An Adventure in Thievery

One thing we really looked forward to when we moved back to land was getting ebikes so we could take longer rides.  We loved the exercise of regular bikes, but had to acknowledge that our knees aren’t getting any younger nor hills any flatter.   So early in the summer we went out to a local bike shop and found a couple we liked. In the first week, we rode them on short trips to restaurants and around the neighborhood and loved them.  We were excited about taking them with us on our July trip to MN so we could bike long stretches of the Gitchi-Gami trail on the North Shore of Lake Superior. 

The day before we were to depart for Minnesota, I went to run a quick errand and forgot to close the garage door after backing the car out.  Returning 30 min later, I saw the door was open.  Well that was stupid of me.  But why in the world did Dave put my bike helmet on the floor where I might run over it as I pulled in?  Wait a minute – where are the bikes???  I stuck my head in the door and asked Dave if he had moved them – knowing that of course he had not — and we suddenly realized our new bikes we had owned for less than two weeks had been stolen within the last 30 minutes. 

After the initial half a minute of shock (and admittedly a few bad words from both of us), we recalled that Dave’s bike has a built in tracker. BUT,  they were so new and we had been so busy with getting settled in the new house he hadn’t had a chance to set it up yet. DOUBLE BUT – I had happened to put an Apple Air Tag under the seat of mine.  Not because I was so brilliant, but because I had come across one as we were unpacking in the garage and the bike was in my immediate line of sight so it was easier to put it on there than to find where all the other Air Tags were currently kept.  

Dave calls up the Find My app on his phone and sees the bike moving through town!  We jump in the car and he’s staring at the  phone and calling out directions while I drive, darting impatiently through late afternoon downtown traffic.  Soon the bike stops moving about two miles away.  We circle around the housing complex to narrow down the location, and then Dave’s ready to hop out and find them on foot. Me being the more cautious one, I suggest maybe we should call the police because we really don’t know with who or what we are dealing.  So it was more like a blind squirrel finding an acorn.

He dials the non-emergency line because 911 is only for ‘immediate threat to life or property,’  and we’re not sure they mean bicycles as threatened property.  After half a dozen forceful stabs required to run the Evil Phone Tree gauntlet he gets put on HOLD – which is really just another name for IGNORE.  So there we are, sitting in the middle of a near-empty parking lot in a rundown housing complex, listening to the recorded ‘We’re sorry for the wait’ message every 30 seconds.  With each empty apology both my anger and courage grow.  After a few minutes I decide I’m with Dave and ready to go take back what’s ours before they possibly go back on the move again.  Thus with the battle charge sounded I drive slowly around looking down the rows of units and Bingo!  We see our bikes in a courtyard with two young guys still sitting on them!

Dave hops out as I fumble to get my seatbelt undone, hands shaking with the adrenaline now flowing through my veins, and he approaches them with a purposeful stride.  In his best Commanding Officer voice, he barks “We’ll take our bikes back now guys. You took them from our house and we want them back.” 

They turn toward us, clearly caught off guard, and so obviously and incredibly stoned that I’m surprised they hadn’t ridden our bikes right in front of a bus on the way here.  One guy decides that having not been run over by a bus, he’ll take the opportunity to  throw his partner in crime under one and darts into one of the units and slams the door.  The remaining Under The Bus Guy hops off my bike and gives a shoulder-shrugging “Hey man, we just bought these…” stammer as he backs away.

Dave holds up his phone.  “I’m on the line with the police right now.  You go get my helmet and I’ll hang up.”

“I don’t know anything about a helmet.  But I can maybe call the guy we got the bikes from.”

“You do that.  We’ll be right over there waiting.”

We wheel the bikes to the truck, and I look back to see Under The Bus Guy sprinting around a corner in the opposite direction. There’s only room for one bike in the bed of our little baby truck, so Dave says he’ll ride the two miles back to the house.  As I’m fumbling once again with the seatbelt with my shaky hands, I glance in the mirroe to see Dave just standing by his bike looking down the way.  I lean out the window, “Ready to get out of here?”

“I’m waiting for him to bring my helmet.”

“Pretty sure he’s long gone and we’re gonna have to write off that helmet.”

I pull slowly out to the main road, anxiously watching to make sure Dave was behind me and no one was chasing him down.  Not that I had any plan if they were.  We arrived home and checked the bikes over – not even a scratch.  Our next door neighbor returned from walking his dog around the block and we told him the whole story.  He said he had seen a white helmet on the sidewalk around the corner.  Sure enough, there’s Dave’s undamaged helmet lying by the sidewalk.  They must have tossed it as they absconded. Whereas mine they dumped in the garage before they left.  Which was probably their undoing because I don’t know I would have noticed the bikes weren’t there so quickly if my helmet hadn’t been in my way as I pulled in. 

I’ll take credit for having put the Air Tag on my bike which proved to be invaluable, but I also have to take the blame for leaving the garage door open in my absent-mindedness.  (In my defense, we had just moved back to land-living, and there aren’t any garages on boats.  I hadn’t had to worry about closing a garage door for over four years, so the muscle memory just wasn’t there.) We both acknowledged that this experience assuredly would have us checking and double checking every time we left the house going forward. 

Early the next morning, we loaded the bikes onto the truck as we set off for fun in Minnesota, looking forward to some great summer rides along Lake Superior.  We were about two hours out when I got a text from our next door neighbor. 

Apparently we had left the garage door open.