Be Excellent To Each Other

Four months after it was stolen, the police reckon they've found my bike. I am going to 'identify' it tonight.
It better not be damaged.

How will you prove it's yours? Does it match your trainers and bag?

Anyhoo - I'd be interested to hear how they found it. They're not renowned for clearing up thefts, after all.

And - yay!

Also - have you already claimed on your insurance for a replacement? If so, what happens there?

A friend of mine got his stolen motorbike back three years later when he spotted it in the back of dodgy garage and called the police.

Is this a push bike or a donorbike?

Pushbike. They are quite rare (there's only four in London, apparently), and a policewoman spotted it when bringing someone in for "something else". I suspect it looked a bit new and shiny for the guy to own legally - it was only about a month old when it went missing.

Indeed I have, so I don't know what's going to happen here. I'll ask the copper.

You'd probably be better off asking the insurance company... Although depending on their answer that may be alerting them to something you don't want them to know, of course..

Four pushbikes in London? Do you live in an alternate steam punk universe that is 300 years behind the rest of London for means of personal transport, or was it some super rare re-imagining of the humble push bike that doesn't quite work as well as one hoped?

Grim..., four months ago:

Nice bugger grips there!

Hells yeah
No, the bike itself is rare.
Here it is.

You bought a car branded bike?!?!?
MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH

So, who makes it then, really?

They seem to be pretty high end. I see carbon fibre frames.

Indeed, they're very nice. Pashley make (made) them, I think.

And, of course, if it wasn't car branded I wouldn't have got it back

Car branded bikes are always very shiny, expensive and generally not very good. They're all at it, from Be-em to Ferrari. The componentry is one thing they usually cut corners on but they usually fall down with piss-poor geometry on the actual frames. Granted, all bike manufacturers use slight variations in frame geometry which can have profound effects on the way a bike feels underneath you - you have to try them on for size, see if you like it, really.

I presume that your stolen bike will become property of the insurance company.

I've looked at that - I guessed right on the componentry - even that so called high end model has seriously shit running gear - it's all low end stuff. I notice they don't show the price - I bet they're charging about £2k for a bike that should cost significantly <£1k

Yeah, that looks like Shimano XT - which was top end about 10 years ago.

Close - £400.

I wasn't looking at your bike I was looking at the Carbon Fibre one. I'll just shut up though, as I'm a bit of a MTB anorak with an expensive bike so I nerdily notice the kit on a bike

pah... mountain bikes? you want a kick ass racer.

Yes, it's a bowling bike.

Nice one Grim..., don't tell the insurance folks.

Out of interest, is your boys pram Land Rover?

No, they stopped making them years ago.
I checked

The bike was in an okay condition - the back tyre's been worn almost to nothing and there's a few scratches where he's dropped it, but other than that it still looks like it works. I can't have it back until after the chap in question has had his trial, though.

That's a bit of a bummer - that could take ages.

A time trial?

Crazy kids doing doughnuts in the Sainsbury's car park

I once wore a bike tyre right through because I loved skidding with the back wheel, so much that I even popped the inntertube skidding on gravel down the subway. It wasn't a particularly bright thing to do, mind.

And it's been stolen again. FFS.
I really must move out of London.

Sorry to hear that dude.

Hopefully with being so rare they'll find it again.

Mines in the boot of the MaliMobile. I know, as after reading this, I just checked.

Can you claim on the insurance?

LewieP confession time:

I can't ride a bike, my parents tried to teach me a couple of times when I was a kid, but I never picked it up.

I've not tried since.

Yes, I should think so. The thieving gits broke through the back wall of the bike shed and made off with about thirty of them, apparently.

Well, I suppose the good news is that they weren't discriminating, I suppose (no malice intended as I'd quite like a land rover bike), so that's a plus. It's a bugagr when it happens though, due to the hassle one goes through.

Not much comfort now, but a laminated card with name and cellphone number down the seat tube works well, as no one ever looks there.

So does a shotgun shell with a bump trigger.

That explains why we've never seen your arse in any photos of you, JC.

When the Missus was at Uni, she got burgled and they stole her stereo. She claimed on the insurance and got a nice new one. On the same day that the new one was delivered, I spotted her old one on the shelf in Cash Converters. It still had her cassette tape with her handwriting in the player. The shop guys just went 'happens all the time', rang the police to confirm, boxed it up and handed it over. Woo Hoo, free stereo!

Kind of makes me wonder about all these things where you can send in your gold in exchange for cash. How can they possibly ever know if they are handling stolen goods?

You mean "Woo Hoo, we stole the insurer's stereo!"
Hell, whatever, I fully intend to steal the insurer's bike if it turns up again.

Well, yeah. But I pirate movies, so I'm morally fucked anyway, amirite?

That's how CEX has survived the demise of other indie game shops - by dealing in stolen mobiles.

Most stolen phones are cross-network blacklisted within hours (unless the stupid original owner doesn't report them), which makes them very hard to sell on.

Don't you need the IMEI number to do that? Otherwise you just block the sim, shirley?

I'm quite sure a lot of what we had traded in at Gamestation was nicked. I remember once having a lady in asking if there was any chance her son's PS2 had been traded in with us and not only were we able to reunite her with the console but also shop the culprit to the police, as the dickhead had provided us with his real name and address when he signed the trade-in form.

I'm glad they found your bike Grim. Sincerely mean that.

I always had a bike my entire life. BMX man me though. I feel your pain however because in 1998 I built a custom SE Racing Quadangle (the Alu one) for a total of nearly 2 grand (Peregrine super pro's, Fusion cranks, landing gears etc) and got whacked over the head in Norbury and never saw it again.

I cannot even begin to describe the stress it causes. It's like someone taking off with your wife, like kidnap.

I spent weeks scouring the streets of Brixton looking for it (I know that's where it ended up) but alas, found nothing. I even took out ads in all the BMX mags hoping one of the local community would find it. Nothing

I got insurance for it, but only a measly £500. Which was better than nothing of course but didn't replace my bike. The saddest part was my Grandad brought me the frame (£499) and then died before the bike was complete.

Gutted. Absolutely gutted. Still get really bummed about it now.

That was months ago. It's been stolen again.

Oh and cash converters? would never even enter one.

They fund thieves. Basically because noone who actually brought something would sell it in there because of what they offer. Many years ago I had some bass bins (ARK, brand new) and a 3kw amp. I got a nasty letter from the council for playing them too loud and decided they were too tempting and made me irresponsible, so I wanted to sell them. It was about £3k worth of gear and had only ever been used in my room. They offered me £250.

I ended up putting them in the local mart type paper. By buying at cash converters you are basically funding thieves and capitalising on other people's misery.

Jesus. You still in London?

I need better pills

To be fair to JC (hmmm, those words feel different), the thread was made before he joined and he probably just saw the title and decided to comment.

I read most of it. Just didn't notice the date change and subtle update posts.

I want my computer sorted. I feel like a fuckin refugee sitting in front of a pile of parts.

I've not played Fallout for weeks now