Good Old England...

bace · May 10, 2006

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2172755,00.html

Go figure that this guy travels the entire world and the first place his bike gets knicked is in the UK.

You'd think he would lock it up though...seriously now.

Arch · May 10, 2006

haha..... in Portsmouth too.... not supprising.... i do feel sorry for him, but in a way its kinds funny.

Rob · May 10, 2006

Figures...

Rob

JohnMF · May 10, 2006

poor guy

nitefly · May 10, 2006

Could have guessed it would have been England..

Poor guy.

benhasajeep · May 10, 2006

Should not be too hard to find in public. Unless it was vandals who took it out of spite.

JTHphoto · May 10, 2006

that's sad and funny all at the same time. i'm curious how it got stolen when he had it so securely tied up with bungee cords :hertz:

my bike was stolen once... losers dumped it in a nearby park and the cops picked it up... i got it a few days later. maybe he'll get lucky...

DestinDave · May 10, 2006

My driver's license was revoked (DUI) years ago and I started riding a bike. I parked it outside a church where I was attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and it was stolen! Talk about being kicked when you're down! I reported it to the police but of course nothing came of it. A year later I found the bike on my own - at a police auction!! Trust me, you can't make this stuff up... Poor guy - hopefully it'll show up.

bace · May 11, 2006

So the Police actually found the bike, and didn't call you.

Gotta love that.

Rob · May 12, 2006

I believe the chap has had his bike recovered from a nearby park!!

Rob

ferny · May 12, 2006

Has no-one read the start of the article?

"knocked down by a truck in the Chilean desert"
" chased by a mob through the streets of Haiti"

I'd consider those two a bit worse than your bike getting nicked when it's not been secured properly.

I had my bike stolen from my shed.
http://www.blueyedmuffin.co.uk/arse/?p=56
I wasn't happy about it.

And this is from a post I made on another forum last week.

Walking along the road some kids were throwing stone (15/16 year olds). I walk past and one hits my bag so I stop and say "who did it?" and get no response. I walk away and another hits my bag, I stop, look at them and go "you ****ing dickhead". One looks at me and mumbles "you looking at me?" and walks past. I walk past them again and a couple hit my bag and one hits my leg. It wasn't thrown too hard and it only just touched, but that's not the point. So I went into the school and reported them. Trouble is I've no idea who they are, so I gave the best desciption I could and went for a walk through the school with an old teacher. Didn't find them.

He thinks he may know who one is so will write it down and if it happens again he'll have something to use. I made it clear that I wanted to hit him, what I called him and that if there weren't three boys there taller than me and two others I would have.

****es me off though. That you can't walk the streets around your house without tossers. I had on a very expensive watch and over £100 in my wallet so that could have gone as well. And for all I know he could of had a knife and not taken kindly to me calling him a ****ing dickhead.

Oh well.

Don Simon · May 12, 2006

I am also a member of the stolen bike club -a couple of years ago I made the mistake of tying my bike up to a post opposite my local petrol station. Figured it couldn't really be stolen while I was watching from inside the shop on the other side of the road - wrong. Van stopped right there in the road, some scumbag leapt out, cut the ropes and had it in the back of the van in the time it took me to run out the shop door. What annoyed me most is my bad luck that of the three or four vehicles that went past, one had to contain bike thieves, and particularly athletic ones too. :angry1:

Interesting reading your article there Ferny - seems that like me you were impressed by the police's response. I personally am glad that they've decided to abandon the traditional policy of looking for thieves and returning the things they stole, and replace it with a policy of giving people numbers. Incident numbers are wonderful things - they're a bit like those numbered tickets you take at the cheese or meat counter, with the exception that after taking one you don't actually get any service. The great advantage of them is of course that whenever you feel like a victim you can look at your number, remember you're one of thousands, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

While I feel sympathy for herr Stücke, I can't help thinking that I've missed an opportunity here - if when my bike got stolen I'd told the police I was on a round-the-world trip maybe I would have got a replacement too. Maybe this could be applied to other stolen property too... "It's terrible officer, I took that Ipod all round the world with me, and now it gets stolen here... don't suppose you've got a spare one lying around Lost Property?"

ThomThomsk · May 14, 2006

Rob said:
I believe the chap has had his bike recovered from a nearby park!!

Yes, he's got it back, according to an interview with him in yesterday's Guardian. He is pretty well known in cycling circles (which is to say, not very well known at all), and what is amazing is that he has been on the road continuously with the same bike since 1964 and lives by selling a booklet about his travels. Not a big spender then.

Incidentally, this wasn't the first time his bike had been stolen, although it wouldn't have been surprising given that he was in Portsmouth, it was the 12th.

JohnMF · May 14, 2006

I seen something similar on the news yesterday about a city in Italy (Naples i think). they have such a problem with pick-pockets and thieves that the local government has decided to hand out free watches to tourists in an attempt to help stop the bad reputation it's getting