all you see is/crime in the city

I believe it was Emily Dickenson who wrote, "I'm tired of the motherfuckin' jackin." No wait, that was Easy-E (I frequently confuse the two of them). But who among us is not tired of getting jacked? Not me, that's for sure (to the extent that I'm sure that I figured whatever I just wrote). Case in point: I was washing my filthy chamois the other day in my apartment building's laundry room, which also doubles as a bicycle storage area, when I glanced over to see if the mountain bike I fixed up for my girlfriend was still holding air in its tires. I was slightly puzzled when I didn't see it in the bicycle rack, so I went back int my bicycle-infested apartment to see if I had actually brought it back. Nope, it wasn't in the apartment, so I returned to the laundry room and, upon further inspection, I discovered this:

The lock and half-inch cable were mine. However, I didn't remember modifying the cable with a severe cut. Nor did I recall leaving the cable on the floor, not attached to a bicycle. Now I haven't seen the new Sherlock Holmes movie, but I've seen enough of the commercials for the movie to deduce that I'd been jacked.

Having this bike stolen was irksome for a number of reasons:

1) This bike will never be used by my girlfriend to shred the gnar. Did she want to shred the gnar? Well, maybe not so much. It actually hadn't been ridden since the upgrades and had been sitting around the laundry room unused for long enough that I'm not even sure when it was taken (possibly several months ago). But the fact is that she could have, and now she can't.

2) I just fixed up that bike. I added some new (cheap) v-brakes and switched over some old parts.

3) Those old part were dope! Dope circa 1998. Marzocchi Z-2 BAM fork. Mavic Crossland wheels. Yellow Oury grips. Dope!

4) That bike was exchanged for dope. Or crack. Or crystal meth. Or whatever the kids are into these days.

5) The bike was locked up, in the laundry room, on the third floor of a reputable condo building. Okay, so this is Durham. And so, cable locks are crap. But still, there were plenty of unlocked bikes right next to ours that could have made a thief plenty happy. Not that I would wish a stolen bicycle on anyone else, especially one of my neighbors. But if your shit's unlocked, it's fair game for stealing. Not to say that it should be stolen, but you should expect that it could.

6) Seriously, this asshole can't really know what he was stealing. True, they did take the best looking bike, but it wasn't that great. The greatness was completely sentimental. I somehow feel attached to bicycle stuff that was once pretty rad and still works, but is now fairly obsolete. I have a box full of this stuff. I have nice bibshorts with no more elastic. It's sad, but I reckon it's how parents feel once their children start being cute and start being disappointments.

7) We are in tough economic times. While stealing bikes ain't new, folks are looking for anything they can grab. It should also be noted that the bike had a "World Bank Group" parkinglot sticker on it. True, this bike was once used as a commuter bike and parked at the Word Bank; however, it was not used by a banker, especially a fat-cat banker who made you poor. Teabaggers, step off.

8) Bicycle thievery is still going strong. Shortly after the invention of the bicycle, some brilliant thief realized, "this is the perfect thing to steal since it's worth money and it serves as its own getaway vehicle. yoink!" (This realization occurred just shortly after some other jerk invented awesomer wheels and tried to sell them at a ridiculous price, but before some other jerk tried to put aero bars on it.)

9) No bikes are safe. Lock your shit up. Lock it well.

Well, so, if you see an old Trek 5700 with a weird assortment of parts and a parking sticker for the World Bank Group, hit me up on the "comments" section.