Some idiot poop-sandwich-eater ran off with my bike yesterday afternoon.

I don’t think very highly of this guy.

My friends Kat and Hai-Yue and I had an incredible ride from Mountain View to San Francisco yesterday. We decided to visit the Exploratorium, even though we only had about an hour until it closed.

We locked up our bikes. I took off the easy-to-steal items, my light and bike pump, and put them in my shoulder bag along with my wallet, keys, and phone.

And when we came back an hour later my bike was gone.

If you see a used burgundy Surly Disc Trucker being sold, let me know!

So yes, things could be worse. No one was hurt. I still had my essentials. The bike and everything in the saddlebags are just things. But it just sucks. I lost the bike that I loved and had put so much work into. I lost my brand new rain jacket and cycling shoes. The Nalgene bottle in the saddlebag was one I’d had for years and it carried a lot of sentimental value. I fought to keep that Nalgene bottle when the airport in Krabi, Thailand wanted to take it away. Knowing I couldn’t take water on a plane, I had emptied my bottle. But then they told me they also had the policy that you couldn’t take an empty container on the plane. So in front of them I filled my bottle with peanuts. They weren’t amused and took it away anyway, saying that didn’t count. I yelled at them in the only phrase that popped in my head at the time, thanks to hanging out with a lot of British people, “That’s rubbish!” I leaned over the counter with a boldness I never thought I could have and plucked my water bottle right out of the trash where the security guy had thrown it. And I got to keep it. But mostly it sucked because it was a slap in the face of how mean and selfish people could be.

This is the last picture I have of my bike and me together. Taken yesterday on the Sawyer Camp Trail on our way to San Francisco.

We talked to security at the Exploratorium and they found the entire incident on their security camera. In the video you can see this guy, typical looking white guy, about early to mid 30s, just confidently stroll up to my bike, take something out of his backpack (we couldn’t see exactly what since my friends’ bikes were in front of mine, but he clearly had bolt cutters), break my Kryptonite lock, and take off on my bike. The whole thing took less than a minute. With people walking all over the place and one woman obviously watching him.

We filled out a police report and I’m notifying the bike clubs in the area and watching Craigslist and eBay like you’re supposed to do. I have a feeling though that this guy and his posse aren’t going to be stupid enough to put my bike up on Craigslist. I also drew a comic strip of the whole thing, since the security people didn’t let me have a copy of the video. I took some liberties, such as the change in angle, but otherwise it’s spot on. Click the images to embiggen.

In the video you can see this guy walk up holding a bag and some papers. A lady watches him the whole time.

It seriously takes this guy maybe three seconds to break my lock.

He cleans up quite well, but he leaves behind his Jehovah’s Witness literature.

I’ll admit that I don’t know if he’s eating poop sandwiches right now, but it seems likely.

Well, up until the bike theft, everything was just lovely. Look how happy we are in the Exploratorium! A little earlier and we could have looked out these windows and seen the poop-sandwich-eater do his thing.

Maybe ten minutes late.