "steeling".

Nope, but i have another crazy story.

My Girlfriend's bike was stolen. Later that week, she sees the bike locked up in front of the grocery store. Her lock was still on it (she had only used the small lock on the bike's frame that was busted open). What she did was pretty clever, she locked the bike hoping that the culprit would take his/her lock off. And they did (figures, they steal a bike from someone else, but they are so cheap they would not leave a lock knowing that removing it may expose them as a thief).

She did not call me (she knew i would confront the person) and did not stick around to see it. She locked it and left.

I would have made a scene and call the police (around here they would not show up for bike theft, this is Holland. Bikes are almost public property)

when i was working at this service station, i was stocking the shelves when i noticed two of the local homeless patrons walking through the gas station with my bicycle. one of them had walked into the garage and wheeled my Kona out! i had helped one guy out with a few times (fixed a flat once and gave him a small amount of change for some beer more than once) and generally he was very friendly but lately he had been coming in and making a scence. just being a general jackass.

two days earlier he came in drunk amd/or high and smashed a six-pack he hadn't paid for a demanded a refund. you can image how i felt when i saw him strolling through the pumps with my Kona. i walk outside and called them over. i put my hands on my bike and asked them where he got it from. his buddy told me to "f-off, that's none of business." i told him to shut his mouth unless he wanted to go to jail tonight too. he split leaving me with dude and my bike. i asked him again where he got the bike and he told me from his buddy who just left. he didn't know it was mine, blah blah blah. funny thing is he still had his hands on my bike so i snatched my bike back. i pulled out my cell phone, told him i am calling the cops, and going to demand they charge him with pety theft and trepassing and if he wanted to stick around that was fine with me.

he bailed. still called the cops and at least put it in the books. bike theives suck.