Hey, that's my bike!
I decided to take the bus to school this morning (the 20 Victoria, which goes up Commercial and along Hastings through the heart of the downtown eastside), even though it was the first sunny day in a week or so and it's usually quicker to bike it.
So we've just passed Main and Hastings when I see a guy riding my bike on the sidewalk across the street - it's missing its fenders and rack from what I could see, but it's unmistakably my bike. As we pass alongside I see the guy do an endo over the handlebars - he doesn't even know how to ride the thing. I pull the cord and hit the ground running back to him, just go right up to him and say, "hey man, that's my bike." he protested, and I pointed to the cop car across the street and said, "you wanna go over and check if they have a report out on it?" then he said, "it's not your bike, I paid 40 bucks for it," and started to ride away. I caught up to him and said "fuck that, it's my bike, I shouldn't have to pay twice for it," and offered him thirty, which he took, and I rode it back home, got on my other bike and rode back to school, getting into my Benjamin class with five minutes to spare.
It's actually in pretty good shape for spending the last half year being passed from crackhead to crackhead on the downtown eastside... the frame is fine, the wheels are the original ones (usually they get taken off and sold off separately) and just need a bit of truing, and the shifting is working perfectly as far as I can tell... I just have to get a new seat and post, new handlebar tape and the aforementioned fenders and rear rack.
Bringing it back home, I felt like my karma just got realigned. These last few days have been flowing well for me, in fact - went up the Sunshine Coast for the first time for a party put on by Vancouver Burning Man folk, and it was good to be out of the city, seeing green trees instead of grey concrete and looking straight up at various points during the middle of the night while dancing to see a canopy of stars overhead... life is good right now...
So we've just passed Main and Hastings when I see a guy riding my bike on the sidewalk across the street - it's missing its fenders and rack from what I could see, but it's unmistakably my bike. As we pass alongside I see the guy do an endo over the handlebars - he doesn't even know how to ride the thing. I pull the cord and hit the ground running back to him, just go right up to him and say, "hey man, that's my bike." he protested, and I pointed to the cop car across the street and said, "you wanna go over and check if they have a report out on it?" then he said, "it's not your bike, I paid 40 bucks for it," and started to ride away. I caught up to him and said "fuck that, it's my bike, I shouldn't have to pay twice for it," and offered him thirty, which he took, and I rode it back home, got on my other bike and rode back to school, getting into my Benjamin class with five minutes to spare.
It's actually in pretty good shape for spending the last half year being passed from crackhead to crackhead on the downtown eastside... the frame is fine, the wheels are the original ones (usually they get taken off and sold off separately) and just need a bit of truing, and the shifting is working perfectly as far as I can tell... I just have to get a new seat and post, new handlebar tape and the aforementioned fenders and rear rack.
Bringing it back home, I felt like my karma just got realigned. These last few days have been flowing well for me, in fact - went up the Sunshine Coast for the first time for a party put on by Vancouver Burning Man folk, and it was good to be out of the city, seeing green trees instead of grey concrete and looking straight up at various points during the middle of the night while dancing to see a canopy of stars overhead... life is good right now...