Some years ago (far too many for my liking) my son, about 14 at the time, had a real nice mtb and outside the house two yobs punched him in the stomach and made off with it.
He came in and barley able to contain the tears said what had happened and together we set off in the car to find said tw4ts.
After a couple of false turns and no luck roads we saw them riding on the path. One pedaling with the other on the seat.
It was a main road with a 10mtr wide grass verge between the path and the road. They were moving at a good pace so I pulled up a way in front of them so as to head them off.
Tw4t No1 on the seat sees us coming, bales out and legs it off, but my son caught up with tw4t No2 and grabs the bars. By chance he happens to grab the front brake lever and said tw4t goes over the top and plants his face hard on the path (oh joy of joys). My son not satisfied with that begins to lay into him for all he is worth. So much so I had to pull him off for fear of him doing some serious damage.
We got the bike back.
A post script to this is that a couple of days later I saw a youth of around 18 or so in the local supermarket, face all puffed up, black eyes, and scratched to buggery. I know it was him because he had on the same distinctive jacket. I followed him out through the checkout chuckling to myself like a village idiot.
A rare case of just deserts.