Sympathies for the theft of your bike. :( It is beyond infuriating to have something -- anything -- stolen or vandalized. :mad: I hope there is a particularly hot little spot in hell for those people. They are predators. They do not care the least bit who they steal from and the hardship they cause their victims.
Makes me long a little bit for a Saudia Arabian-style remedy in the criminal code. Perhaps if bicycle thieves had to fear having their feet cut off...
I'm from Hood River, Oregon, and appalled by what I've become accustomed to living with in DC for nearly 20 years. When I first moved out here, to northern Virginia, three juveniles tried to steal my scooter. A gallant neighbor chased them down, called the police and I gladly filed charges and cashed the checks (for damages) drawn on their parents' accounts that the court forced the kids to fill out.
My roommate's puppy was stolen out of the backyard. Two weeks, several search posses and hundreds of dollars later, we paid ransom to get her back (she lived 14 undramatic years after that, with me) and I never left her unattended, anywhere, ever again (except inside the house, guarded by a security system).
After moving into the city, I learned to never lock convertibles, removed the stereos every night, left the empty glovebox open and still three tops were slashed. One night walking home from work at 7:00p, one block from my house, I was attacked in an attempted smash-and-grab. Turns out I was attached enough to my purse to hang on until some good samaritans chased that creep off.
After a multi-year personal respite from crime, last month on a beautiful Saturday morning, I walked out to my car to head out and do errands, only to be greeted by a missing side window -- smashed to smithereens (nothing inside taken and nothing visible to take). The silver lining in that instance was that in cleaning out the car before taking it in for repair, I found the CDs I thought I'd lost months before. :) Since those were beloved roadtrip mixes, that was some compensation for the $300 window and half-a-day spent getting it replaced.
This year I've gotten into biking. Three new mountain bikes sit in my house (one for me, one for friends and one rigged for my dog to pull). I am mindful of their vulnerability to theft when transporting them or out in public. But I have not been careful enough. I'm more than a little concerned that I will be mugged for a bike one of these dark nights, which is why I carry pepper spray in a bento box on the top bar. If they don't stick a gun in my face, I plan on fighting them for the bike.
For me, the only salve for the pain of being robbed has been time elapsed and confidence that the criminals are miserable SOBs who likely will be caught someday, for some crime. And at some point their loser lives will catch up with them, if it hasn't already. I don't know how those people live with themselves. I am beyond sick and tired of living with them.
Thank you for sharing your story, which may spur others to take further steps to protect their bikes. And I hope you can get a new, even better bike, very soon. You've earned your anger and deserve a great new bike.
:)
