tell your parents. it's OK. they love you. telling them will help you deal with it. tell other people too.

what city?
what fast food joint?
cross streets of the place?

The last guy that tried to mug me ended up taking a street nap before he could even pull the big assed knife from his back pocket.

I suspect he thought his greater size was enough intimidate me... I probably curbed out at 140 at the time and don't look like I can put up much of a fight but that has always given me an edge. That... and a lot of training... and the fact I can hit like a speeding truck and can take a hit which is a skill you seem to have.

Hindsight is always 20/20 and one would have to weigh the risks of fighting with retaining less than 200.00 worth of parts... and remember that blocking punches with your face is never a good strategy.

Good to hear you are okay and are probably lucky that you probably came up against a lightweight as someone with better skills would have taken you out.

..

Glad you're still in one piece and still have the bike bro, that's a crappy experience.

You did the right thing dude, don't even guilt yourself over it, I would have done the same thing. I absolutely REFUSE to let theives get what they're stealing.

I was eating in front of a subway once with my cannondale caad9 right beside me. Same **** happened, I noticed the bike started to move and some ****** is trying to steal it. Except I'm really built, and have been praticing krav mga for 6 months now. I grabbed the bike and he tried to punch me. I dodged it, tugged the bike toward me as hard as possible to bring him closer and ended up wailing on him for a solid minute straight. There was NO WAY I was about to lose my $1200 bike to some effin chump. I leisurely sit back down, wipe my hands, and continue eating my sandwhich. THEN the ****** dares to try and punch me AGAIN. I pick up my bike horizontally and ram my chain ring Into his chest as hard as I can. (I have no sympathy for these low lifes, I'm the nicest guy ever and NEVER harm anyone on my own, but I just mAke sure people learn their lesson) my chain was on the smaller sprocket, and after that he ran his ass off. There was some blood on thetips of the chain ring. This wasn't far from USC in downtown too.

So yea, chain rings can make excellent self defense weapons.

That is pretty ******

I remember I had a BMX stolen in college and I caught the kid riding at when I was doing volunteer work at the zoo.

I felt horrible to have confronted the kid bc he was a prepubescent 13yr old with his buddies fishing, but seriously, the frame was covered in stickers and he didn't remove a single one, plus the tt was dented to **** from the jack he used to crack my u-lock. I was with about 20 other people so we surrounded him pretty quickly. I couldn't rightfully beat his ass because he was just a kid. I called the cops and all they did was give me back a bent ass frame with the cranks and the chain bc he had stripped and sold my original parts, and replaced them with his own. The cop said there was no way to prove he didn't jack just the frame, so at the end of the day, I got screwed.

Good thing you held on to that bike man, sorry you had to take a few for it, but man, what an experience.

the area around USC is no joke. people get shot not 6 blocks away from campus grounds there. glad you stood your ground, and glad you didn't get really messed up. but seriously, how could you not have used a lock? you're pretty lucky the guy didn't have a knife or some brass knuckles or worse on him. like I said, glad you didn't lose your bike, glad you didn't get seriously hurt. but I hope you learned a lesson here, which is to always use a lock, especially in dicier neighborhoods.

You should post this on Midnightridazz and LAfixed so the locals know

+1

Glad it did not turn out worse. It is very hard to make a decision in that second when something first starts.
I'm guessing you were sort of on auto-pilot, for lack of a better description. Your emotional attachment to the bike probably controlled your actions. It's easy to say what we would do in hind sight, and hard to be detached in a situation like that.

You're just a little guy, which is probably why he thought you were an easy target. Good for you for standing up for your bike though. Luckily, you came out ok. I was just stating that the only reason I could think of for bystanders to not do anything (besides being cowards) is that maybe they couldn't tell who the rightful owner was. I could certainly be wrong. Either way, even a cheap cable lock could prevent this from happening again.

+100, glad you're all right, glad you kept your bike and yes, you did the right thing. Now, get some mace/pepper spray.

Man, that sucks, but glad you're ok.
I live in Echo Park and my wife would never allow me to be out at that time of the night, let alone on my bike.

Congrats for hangin' onto your ride.

As a (former) 14 year employee at USC, and with a daughter who was a student there, I'm aware of what the surrounding community is like. And I'm amazed that you, OP, thought differently; did you arrive on campus last week from a life spent in the interior of Alaska?

I pedaled through the center of campus about 10 days ago, and saw lots of bikes locked to racks. I didn't see one expensive bike, not because some USC students don't have them, because the people with expensive bikes know that, even with a lock, those bikes are going to be stolen, even in the center of campus.

Parking your bike without a lock - in Los Angeles or anywhere else - and leaving it farther than arm's reach, at 3 a.m., was an open invitation to theft.

Oh, and don't tell your parents. Ask 'em for money for a good lock, instead.

So hard.

if you go to usc, you deserved it. sorry, i go to uiuc, we are still mad.

jk, about the deserving part. but yeah we are still pretty pissed.

Damn, that's rough. Glad to hear that you're okay.

lol thats lower east side. thats NYC for you.

Hahahah Preston that was GREAT!

To all the people telling me to lock it: I DO have locks, two actually, but I thought that the thing would be safer if it was inside with me, at arms reach (it was literally at arms reach). I kinda feel like its more risky to be approached while locking/unlocking outside a place in the dark rather than just having it within arms reach so you can leave immediately after doing whatever you're doing, and be on the bike as soon as it hits the pavement. I mean, if I locked up outside, he could have just stood out there and waited for me to unlock, and then begun his assault. I know if I were a thief, I would feel more confident doing that then actually going inside a place and trying to take the bike out with me.

But yeah. From now on I'm just not going anywhere like that at 3am with my bike. And I'm bringing a friend with me when I go out that late, regardless.

what's so great about a freaked out pouesenger beating some dude up confronting him for riding like a jackass?

DUDE this one time a guy held a sawed of shotty to my head and I bit through the barrel with my bare teeth. Then I gouged out his eyeballs and stuck the shards of barrel into his bleeding sockets. I am so bad ass. Just thought you all should know. haha tools...

What's extra hard about it is that no thief in the world expects to get laid out on the concrete
a) by a guy Sixty Fiver's size
b) over a single speed folder

I'm at least 8" taller and probably outweigh him by 80 or more pounds, and I still wouldn't pick a fight with Sixty Fiver. (Not just because he's my friend, but because I don't feel like having my arse handed to me.)

You probably have 90 pounds on me.

I have never had to deal with someone trying to jack my ride but have had a few encounters on the street where people thought they'd be able to take me for what they thought I had or because I just looked like someone they could beat up.

I have gotten out of more fights by using the best weapon I have... it's the one you should not be blocking punches with and always considered myself to be a pretty passive person who just has some some mad skills when it comes to fighting.

When I was teaching martial arts no-one questioned my size and I taught smaller people that they would often have an edge in a fight because no-one would expect them to be able to inflict so much damage but the primary lesson was not to get into the fight in the first place.

I have gotten into fights and hit the other person once and had them decide this was a bad idea and had people hit me expecting me to go down... and I have just smiled (through the pain).

I spent a little time working as a bouncer... worst shot I ever took was a spear with the butt end of a pool cue but I managed to smile and tell the guy to leave before he pissed me off... and he did. I then had to take quite a few days off because I was too sore to move.

My sensei was five foot seven and about 155 pounds... his hand speed was such that it was almost impossible to follow.

We sparred together a great deal and I had hit him with shots that would drop most people and he would just smile, because you can never show pain, and proceed to drop me on my ass.

My fighting days are pretty much done... I'd have to be pretty inspired to get into a fight except for self defense or to protect someone else. There are too many variables and you don't know if that person is carrying a weapon, has friends nearby, or is jacked up on so many drugs that you'd have to kill them to stop them.

Scary is dealing with someone jacked up on meth and a bike just isn't worth getting f'd up over.

badass...