Title credit to Laura Stevenson. Two bicycles in my life have been victims of theft recently:
The purple bike, pictured left, was donated to Chain Reaction awhile back. It’s an old, logo-free Cannondale with a 1-1/4″ threaded headset, a fairly rare historical anomaly for which few modern parts exist. I had finished it with a bunch of new parts, all in the cockpit, and sold it to my next door neighbor. These new parts were inadvertently donated to a needy person with an eye for opportunity when the bike was left parked in a public place overnight 😣. I have replacements on order and my neighbor will ride this bike again soon. Rage, rage against the stealing of the bike.
The second photo is more troubling. That’s a cut lock in our bike port at my home. Somebody stole my housemate’s bike. It was a Specialized something or other, purchased new circa 2010. It was the first customer bike Give Them Bikes! ever serviced. Somebody walked right up to our house, a few feet from my open bedroom window, cut the lock, and took it. Odds are they had cased the house previously and knew there was a newer bike with a paltry cable lock sitting outside. Our house has no appropriate indoor space for bike storage and while the bikes are locked, they’re still accessible to anybody who wanders down our quiet little dead-end street. I want to file a police report, but it wasn’t my thing that was taken and my housemate doesn’t really care. I’m not sure what to do, but I have not let that stop me from planning a bike ride:
This is going to be great. Brink your chimes!
On a Chain Reaction note, the Pedalpalooza Chain Reaction ride was a mild success and our Earn-a-Bike class has turned out 4 more client bikes since I last wrote you, bringing our running 2017 total to 7, with a mere 17 to go if we want to top last year’s 23. We have 10 in process currently and several months of programming left. We’ll get there. Stay strong together. 👫 👭 👬
GIVE THEM BIKES! 