I went out to the bike rack and unlocked my bike and the front wheel wouldn't budge. With great difficulty I unhooked the brakes and got it to roll...it was wavy. It was fine this morning! I walked across the parking lot to security. "My bike was vandalized on the bike rack," I said. "Can you look at the security camera?"
The security camera points right at the bike rack. Or so I thought.
"It won't show anything," the security guard said. "The parked cars are in the way." He showed me. Yup, the security camera points right at the bike rack, but parked cars obscure the view. "I saw them mowing the grass today," he offered. He asked what time I had come in and looked through the camera footage for the day. He saw the mowers, but if they hit my bike he couldn't tell and they didn't appear to notice if they had.
I'm pretty sure that's what happened though. I took the wheel to the bike shop and it is beyond repair. That is too bad because I replaced it not that long ago and it had quite a lot of miles left on the rim. They ordered a wheel and will build it with my generator hub. They gave me a print out of the cost that I will take to the hospital--apparently it is the hospital, not the med school, that mows the med school's grass.
I'm going to say "Your lawn mower damaged my wheel" and if they say "prove it", well I tried. But maybe they'll take my word for it and pay up. At the very least I hope they tell the mowers to watch out for the bikes.
I'm not parking my bike there anymore. In fact I'm going to walk to work instead of biking.