Christ! With that many bikes, maybe my old Talisman (true Canadian bike, yo!) mountain bike is in there. It got jacked in 1988 but seriously, I think the chances are pretty good with that many bikes. Wow.

Thats what Im saying! Anything that was in good enough shape to prevent it being parted is probably still kicking around in there. Its like a time capsule of custom trends and builds and projects running back twenty years, captured as they were in progress or completed or just starting out.

There should be a catalogue created with the custom builds in there to follow the trends.

1500!!!!

but don't forget that the cops "accidentally" caught Igor stealing someone else bike, not even the real bait bike. And they basically had to trip over him to see it happening.... it's not a like a crack squad team and months of undercover investigation lead to all this. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad at least some people will get their bikes back, but I don't share the same warm fuzzies as a lot of other people because the police are 'sort of' doing their job....

Someone buy that Concorde on CL before I do, please! I am really tempted, the price is good and I like the old Shimano 600 stuff.

fixed. seconded.

it's true....it is a happy accident I guess

did anyone see that lazy, ridiculous piece about igor in the globe the other day?

What the hell kind of meek stoned out sunday cyclist kind of sh1t is that? Even in eastern europe we would have kicked his ass for that kinda crap! He prolly gave the crackhead a good twenty five bucks asking for that seventy five with a straight face. bloody adonis my leftmost a55hole wrinkle!

/rant

haha, welcome back wasted weasel

Yeah, I think it is a weird case where the cops knew what was going on but it was hard to prove as Igor stayed within the rules of the law. Like I said earlier, the pawn shops are all super sketchy and the burden of proof in regards to theft lies with the police. That is a huge endeavour, proving that items in a pawn shop are stolen, so a lot of it just flies under the radar. Even stuff that does turn up stolen doesn't get Igor in trouble, it gets the guy he bought it off of in trouble. It sucks, but that is how the system is set up.

I have a bad feeling that even though the police witnessed Igor instructing someone to steal a bike, it might be hard to prove in court. The cops got really lucky that pot and coke were found in his place otherwise, he would have been released almost immediately.

I dont like the guy at all, and being eastern european, i wont blame his homeland. Sadly, if it wasnt for the big boys like him, wed have nowhere to look when our bikes go missing, they would just be pawned in the street, and wed never find them.

So despite me wanting to deliver my own gestapo fun in his direction, he was a collecting place for our stolen ****. And most of us wouldnt have to pay him 75 bucks for it either, like our pudgy writer friend.

With him gone for a while, who knows where our stolen **** would go. Pawn shops? Great.

or, one would hope, crackheads stop seeing bikes as the easiest way to get twenty bucks at any time of the day or night as they did with igors late night shop. pawn shops arent perfect, but they are watched a lot more carefully and have to be more discerning with what they take in. i dont think 'well at least we know where our stolen stuff ends up' is of any comfort or reason to not shut this guy down.

agreed, he should be, and also agreed that hopefully crackheads stop ripping off bikes, just sayin, itll be harder to find those that are stolen.

no hell, he needs a good whupping all over his ripply adonis a55.

heh, thanks operator I lurk mostly now.
I miss a week or a year and suddenly can't keep up with discussions....

Holy crap! I just got back from the viewing of the stolen bikes and I cannot believe how many there are, it is overwhelming. My neighbour had his cruiser stolen in the winter and asked me to come down with him to see if it was there but, sadly, it wasn't. However, there are only a few hundred available for viewing, there are still about a thousand more that are offlimits until the cops catalog them. I couldn't believe the number of bikes there, it is pretty messed up.

Am I the only one who read this thinking "So Igor knew about your bike, and likely knew where you lived, and it just so happened your bike got stolen and brought to Igor's....hmmm"

PSA: Register your bike(s) with the cops, kids. At times like this, you could potentially get your bike returned without even having to go down and search through them all yourself. There's a simple web-form for it now. https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/bike/

Apparently he was relatively (in)famous for selling locks with one key. You may recall from any lock purchase you ever made that they come with enough keys to decorate a christmas tree.

I love this coverage! Those youtube videos are great!
I was like HOLY SH1T when I saw the piles and piles of bikes.

This might be one step closer to keeping Toronto safer in terms of bikes but then again there are a lot of bike thieves still out there. I've seen three personally, not just crack heads but pros. I even saw the dude riding my bike the morning after he stole it! F*cker!

I think the majority of the stolen bikes in Toronto *DO* in fact go through Igor or off to Montreal.
And since this whole bust thing I think that Toronto will be much better for it. There won't be as many store houses for the bikes.

After this whole ordeal, Toronto will relinquish its title as 2nd best place in N.America to get your bike stolen. The reigning crown still belongs to NYC.

A cop once told me that 10-15 years ago if your bike got stolen you'd get it back in a day.
Maybe that will happen again.

i can't believe people were naive enough to buy a lock with one key. the one time that i was actually at his shop to look for something i overheard him speaking to a girl about his "lock cutting service"; she had a bike locked up with a lock that he sold sold her and she had lost the key so he wrote down her address and told her he'd be by later to cut it off. buying a lock with one key: strike one, telling this sketchy guy your HOME ADDRESS: strike two...

H3LLS NO!

Okay maybe on your bike that you keep nice-nice.

But for the majority of bicycles that go to people who ride and just leave their bike in rain for 10 years then come to the store and say there is a problem with their BB..

Operator knows all about that old Peugot at UT it took me 2 days, oil, a hammer and all my strength to get the thing out.

One would never know how thankful I was to find grease in the BB of a 20+ year old bike.

keep the peace and GREASE-GREASE.

Long shot, looking for a left side (non-drive) 170mm Sugino Prime 130 road crank arm. PM me with beer equivalents.

I remember hearing rumours about this "underground railroad" of bikes between the two cities and I was reminded of it again today because there were some very high-end bikes at the viewing. There is just no way these bikes would have been stolen and not tracked down or reported to the police unless they came from another city. A Giant OCR with Ksyriums is at least $2500 and the very definition of "hot" so it gets packed up into a van and driven to Toronto----it still had the front wheel locked to the frame with a kryptonite. Crazy.

For the hell of it, I posted a bit of information on the Montreal CL. Maybe it will reunite someone with their ride...