On Saturday, 19/09/2015, myself and a friend, JP, decided we wanted to go and ride Table Mountain since he had just gotten himself a brand new Pyga Pascoe a week ago, and the weather was just too good to pass up. We decided to meat at his house near High Level Road in Greenpoint at 10am. I arrived but he was still on his way back from picking his bike up from Revolution cycles, so I unloaded my bike and got ready to ride. JP arrived with his bike in the back of his bakkie which was completely covered by the tonneau cover, having only 10cm of the bikes handle bars sticking out because they were too wide to fit under. JP quickly ran up to grab his stuff from inside his house, I remembered I needed to grab a plaster for my finger quickly as I had cut it unloading my bike. JP told me to come up and grab the plasters as he was busy. Not wanting to leave my bike out in the road I wheeled it up his stairs into his house. As I got through his door (so JP’s bike was alone no more than 20 sec) I said, “Jeez boet, are you sure your bike is ok out there”. Two seconds later I heard JP scream, my name. I immediately ran down the stairs and into the road thinking he was joking, but when I got out I saw the bakkie cover ripped off and JP’s bike wasn’t there, and neither was JP. Unfortunately he lives right next to Clyde road, which is a long steep road straight down to Somerset road. I ran to look down Clyde road and all I could see is JP running completely barefoot and shirtless, at full speed down the road trying to catch the guy. My adrenaline immediately kicked in and I knew I had to go grab my bike. I ran to his house and up his stairs, grabbed my bike, ran down the stairs so fast I slipped like a muppet onto my back, luckily not hurting myself, got up and ran outside, jumped onto my bike and bombed down Clyde road at full speed thinking this is CRAZY! Get to the bottom of Clyde, only to see a Metro officer standing next to his car laughing and pointing to the right. He had obviously just seen the dude on JP’s bike, and JP running like a madman after him, but did nothing to assist. I guess he was on his lunch break. I rode straight over Somerset rode trying to spot JP to make sure I was going the right way. I could see him in the distance but could not see the guy on his bike at all. I eventually caught up with JP and he just pointed and said he went that way. Knowing that it was all up to me and that I didn’t want the story to go, “ya I chased the guy on my bike for as long as I could but I was barefoot and didn’t stand a chance, ya Jason chased him on his bike…but I guess Jason “the guy who rides mountain bikes regularly and should be fairly fit”, couldn’t keep up with the thief who was riding in flops and didn’t know how to use the gears properly. I would feel like the biggest muppet this side of the equator every time someone asked what happened to JP’s bike. With that in mind I kept pedaling until I saw a figure in the distance that looked like the thief under the Greenpoint circle. Luckily he was not familiar with 1x11 yet (I guess he’s only been stealing 2x’s and 3x’s lately) and I could see him slowing down because he thought he was in the clear not knowing I was in hot pursuit. I started cranking as hard as I could until I rode at full speed straight into him, “t-boning” him. I threw the hardest punch I could straight to his jaw, knocking him to the floor, then jumped on top of him, getting into a bit of a fist fight, but was able to get him into a choke hold. Whilst I was choking him out I remember thinking jeez this dude absolutely stinks, the dam instructional videos never tell you what to do when the thief’s odor is so bad you feel as though you are the one who’s going to pass out. Luckily I was able to remain conscious and held on. I could feel the guy becoming limp as he was passing out but some old lady came over screaming, “let him go! Let the cops sort this out!” Needless to say I held on as though his head was the golden ticket to an all-expenses paid trip for whistler. A few people then started to gather around, followed by JP arriving and getting a decent, well deserved punch and kick in before getting pulled off by concerned citizens. His feet were destroyed from running barefoot on the hot road for so long, the soles of his feet were torn off, flapping all over the place. Luckily there were some paramedics nearby that were able to strap his feet up until he was able to get to the hospital. One of the bystanders called SAPS, who after about 20 minutes strolled on over. They approached and asked what JP wanted to do, saying, “do you want to open a case?”, JP obviously said hell yes, to which they replied, “ eish, ya but then you have to give a statement”, as though giving a statement was such a task that it simply was not worth it. They then got the thief up from the floor and took him by the arm towards their car, stopping to tell us that at 1pm, they are going home, so we had to go to the station before then if we wanted to lay a charge. Haha, we couldn’t believe it. Luckily I was able to capture it in the video. All in all the bike was ok, a few cosmetic scratches, but considering the bike was not insured….JP was stoked just to have it back. Here’s the link to the video I took as the police were taking the thief away, as well as some pictures I took at the “scene of the crime/capture” haha. Hope you all enjoyed my little essay!
