I’ve been having the devil of a time finding a “safe” place to park my bike at my current job. My first two parking spots were awkward and/or obstructive, so finally one of the secretaries secured permission for me to park my bike in a storage room (the one I now nap in during my lunch break). For the past 10 months, that’s been working out splendidly. I roll my bike in from the loading dock and park it against the wall behind some surplus ladders.
On the other end of the room were a pile of horrible old shitty bikes that had been left on buses and were never claimed by their original owners, either because the bikes were so awful as to be disposable, or because the original owners were to drunk to give a shit.
All of the abandoned bikes had tags banded to their handlebars identifying the bike itself, the bus it was left on, and the driver who turned it in.
Well, apparently there’s a driver who periodically takes the abandoned bikes and donates them to charity.
And today, apparently, he decided to take a load.
A load, which very nearly included MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE BIKE which belongs to me and is definitely not shitty, abandoned, or up for grabs.
NOT ABANDONED, HANDS OFF, THIS MEANS YOU!
I went into the storage room to take my daily lunchtime nap and discovered that my bike (and the rest of them) weren’t there anymore. Predictably, I had a major cow, and tore around the building trying to track down who disposes of the abandoned property.
Eventually with the help of a different secretary than the one who gave me parking permission, I tracked down the bicycle-recycler’s van and recovered my favorite bike from within its confines. As it turns out, he wasn’t paying very close attention to whether the bikes were tagged or not. I’d though mine would be safe since it was parked across the room from the abandoned bikes, was obviously not a heap of shit, and did not have an ID tag on it, but you see what I got for assuming.
I’m not exactly ashamed to admit that during a couple of restroom breaks throughout the afternoon, I popped into the store-room and made sure it was still parked where it was supposed to be, behind the ladders.
It was.
Now, I have a laminated card that I can slip under the brake cable housing on the top tube which reads:
Employee’s Bike
Please do not take!!!!!
And yes, those are an insanity’s worth of exclamation marks. I want everyone to be aware of the kind of deranged loony they’re potentially messing with.
Whew! Thank goodness you figured this out when you did!!!
Without a doubt. It’s definitely my favorite bike…I’ve ridden it darn near exclusively all summer.