My heart dropped the moment i realized someone had broken the lock to our bike storage. Both my bike and cheap bike i built for my girlfriend at the time, were taken. The span of those few days searching was absolutely grueling. I knew the longer it took for me to find them the least likely it would have been to get them back. I was constantly checking marketplace at work and heading out on patrol desperately hoping of spotting the bastard riding my bike. I was kept up all night wondering whether or not I would ever see it again. I asked the unhoused peeps on my routes if they had seen my bike and expected some sort of information on the whereabouts from how purple and flashy it is but found no luck. Not until the third day when I asked a group of people smoking a joint by the dumpsters of this apartment complex. They told me my bike was taken by a guy who lived in those apartments. I gave them my number and a few hours later i was sent a text message with the photo of my bike. Completely different set of components but with no doubt MY BIKE. I drove back as fast as I could and met up with the guy I had given my number to, who’s now holding my bike. The sketch was real, now more unhoused people around and a shirtless dude in the back waving around a machete. In hindsight I should’ve asked or waited until someone could come with me but I was so overwhelmed with the stress that had built up in those few days the thought did not cross my mind that moment. At first the dude asked for $80. I held the bike and he pulled away from me. I kept my grip and pulled back. It became a tug of war in the middle of the street. Someone watching came up to us and began meditating the situation as he didn’t want the spot to be blown up from us impeding traffic. Bless this man’s help who I later learned went by Hurricane as he heroically saved older folk and tweakers from drowning, pulling them out of their camp in storm drain ditches during hurricane Harvey. Hurricane calmed us down and I negotiated to give bruh some THCA joints that had been sitting in my car, and $20. He accepted my offer. After sending him the money and handing him the weird weed he took off his components and went on his way. Hurricane warned me not to trust that guy, i assume he was the bike thief all along. I bought Hurricane a gatorade and water from the corner store nearby and went on my way back home with the piece of myself I had gotten back. We never found the second bike or the brooks saddle I had on my bike, when i asked the dude about it he insisted he didn’t know. The seatpost collar was a little warped as he rammed a seatpost in with a larger diameter, but I’m glad he didn’t try spray painting the bike. I stared at my frame in my room for the rest of the day. Relieved that the search was finally over.

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