I don't really ride a bike, but even I hate bike thieves. Almost irrationally intensely hate bike thieves. Not sure why. Just dirt bags. Good for the owner for getting him busted. Not sure it was necessarily a *smart* idea to confront the guy himself. I guess good that he brought some friends with him.

It would have been more awesome if someone stole the bike while he was chasing down the thief.

The most important part is that he got it all on tape so that he could up his internet cred.

I think the bike owner could have played it better by NOT telling him that the bike was stolen. He could have played it cool or called the police BEFORE he met the dude. Then again, he does have the admission that the guy knew the bike was stolen...not sure if that will hold up though.

Bike owner in question

tallguywithglasseson: I don't really ride a bike, but even I hate bike thieves. Almost irrationally intensely hate bike thieves. Not sure why. Just dirt bags. Good for the owner for getting him busted. Not sure it was necessarily a *smart* idea to confront the guy himself. I guess good that he brought some friends with him.

I've had three bikes stolen over the years (two were stolen right out of my backyard) and I share your hatred of bike thieves. I was tempted to buy a cheap bike and loosen all the bolts so that it would disintegrate shortly after the thief made off with it, but chickened out.

tallguywithglasseson: Almost irrationally intensely hate bike thieves.

Me too, but my hatred is rational: Every. Single. Bike I had as a kid was stolen from me. Fark bike thieves.

miss diminutive: I've had three bikes stolen over the years (two were stolen right out of my backyard) and I share your hatred of bike thieves. I was tempted to buy a cheap bike and loosen all the bolts so that it would disintegrate shortly after the thief made off with it, but chickened out.

Why stop there? Why not have it loaded with explosive ink (like they do for banks) so that when the bike thief takes off, he's marked in florescent ink and easily identifiable to the police.

Marcus Aurelius: It would have been more awesome if someone stole the bike while he was chasing down the thief.

It looked like he was chasing the guy down on the bike.

Good video, but I always lol at "citizens arrest."

Heartwarming story

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timujin: Marcus Aurelius: It would have been more awesome if someone stole the bike while he was chasing down the thief.

It looked like he was chasing the guy down on the bike.

I couldn't make myself watch the whole video. But I do despise bike thieves.

When I was a kid, some jackass stole my 10 speed from the bike rack when I was at church.
My father and I followed the tracks in the dirt/sand to some street across the ditch.
It was in some shiatty apartment complex.

CSB

I shudder to think at what mayhem may have occurred had he not worn his lucky hat

I really loved BMX as a wee lad, then some dick stole my bike and I never got another after that. Never found it, or him/her.

Gotta love these types of stories though.

Bladel: Good video, but I always lol at "citizens arrest."

Years and years ago before reality TV really took off and COPS was popular, I remember seeing a citizen's arrest a time or two on that show. But a police officer was always present so it was more like those situation where the officer was ordering the civilian to arrest the offender. Off the top of my head, I don't remember why that was...I guess because the civilian witnessed the felony and the officer did not nor could the officer see evidence of the felony? Don't remember...

CSB

I sometimes rode my bike to my High School, kept it locked up on the fence outside. One day I came out and someone had cut a hole in the chain link fence to get my bike without cutting the chain lock. Reported it to the police. Few days later got a call that they had recovered it. Seems the dumbass who stole it went to the Vo-Tech school next door and the Principal reported him for riding a bike that he knew didn't belong to the kid.

slayer199: miss diminutive: I've had three bikes stolen over the years (two were stolen right out of my backyard) and I share your hatred of bike thieves. I was tempted to buy a cheap bike and loosen all the bolts so that it would disintegrate shortly after the thief made off with it, but chickened out.

Why stop there? Why not have it loaded with explosive ink (like they do for banks) so that when the bike thief takes off, he's marked in florescent ink and easily identifiable to the police.

Why stop there? Just make the bike explosive.

CSB

Living in Boston, I walked out of the movie theatre near the Commons. As I crossed the street, 2 homeless looking guys were trying to steal a bike that had been chained to a bench. They were just sitting there sawing at it and everyone just kept walking by but didnt say anything. I didnt want to approach 2 homeless guys with a saw so I went up to a Suffolk Police Officer. He knew who they were, ran up to them as they were taking off with the bike and gave the one on the bike a nice forearm slam across the throat. I learned a few things that night. Boston people dont give a crap about helping anyone. Dont use a crappy bike lock. Cops in Boston dont give a flip and will destroy you given the chance.

At least the hipster bike owner got his cup of coffee in the end.

yeabuddy: theatre

Thank you for spelling it right.

UberDave: Bladel: Good video, but I always lol at "citizens arrest."

Years and years ago before reality TV really took off and COPS was popular, I remember seeing a citizen's arrest a time or two on that show. But a police officer was always present so it was more like those situation where the officer was ordering the civilian to arrest the offender. Off the top of my head, I don't remember why that was...I guess because the civilian witnessed the felony and the officer did not nor could the officer see evidence of the felony? Don't remember...

I remember that too.
Also, Andy Griffith Show and Beavis and Butthead.

I wonder what happened to his gf? She was kinda cute. Dumber than a box of rocks, I guess it's a turn-on to date a bad boy that steals bikes.

I had my bike stolen as a kid too. That video satisfied on so many levels.

I ride for exercise and commute by bike when the weather's nice, but there's no way I'd leave a bike worth anything more than $50 locked up out in the street. And even then not without a hefty lock around it.

I've got three bikes - a drop-bar road bike for bombing down country roads on the weekend, a super-commuter that I built on a hardtail mountain bike frame for riding to work (boss is cool with me keeping it in my office during the day), and a 20-year-old city bike that has possibly the world's ugliest rattle-can paintjob (like someone ate a 5lb bag of Skittles and then barfed it all over the frame) for shopping and running errands. Of the three, it's the only one I can lock up out in the street and not worry about it getting stolen, or more irritatingly having individual parts stolen off of it. It rolls when you pedal it, but other than that I can't see anyone wanting it that badly unless they were running from the cops or whatever. Even then, I use a fat lock and take the seat with me.

Luckily, I've got a locked storage unit in the basement of my apartment building where I can keep my bikes (next to the luggage and the fake Christmas tree) when I'm not using them. But it really does suck to come out of a store with a load of whatever and find out that you've got to carry it all home in your arms because someone ganked your wheels while you were inside.

I bought a bike once and put it on my porch. Came out the next day, bike was gone. My neighbor's bike, also on the porch, was still there.

/saw his kid riding my bike the next day
//he was a kid so he just got a nice ride in a police car and probably had to change his underwear thinking he was going to jail

Cop: Can you prove this is your bike?

Dude: Yeah, I bought these tires for it, these sprockets and these other parts.

Cop: Well OK then.

language NSFW

It's not illegal to buy stolen items. I looked it up

Actually, it is illegal you moron. Especially if you knew it was stolen.

old story: At LSU decades ago, I was on athletic scholarship in swimming, live in a regular dorm, but ate meals at the athletic chow hall. My ten speed was stolen from the regular dorm area one day, so crap, I think, it's gone, and I went to eat at the athletic dorm dining area. there's my bike! I says, I'm gonna kick somebody's as over this, and then out walks the middleweight SEC wrestling champeeeon and gets on my bike. I rethink strategy. Get bike back through channels without getting my ass kicked, joy! Farkin' bike thieves.....douchebags..

lantawa: I'm gonna kick somebody's as over this, and then out walks the middleweight SEC wrestling champeeeon and gets on my bike. I rethink strategy.

Pretty smart for an SEC athlete :p

I had two bikes stolen from me when I was 6.

F*ck bike thieves.

/Schwinn Gremlins...

I had a bike stolen off my back porch once. A homeless guy took it, wrapped it in clear boxing tape (locking the cables in-place and to the frame so that the brakes and shifters didn't work). Cops found him walking around with it (can't imagine why he wasn't riding it) and recognized it immediately. Apparently he was crazy and had been known to do these sorts of things to get himself back into jail from time to time. Even though I had a photo of the bike, I still had to go through individual nicks and scrapes and other identifiers to prove it was mine. It was a lot of "well, I got that when when I crashed this one time and this was from another time and this was from banging the bike off the roof when i failed to latch it down correctly...oh, you didn't want to know about that one...I mean...umm...yeah, I forgot how that one happened."

I busted some guy on Craigslist after my friend's car was robbed of a bunch of collectible Transformers. We were going to report him but my buddy actually made money on the insurance claim (wink) so I just signed the guy's email address up to a bunch of porn spam sites instead.

Bladel: Good video, but I always lol at "citizens arrest."

Why, are you trying to say that they're some make believe thing that doesn't exist?

Bladel: Good video, but I always lol at "citizens arrest."

Might want to google that.

It was cool that he used that Burner app to hide his location. Such an app could be handy for a bunch of things.

Had a bike or two stolen.
Called the cops on the second one.
Said, "My vehicle was stolen"
They responded fast.
Found out it was a bike.
They were pissed.
Corrupt mofos didn't take interest.
No problem.
As long as the cops didn't care about it, they wouldn't care about the thief being found in an alleyway beaten a few days later.
They didn't.

TotallyHeadless: It was cool that he used that Burner app to hide his location. Such an app could be handy for a bunch of things.

Abductions comes to mind.

Who buys a $2500 bike?!

yeabuddy: CSB

Living in Boston, I walked out of the movie theatre near the Commons. As I crossed the street, 2 homeless looking guys were trying to steal a bike that had been chained to a bench. They were just sitting there sawing at it and everyone just kept walking by but didnt say anything. I didnt want to approach 2 homeless guys with a saw so I went up to a Suffolk Police Officer. He knew who they were, ran up to them as they were taking off with the bike and gave the one on the bike a nice forearm slam across the throat. I learned a few things that night. Boston people dont give a crap about helping anyone. Dont use a crappy bike lock. Cops in Boston dont give a flip and will destroy you given the chance.

That's a depressing story. No one except you even made an attempt?

tallguywithglasseson: Heartwarming story

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I could've sworn I read 'african american' like, three times in that lil caption but after re-reading, it didn't show up once.

Weird eh?

I saw something about this on the news here in Seattle yesterday, at the end of the story they said the thief was let go and the charges were dropped but they didn't know why.

I'm not seeing it anywhere about the charges being dropped, I must have heard it wrong

I've had 2 bikes stolen from me in the last two years. A member of my research group and I just finished the designs for a GPS/radio trackable bait bike. I'm not sure if we'll ever build it, but I think it would be a great idea for city PD's.

He really should have waited for the police to arrive before confronting him, scaring him away and then having to chase him down yelling "Citizens arrest! Citizens arrest!" like Gomer Pyle.

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It says here the charges were dropped.

That's a lot of exposure to unintended consequences over a bicycle.

today was a good day?


Bicycle rights! 10 foot oregon state rule!


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Stupid thief. He should have hid it in the basement of the Alamo.