attn boogaloo (alex)
Thread started by
stevestevesteve at 03.10.08 - 3:14 pm
Did your bike with the airhorn really get stolen? When? Someone on LAFixed.com said they saw someone riding it yesterday...
"today in santa monica
you: going south on 4th just past the freeway overpass around 1pm. i dont remember anything about your bike or you, except you had a fire extinguisher attached to you left seat stay.
me: in a car going the other way trying to figure out why the fuck you have a fire extinguisher on your bike...????"
this was posted yesterday in the "I saw you thread".
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Did your bike with the airhorn really get stolen?
Yes.. Well Possibly no. More on that later.
On Sunday, I hung my bicycle by the seat on a crosswalk signal, like I usually do. But unlike I usually do, this time I didn't lock it up and ran into Kinkos to print a photo. While I was in there, I kept glancing out the window to look at it. I got preoccupied with my USB Flash drive not working on the photo kiosk. When I looked up, shit ... I thought I went blind. My bike was gone! I ran outside and looked around, no one in sight. Some chick and some guy chased me outside to return my backpack and sunglasses I dropped on my way out. An older couple at the bus stop told me some guy took it off and went North on 6th Street (At Wilshire)
The guy that came out to return my backpack was kind enough to give me a ride round the area to find the thief. He must have gotten pretty freaked out, because inside the car... man I was seeing red, i pulled out my box cutter and my pepper spray. I was ready to murk this bastard who took my bike. Seeing that this guy got uneasy, I thanked him for his help and was gonna get out the car, but he was cool... said he understood my rage and just drove me around some more.
He dropped me off at the 2nd Street police substation where I was going to file a report, but since they were closed... I just went to the Bikerowave meeting on a beater bike I had at home.
Here's the rub...
A few months ago, while everyone was going ape shit about Bicycle Licenses and Santa Monica and Critical Mass... I decided to fork out the measly 3 bucks to get the license... I figured one less thing the cops can use against me if they pull me over... being that I've had some pretty questionable run-ins with them during this whole CM fiasco.
I get a call Tuesday Afternoon from a police officer in Santa Monica telling me that the had my bicycle.. W T F? His story: someone found it on 6th and Wilshire (Where it was stolen?) and returned it, sometime before he called me I guess. Maybe it was the "thief" who was riding it that the person saw on LA Fixed... or perhaps it was my girlfriend riding around on 4th street. Or maybe it was me, minutes before mine got stolen.
Long story even longer... The cop said it was fortunate that I had a license and that hundreds of bikes go through him that just go to auction or storage because they can't be returned to the owner. My guess is that the "thief" saw it hanging on the crosswalk signal and thought maybe a real thief ditched it there, or that the bicyclist forgot it at the corner and someone hung it up there so it would be visible to the rider... Or now I'm thinking... that he was neighborhood gadfly, you know the types, and really disliked the idea of my bike hanging up there all melancholy and found art-ish... he decided to teach my young punk ass a lesson by taking it to the cops. Shit, i don't know.
I've learned my lesson.
boogalooSHRIMP03.12.08 - 12:51 am
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i just have a normal california bike license on the bottom of my bottom bracket. do i need a santa monica version to ride their streets?
also, last night around 11:30 5 squad cars passed me going down main and followed me up bicknell towards 4th st while i was riding without any lights and they didnt do shit. so i guess you only get fucked with when youre in a large group.
ruinedbyidiots03.12.08 - 11:43 am
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@rbi : no you do not need a SM license if you have a CA license. you might if you live in SM, the ordinance is hilariously terrible.
the advantage of the license is that it makes it easy for the cops to find you if they find your bike. if the SM cops find your bike with your CA license, they'll just call the state of CA up.
anyway, hundreds of roadies blow through the signal in front of my house every day, often right in front of the SMPD and they never get stopped, so you can say what you want about selective enforcement.
stevestevesteve03.12.08 - 1:04 pm
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Ridazz Roulette!
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For those of you that haven't seen one, this is what the Santa Monica Bicycle License looks like.