LOST AND FOUND

[jpsfenn123]

Hi all,

I thought i would share this good news story about a stolen bike that with the help of some very cool and dedicated people was found after having been missing for over a month.

On 9 December my bike was stolen off the back of my trailer parked outside a friends house in Claremont, cape town in broad daylight. (Yes, i was completely at fault for not having locked the bike). The bike was less than 1hour old. Brand new bright red Trek P1 superfly. Also uninsured.

heading on holiday without my bike basically in tears my holiday took a while to become vaguely enjoyable.

On 12 December my good friend Shayne Dowling of Full Sus magazine called me to tell me that Gavin of Neils Wheels in Plumstead may have come across the bike. Gavin incredibly suspected some guys who had come into his shop of trying to sell him a stolen bike based on the description shayne had given gavin and the lack of knowledge they had for bikes. He took their number and license plate details of their car. After trying to set up a sting the trail went cold.

After returning to cape town early in the new year i followed up with the Claremont police station how the investigation was going. There was no progress.

I had officially given up.

On 12 Jan i got a call from detective ntinga that my bike had been recovered. I identified the bike 7 minutes later as my own.

The bike cost me R40k. the police had traced 2 sales of this bike, one for R1600 and second for R8000.00. The guy who bought it for R8000 had to hand it over.

Sorry for this long story...but i was amazed with the efficiency of SAPS, and especially of Gavin from Neils Wheels. This was incredibly quick thinking to get this information and the police told me that this is what led to the recovery of the bike and to the eventual arrest of the thieves.

Thanks gavin and shayne.

I really think that if bike shops worked together like this we could gradually eliminate theft of bikes.

Possibly a black list could be formed that gets posted to a central data base.

Also i am going to look into chipping my bike so i could track it should this happen again.

Cheers

Justin

[Skylark]

Must have been as bleak as hell when it first happened, miracle you got it back, any arrests?

 

Isn't Neil's wheels have a not so great reputation for dealing with questionable 2hnd bikes, or am I getting the wires crossed?

[marko35s]

The shocker there is who gave the police the lead given their past reputation.

Maybe leopards do change their spots...