I found this section genuinely very sad and flicked through to see if anyone had reported success in finding their stolen cycle-can't see any
.
My son had his £2K off road bike stolen so I know how gutted it can make you........I think it would be good news to hear/read of any success.
Yes, me. I got my stolen bike back after about a year.
I was in town and as always never could stop looking at similar bikes in the vain hope that one day...well as it happened one day I bloody well saw it chained up in town. On inspection it was definitely my bike which had been nicked from the back yard in a shed about a year before. I phoned the police and whilst waitng the guy who had my bike turned up. He bought it in good faith from bloody cash generator (which is why you will hear me rail against them and those like them at every available opportunity).
I spent a while explaining to the guy that I thought it was my bike and told him some details about it that only I would have known. There was enough detail to convince the guy that it was indeed mine and he was an absolute brick about the whole thing and admited freely that he thought it was mine. The copper turned up and we all marched off down the road to the very shop where he had bought it. For some reason he had a load of his documents on him for something he was doing and included in them was the actual reciept that he got from C.G. for the bike. Because I had reported it to the police my case and a full description were available to the copper on the scene which convinced him of my story and so the manager of CG couldn't really deny that it was my bike.
I got my bike back and the guy who bought it got his money back and the guy who nicked it was arrested a few days later and got done for handling stolen goods. (If they had taken finger prints and forensic evidence like I told them to at the time then they could have done him for nicking it as well but it was pointed out to me that this would be impractical to do for every stolen bike. I strongly disagree but what is one to do?)
For days I couldn't believe that it had all worked out so neatly and how lucky I had been. The guy had looked after the bike well and apart from a worn bottom bracket which I would have had to replace if I had used it and a bit of muck there was nothing wrong with it. Not even rusty, but then it is aliminium. Litteraly one hour after seing my old bike I was riding it back home. The bloke even popped by my house and gave me back the rack that had been on it. The back light was still on it for gods sake and still worked.
So it is possible but it was down to sheer luck. I didn't have the serial number so the guy who bought the bike could easily have just said tough luck mate it's mine now unless you can prove it, which I couldn't apart from the details I shared with him about it. He could just as easily have said, nah mate dont know what you mean. And the fact that he not only kept the reciept but actually had it on him that day. I'm still not sure it really happened and doubt it ever will again.
