Yesterday, my bicycle was stolen.
I have been riding my bicycle to and from the grocery store every day for several weeks, and locking it up in WinCo Foods grocery cart corral area just inside the entry way. An employee told me the day before that too many people have been putting their bicycles in the well lit cart area recently and that I need to lock up my bicycle on the bike racks outside from now on. I have a simple master lock and vinyl coated steel cable with two eyelet ends. I threaded the cable around the front tire, the frame and the rear tire as well as around the rack, and took my rear taillight and headlight off of the quick release mounts and put them in my bag before heading into the store. I had a short list of items, since I have been shopping every day for the next day’s dinner items, there is no longer any need to do massive stocking up. I have the opportunity to ride my bike regularly, and have grown to enjoy the process, even running other errands like visiting the post office to mail out a package earlier that day, making it in ten minutes before they closed. On this day, I needed to also grab some Children’s Benadryl Ibuprofen and Emergency-C because I have a few miserable kids suffering through some colds or other incurable and annoying virus. When I walked out of the front entrance, I noticed a lack of my bicycle’s silhouette in the place it should have been, and the last remnants of my cable and still secured lock, as well as my old Bell helmet on the ground. As I stood and stared at the scene puzzled, a Latina woman in a white car pulled up and told me she had seen a white male with two bicycles going down the road which seemed suspicious to her as she was on her way to WinCo, then seeing me it made sense to tell me what she saw. She asked me if I needed a ride home, and where I lived. I told her where I lived, and she said she was going the other way, so we parted with a ‘thanks anyways’. I called Karyn to let her know I was going to be later than she might expect. Karyn called me to see why I was not back yet, and she insisted to pick me up and drive around looking for the guy. After we got home, I called Pittsburg Police Department and an officer called me back to take the incident report about my stolen Bicycle. Karyn was pretty worked up about it on my behalf, and I was unhappy about my not removing the lithium ion battery from my bike’s frame, since it is $75 to replace as I am now aware. It seems I have done everything I know, except to have a fully funded replacement bike and lock fund in place. I walked to work today, and it was not bad. It just took 36 minutes instead of 10 minutes. I considered riding my skateboard, but I did not leave time to repack a lighter bag. I did not want to skate to work with my heavy backpack, (stocked with bike tools and tire repair gear inside).
I am considering buying a folding bike that could fit inside a grocery basket, or a large cargo bike, and getting a ridiculously beefy chain and lock for it. Maybe both bikes, over time.