Tuesday, May 26, 2009
I Want To Ride My Bicycle
But I can't because some scumbag stole it from in front of my house. I was absurdly attached to that stupid bike and I'm quite upset (think of the emotional climax of Di Sica's Bicycle Thief crossed with the flying bike bit in ET and you'll have some idea.) I got the bike in NYC in 1995, it was an old Peugeot 10 speed from the 70's - very heavy and clunky, but it was great and I loved it. I shipped it to Denver and then to Melbourne and replaced almost every part and now it's in the greasy paws of some druggie. I spent today scouring bike stores and thrift shops to no avail. Probably just as well because I've been walking around clenching and unclenching my fists for the last 10 hours. It's my third stolen bike. The first was at Bell's Shop in Carrickfergus in 1982, the second was in front of my house in Oxford in 1993. In that case it was actually locked up but the thieves, apparently, poured liquid nitrogen onto the D lock and then snapped it with a hammer. This time it wasn't locked but it was so old and scrappy looking I didn't think anyone would take it. I should warn the thief that every gear slips except 2 and 3 and the back brakes don't work. I should warn him but of course I can't, so here's hoping he breaks his bloody neck. . .Too much? Aye, ok, well here's hoping he at least snaps a tibia.
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62 comments:
Thieving bastard scumbug. I'm with you on the broken neck.
I used to keep my bike out front of my house as a kid, and my parents would tell me all the time I needed to lock it up. They eventually took it and hid it to teach me a lesson. It worked. I loved that bike, black and gold BMX Huffy.
Wish I could help you form the 10 speed cycle vigilance committee, but alas, you eventually have to lay ancient pieces to rest. But, yeah, it would really chap my hide too, man. Sucks. You could totally pull a Pee Wee Herman and search the entire country for it while doing an asinine dance to "Tequila." Just a suggestion.
It's probably better this way. They would have stolen it on your first day in Florence and you'd have directed your murderous rage towards my countrymen. (They will still do it, but you'll be considerably less attached to your new bike).
Now you're calling it Florence, Marco?
Firenze, been there, besides Rome, my favorite Italian city. Spent many days there eating gelato and sipping vino. You're lucky to live in such a beautiful place.
There could be a crime novel in there. How to murder someone with a stolen, badly functioning bike.
By breaking their heart, it sounds like.
Mike
yeah, they are terrible human beings, maybe not death but certainly some sort of pain.
Liam
You know I forgot about that in Pee Wee Herman. Mine wasn't quite as shiny and roadster-ish as Pee Wee's, but still.
Did you ever see that episode of 30 Rock with Paul Reubens? One of the funniest things I've ever seen. He is totally off the hook. I guarantee big laughs.
Marco
Because of the economy it doesnt look like we're going to be Firenze bound until late 2010 and by then I'm sure all the local thieves will have given up their malfeasant ways and turned to a pastoral existence in the north brewing beer and making wine.
Miss Witch
Well we can but hope can't we? Again maybe not death, but certainly something a little unpleasant.
Seana
I haven't entirely given up hope of seeing it again. He may just have got fed up with those gears slipping and abandoned it somewhere. I will be searching the streets again today, but my rage has died down a little.
I talked to a Dutch kid in Hobart who told me that he had had FIVE bicycles stolen in Amsterdam. All of them locked. This kid couldn't have been more than 22, so I now know where I dont want to live. The mellowness of the coffee shops would be more than cancelled out.
The mellowness of the coffeeshops might have been part of the reason those thefts were so easy.
I watched some 60 Minutes episode once about bike theft. Some of those guys are both determined and ingenious.
I bet you'll find it. Probably the day after you shell out for a new one.
I was going to recommend Sweden, where we seem to be able to drop bikes wherever, and expect to find them when we return.
I have an unlocked garage full of old bikes. Last year when I turned up, I found there was another bike sitting next to the old ones.
Miss Witch
You make Sweden sound a little like Paradise. If I could speak the lingo and could eat pickled fish for breakfast I'd consider moving.
Seana
Yes thats a point. The kid I was speaking to recounted to me a somewhat hair raising adventure of how he had smuggled pot to his cousin who was living in Beijing - a place where their leniency towards drug smugglers is not legendary.
I don't live in Firenze anymore. I'm back in my old hometown (=the wastelands) in the north of Tuscany, where I make wine and plan to br... hey! What did you mean with that?
I feel your pain. Lousy thieving bastards got my wife's bike a couple years ago, unlocked on my back porch (asking for it, i know), and mine last year, locked with a "Master" cable right in front of our front door. Master of shite. My beloved schwinn world sport i'd had for seventeen years. Seething with rage, i forced myself to imagine that a cute little hungry homeless girl had stolen it to buy beans for herself and her family, so I could avoid self destructive anger of an excessive sort. Delivering barns to crazy folks in the middle of nowhere taught me anger management. We have since switched to one of those "U" locks for the one remaining bike that a friend donated in replacement. So far so good.
Gee, I wonder what would happen if Michael Forsythe ran into the bicycle thief?
Here's a tip I remember from that show--when you lock your bike to a signpost,say, just make sure that the post hasn't been fooled with so that it's a simple matter for the thief to lift the post up out of it's hole in the ground and walk away with the still locked bike.
Sweden does sound awfully nice. As to your reservations, Adrian, half the people there seem to speak better English than I do, and couldn't you just eat muessli in the morning instead of fish?
I don't think we have to wonder much what Michael Forsythe would do. I think it's what's known in the psychological lingo as an 'immature adaption'. And good for you, Hardbarned for overcoming your (justifiable) rage.
We have this place in town called the Bike Church where all these cool young people congregate and fix bikes and sell old refurbished ones on the cheap. One of my co-workers bought an old Schwinn which she keeps inside on the steps up to the office, and as I sit right by it when I'm up there, I hear people falling in love with it about five times a day. It's a woman's bike, though, so don't come after it, Hardbarned. It's not yours.
This is more in keeping with the pirates, but a pox on the thief!
Seriously, why do people feel the need to steal all your stuff, Adrian? Is thievery a better form of flattery than imitation?
I'd never think of it, Seana! I'm content with my donated replacement, a 1980s model Centurion Accordo, for now.
Adrian:
This is the time for a brand new bike.
Unless you want to only hike.
Don't leave the new one on the lawn.
Or the new bike too will soon be gone.
marco
cant join you in the wine dept but i will have my own porter up and running very soon.
HB
It was precisely one of those U locks that they snapped in Oxford with liquid nitrogen to nick my second bike. So be careful.
I'd like to imagine it was some starving teenage mother, but I'll bet it was a hairy druggie with very rich parents.
Dana
Michael would initiate an overly complex and elaborate revenge scheme that would, ultimately, leave him feeling unsatisfied.
Seana
I second your Swedish like. (Never been though). And yes I forgot that everyone will speak English wont they. I was in Norway once and the train conductor gave all the announcements in Norwegian, German, English and French.
Schwinn's are nice and they tend to repel the lycra brigade which is even nicer.
Brian
I wish it were some kind of nice thing but I suspect it isnt. I was in a bike shop yesterday and the guy said that actually those Peugots that I basically thought were worthless are, in fact, quite collectable. He said even all rusty and crappy looking the thief could get 300 or 400 dollars for it which was a huge shock to me. Now I'm looking at my Ghostbusters pencil case in a whole new light.
Patrick
Nah its too soon mate. The wound is still too raw. As the Torah says try everything three times and then give up. I'll try one more day of looking through the city before I think about a new one.
Adrian,
Coincidentally someone ganked my Ghostbusters lunch box when I was a young lad.
You'd better hold onto that pencil case, especially in light of this.
Adrian:
No offense, but:
As a writer of hard-boiled crime lit, don't you find it just a little humiliating to be whining about having had your bike stolen?
Just thought I'd ask.
Adrian:
By the way, I did manage to see "A Matter of Life and Death" recently, in a very fresh DVD edition from Netflix, and it was superb. Thanks for the tip.
I still think you should be ashamed of yourself for whining about your stolen bike.
Patrick
You scoundrel. I lay my heart for all to see and you mock my pain?
Dont you recognise a cri de coeur when you see one?
Yeah you're probably right though but I will only stop moaning when I get a new bike to fall in love with.
And yes AML&D is a lovely film.
Ok off to pound the pavements...
Brian
Hmmm, no Sigourney Weaver in that IMDB listing. Dont like the sound of that. You're what 30? Do you even remember Ghostbusters?
Adrian: I may pick up pen this pm to imagine how Raymond Chandler would have handled this situation.
By the way, I want you to know that the fellow mentioned in the latest post concerning Mr. Bentham on my OVOT site is not you or in any way related to you. Mr. McFlinty, for example, lives in NZ. And his crime novels are all wildly successful and up for immediate option by every major Hollywood funding source. Brad Pitt is longing to play his hero. So you know its not you I'm writing about. So please do not sue me for what I am about to write. It has nothing to do with you.
Adrian:
Nudge Nudge. Wink Wink.
Patrick
How about a link for the hard of googling?
Hell yeah I remember Ghostbusters. I wore out the VHS copy we had before I was twelve.
"We've been going about this all wrong. This Mr. Stay Puft's okay! He's a sailor, he's in New York; we get this guy laid, we won't have any trouble!"I also love GB2, even though most hate it.
No, Patrick, I must stand up for Adrian in this one, although it's not really like me. Judging by Hardbarned--the guy moves barns, for heavenssake!-- and my other friend's response, losing a long time bike is like losing a personal friend, or at least a pet. It's a core identity sort of thing, and rage is not inappropriate. Acting on the rage would be, but no one's going to do that, are they?
Here's my hypothesis. Someone saw you tooling around on your Peugot, Adrian, listening to your ITunes or whatever and thought, how cool is that? If I could just get a hold of a bike like that, basically steal someone else's identity instead of having to rely on my own pathetic one, maybe I could be cool too. Hey, wait a minute, I don't think I've seen him lock that bike. Maybe I can...
OK, Adrian, Here it is, only because I adore your prose and have become adept at the magic link lesson of Marco, the Ascended Master. However, I do pray thee to make OVOT (the blog) a "favorite" in your browser of choice, so that you may jump, at will, to my temple of excellence and imagination, where you will never hear me whine.
Pat
Nice work. I am however going to sue your ass for defamation. I think I told you that I had a philosophy class once in a semi circle around Mr Bentham's auto icon.
Oh and yup there is a link to other voices over on the right. And I dont link to just any old rubbish.
Seana
I appreciate the defence. But I am relieved that I didnt admit to everyone that my initial response was to squirt a few. That would have done my reputation no good at all.
If anyone is copying my style in an attempt to be cool I'm afraid that they are beyond psychiatric help.
Brian
GB2 just didnt have the same magic - though Sigourney was still hot and Murray was still dead pan and funny as opposed to dead pan and not funny which is his MO since about 2003.
I didn't say I thought they were sane. Just maybe a little too impressionable.
Which is to say, it could be anyone.
Oh, not to derail this subject entirely, because as you know I would never, ever try to do that, but as I know a couple of people here who could talk Hitchcock 24/7I thought I would mention that Martin Edwards has got a nice Hitchcock discussion going on over on his blog currently.
No need for fish for breakfast. More often just a sandwich... Swenglish spoken everywhere, so you're all right. Nice country, but as with anywhere, lots that's bad, too.
And there is the smörgåsbord. If you can umlaut, you're halfway there. And they ride bikes, of course.
$127 on Ebay Australia - South Melbourne! Peugeot Bike In Melbourne
Anon
This is awesome, it's like crimewatch. That alas is not it. Nice bike though. I may bid if mine dont show up.
Thanks for that.
Seana
Thanks for that. I just jumped on over.
Miss Witch
I took a night train through Sweden once but I suppose that doesn't count.
Thanks Patrick, you make me proud. Though I'm not an ascended master, I surely aspire to be among the elect(ed).
Looking forward to the episode in which Lady M steals the bike of McFlinty, the famous author who recently won the most attractive Ulster-scots crime writer competition, making him cry like a little girl.
Back to campaign work,
ciao
Adrian,
Somewhat relatedarticle.
Adrian:
My own link! On your site!
Now I'm crying tears of joy.
I'm sorry, Adrian, for poking fun at your misery.
The whole experience with your site is so much more emotional than I ever would have imagined.
A broken neck is harsh. How about a Belfast sixpack?
Re bicycle thievery in Amsterdam, a celebrity bicycle thief there wrote a tell-all book about his exploits. That's not something that could happen everywhere.
My favorite bicycle story happened outside Guilin in China. I was not on the bicycle, but the rider was, as was a passenger sitting side saddle on the rear luggage rack strumming a guitar as they drove past.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com
I'm one of those Hitchcock 24/7 folks. Thanks for the pointer to Martin Edwards' discussion, to which I've just contributed a comment.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com
It counts, Adrian.
Brian
Poor guy felt bad when Pee Wee got caught having a wank. Pretty funny actually.
Patrick
You should have squirted some last week when it went up.
Peter
Well now I've moved to stage 3 or whatever it is of the process and begun thinking about a new bike. There's a bike store in St Kilda that does 1 speed reconstitued 1930's bicycles and that might be just up my street. One more day of looking though....
Miss Witch
I'm not really sure that it does. I slept through the entire country. They didnt even wake us to check our passports at the Norwegian border.
Peter, oh yes, I'm well aware that you and Adrian are 24 by 7 Hitchcock fans. Just couldn't remember if there were a few more of you among us.
Adrian, if Bookwitch says it counts, it counts. Don't argue.
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