NOTE: All timestamps are in the future because WE are in the future. The care takers of Midnight Ridazz.com reserves the right to remove, edit, move or delete anything for any reason. None of the opinions expressed on these boards represent the Midnight Ridazz nor can anyone purport to speak on behalf of Midnight Ridazz.
Hey. My friend had his bike stolen from Los Feliz and Riverside. It is a Bianchi Milano Cafe Racer. Black. Like the one in the photo but with a bigger seat. Seat has a tear with black tape on it and there is a green "laughing squid" sticker covering the lame coffee cup decal on the seat tube. It has a tail rack with Jandd panniers. It was locked up in his secure parking and now it's gone. Keep your eyes peeled please. Thanks.
in the history of the world, at least going back to the time of Caesar Augustus, has anyone ever found their stolen bicycle? i believe they are not stolen, but rather rerouted to another dimension by time travelers attempting to learn more about our culture. if you'd like to hear more about my theory, i will be discussing this along with why i keep finding dead cockroaches underneath my refrigerator tonight on Coast To Coast AM with Art Bell.
oh fuck.... i was just talking to a co-worker about conspiracy theories and all kinds of neat shit... and the name ART BELL came up. weird... my first 28 1/4 years of life i had never heard the name and now i hear it for the 2nd time in as many days.
and i think you're right.... i don't know of a single person ever finding their "lost" bike.
hi liz! yes, i've been out of the scene for a bit while finishing up my boat project. barely been on a bike in 3 weeks. michael did surprise me with a visit while i was working in the boat yard. that was nice. as soon as i'm done and sailed her down here, i'll start riding and training again. til then, all teak and varnish. here's pic along with my dad.
Yeah, I was wondering how you would save it. Like, "Hey, can I have that bike? I think you stole it from someone I know." U-lock is brilliant.
But yeah, if I see it I'll do something. I'm super close.
About a year later, I was driving with a friend down Sunset, just a few blocks away, and I saw a guy on my bike. I couldn't believe it! I started yelling, and wouldn’t you know it, there was an LAPD cruiser right next to us, too. So we all pulled over - me, my friend, LAPD, and the guy on my bike - and I told the whole story. The guy on the bike started denying, but his story kept changing. I have to say (to its credit) that LAPD was very fair. They didn't believe me or him, initially, though when the origin of the guy's possession of the bike kept changing, suspicion rose.
But I had an ace up my sleeve. I asked the cop if he'd mind if I removed the seat post of the bike - I'd stuffed one of my business cards up there. You should have seen the guy sweat when I got an allen wrench out of my tool box, popped the seat post out, and my business card appeared!
I had another bike stolen from near the same spot many years later.
Didn't get that one back.
What happened next was kind of funny, too. Through all the different stories, it seemed pretty clear to me that the guy probably wasn't the thief - he was likely somebody who'd bought it from the thief. He hardly spoke English, and was pretty scared. There were two cops - one was an older, and very old-school LAPD guy; the other was a younger, female cop. The thing was, having proved the bike was mine didn't procedurally mean I could just take it back - which is really what I wanted.
So the older cop starts to get the cuffs out. But the younger one says, "wait, we can just resolve this - just give the guy back his bike and we can all go on our way, otherwise it's a hassle for everybody." The other cop starts to take an even harder line - throw the book at the guy, to hell with the owner of the bike, he can get it from evidence when the thing's resolved. Back and forth. Meanwhile, the guy who was riding the bike is sweating like crazy, and I'm realizing this is all an act. Finally, the thief - or possessor of the bike - goes nuts and starts BEGGING the cops to just let him give me back my bike.
So they put it on me: press charges, or just take the bike back.
Maybe I should have pressed charges, but I really wanted my bike back. At that point, I need a bike, badly, and I hadn't been able to afford to replace the one that I'd lost. So I took the bike. The thief was so relieved he actually started thanking me profusely. I remember throwing the bike into my friend's car and thinking that I'd somehow done this poor guy a favor - crazy! - and also being impressed that there actually is such a thing as "good cop/bad cop," and I'd seen it played out, beautifully, on the streets of L.A....
my graphics class in high school hated me because i would make them listen to coast to coast am. conspiracies rule, and i throw stones at my own shadow.
Dang! That's awesome! That's a happy ending story! And that's totally funny how you said you somehow felt like you were doing him a favor. I'm not sure what I'd do in that situation! But congrats on getting your bike back!
Gizzard responding to a comment by soulbarn
05.29.09 - 1:56 pm
that was pretty wise on the part of the cops to play the good cop bad cop in this situation... had they just taken the bike from the guy and given it to you without sweating him hard they may have punished an innocent person who bought the bike unknowingly... but instead they flushed it out of him and made him sweat. they pulled a bit of a solomon.
Roadblock responding to a comment by soulbarn
05.29.09 - 2:27 pm