First Person: How I Recovered My Stolen Bike in Four Days
By Arthur Millius
Contributing Writer
1989 Trek 420 road bike, charcoal gray with baby-blue lettering, triple crankset and 700c rims cupped by sweet continental road tires. A set of aerobars and front panniers made it 54 cm of classic touring action. And mismatched downtube shifters – the original front shifter broke on a on my way through Tillamook County, Oregon. I had disassembled and reassembled my bike bolt by bolt for that touring trip. I knew every piece and every spoke and I especially knew those mismatched shifters.
It was a typical morning on a dreary San Francisco Wednesday when I left my Trek locked up inside the 16th St. Mission BART station. Just like every weekday, I leave it there for only two hours while I take a class at City College. With the frenetic pace of morning commuters coming in and out of the station, surely no one would have the guts or opportunity to brazenly steal my bike. It only took two weeks for me to be proven wrong. There is nothing like the feeling when you first realize someone has stolen something from you: I checked the bike racks three times while other commuters eyed me curiously.
There are exactly two things Officer Hendrix needed after she got my description and contact information in order to complete the police report. The first is a description of the bike. With this I could have filled pages with unique identifying marks and idiosyncrasies. Then she asked, “So have you registered the bike or do you know the bike’s serial number?” “No,” I stumbled, and then persisted “but, I would know my bike because it has these two really unusual shifters. No other Trek 420 in grey from 1989 would have these shifters.” She gently informed me that without a serial number she could not list or search for the bike in the national stolen bike database. The chances of recovery were slim to none.
I was devastated.
And angry, really angry. I wanted to call every bike shop in the city to put out an APB for my beautiful Trek 420. I found little support online – check out Bay Area flea markets, stroll through the Civic Center casually asking for bikes, post your missing bike on craigslist. On September 16, the day my bike was stolen, nine other people reported stolen bikes on craigslist and more than thirty people were offering to sell Trek bikes or bike parts. According to an investigative report published in the Guardian a few years back, more than 1000 bikes are stolen in San Francisco every year. Bicycle theft was not a crime, but a thriving business!
In just four days I was to meet the man who either stole or directly purchased my stolen bike, a legitmate businessman who unwittingly tried to sell it to me, and a police officer who was legally powerless to intervene.
The next Saturday morning, the following was posted on craigslist:
Trek 420 road bike - $420 (berkeley)
1990s-era medium-large(~ 56 cm) lugged TrueTemper Cro-Moly steel tubing, triple crank, Suntour downtube index shifters,700 c rims
I wish I could report seeing this post, but in all honesty I had already given up hope of ever finding my bike, and my intrepid girlfriend spotted the posting. She and I set out for a little shop near the Ashby BART station in the early afternoon armed with high-resolution photos of me with my Trek and a detailed description of everything I knew about the bike. If the bike was mine, our plan was to call the number of the back of the card Officer Hendrix had given me.
To call the building in Berkeley a bicycle shop would be a gross disservice to all respectable bike shops around the bay area. No my dear readers, what we found was a sidewalk with a few sundry bicycles and a room impassable by the piles and piles of bicycles stacked inside. Outside the shop front was a small hyperkinetic man – part mechanic, part businessman chatting up customers while simultaneously fixing their bikes. There was no cash register, no receipts, and no serial numbers. Not spying my bike among those on the sidewalk, we inquired the gentleman about his craigslist posting. He led us to a locked doorway with approximately 10 bikes crammed top to bottom.
And there it was, second from the front. My eyes locked like heat seeking missiles on the mismatched shifters adorning my charcoal gray 1989 Trek 420. While my girlfriend and other customers distracted him, I called the number on the back of Officer Hendrix’s card. Surely, the police would come swooping in – I had dutifully filed a police report and had indisputable photographic evidence of me with my Trek 420, mismatched shifters and all!
Answering machine. Damn. And then he appeared across the street out of nowhere, like a guardian angel, with 20 years of certifiable street cred and a badge to back it up – Officer Lyle. I ran to Officer Lyle and breathlessly relayed my story emphasizing the unique identifying details of my bike and pressing him with photographic evidence. As we walked back toward the shop, he looked at me squarely and asked, “You got a serial number?” “No,” I replied sheepishly, but added enthusiastically “if you just take a look at this picture, you see these two shifters…” He cut me off, “That don’t mean nothing. Without a serial number, the government can’t do anything. If you had a serial number, the bike would be yours just like that,” snapping his fingers.
What was I to do, but plead my case with the shop owner. “Ain’t my bike,” the owner said, “I’m selling it for a guy.” How convenient I thought to myself, secretly beginning to dread whether I would every get my bike back. The owner told me I could find the guy down at the Ashby flea market, a place both officers in this story referred to as a den of thieves. With my girl guarding the bike at the store, Officer Lyle and I took a short drive to the Ashby flea market. I got the requisite lecture about bike registration in the patrol car. The search turned up no one matching the name or description of “the guy,” and Officer Lyle left me at the bike shop, to see if I could work something out with the owner. If only I had something at home - a piece of paper, a receipt with the serial number to prove that I was the lawful owner.
I low-balled the shop keeper, “I’ll give you sixty and write a wonderful review about your place on Yelp.” He flipped out, “Are you accusing me of selling stolen bikes?! Because the guy told me this bike was legit.” He threw my bike back in storage and told us to scram. I was emotionally drained and losing all hope. Would I ever ride my Trek 420 again? And then the guy Officer Lyle and I searched fruitlessly for at the flea market, the guy who either stole or purchased my stolen bike, the guy who many bicycle theft victims can only dream about meeting and screaming at, yes that guy, the guy walked up to the store.
About 10 minutes after he walked up, I would look this guy in the eye, shake his hand, and give him money in exchange for my bike. My anger would subside into pity. The guy was a man of opportunity, a bike dealer, a charming liar, a 55 year-old father, a drug user, a product of a broken society, and maybe just a guy just trying to get by. No amount of photographic evidence or serial numbers could persuade him of the obvious truth, so we eventually came to terms.
That is where my story ends and where your story begins. According to the national bike registry, more than 48% of stolen bicycles are recovered every year by law enforcement, but only 5% are returned since they have no way to determine ownership. Here’s what you can do:
Step 1: Write down the bike’s serial number. Mine was on the underside of the crank, but it can be several places on the frame. Photographic evidence is worthless without a serial number.
Step 2: Register the bike. You can do this for free at UCSF (http://www.parking.ucsf.edu/Transportation/rideshare/bike/) or nationally (http://www.nationalbikeregistry.com/) for $10.
According to UCSF crime statistics over $16,000 worth of bicycles were stolen in 2007 alone. Only one bike was successfully recovered. Most of the bikes I observed on the UCSF Mission Bay campus lacked a UCSF bicycle registration sticker. Had my bike been registered, UCSF police said they would have accompanied me to the Berkeley shop, confiscated the stolen bike, and returned it to me.
This article appeared in the October 1, 2009 issue of Synapse.