— Advertisement —

Man steals his own bike back one year later

For all the stolen bike emails I get, it’s always exciting to get one like this. Matt Goyer spotted his bike on Craigslist one year after it was taken.

He detailed the saga on his blog, including how SPD sort of bailed on him and left him to handle it on his own.

From Matt’s blog:


— Advertisement —

Chelsea spots the ferry, then the guy. Still no sign of the police. I call again only to find out that they’re still busy and haven’t dispatched anyone. So much for Sunday mornings being their quiet time! I drag my feet a little more then head over to 1st and Columbia on foot to meet him.

I meet the guy who is 6’4″ according to his ad for the bike (surprise, my medium frame didn’t fit him!), in the navy and christian (according to his Facebook page). He actually seems like a nice, decent guy. Almost right off the bat he suggests I take it for a quick spin which I do. We then chat and I ask him a bunch of questions he doesn’t have good answers for like, “what year is the bike?”, “what size frame is it?”, “did you build it yourself?” What I do learn is that he allegedly bought it off his buddy a couple months ago for $2k and that it doesn’t really fit him. He figures the bike is worth $5-$7k.

After stalling for as long as I could I check my phone again. Still no word from the cops. So I suggest another test ride, he agrees, I hop on, and never look back!

I duck down to Western and pedal furiously to Western and Lenora, call Chelsea and arrange a rendezvous at 1st and Virginia. I load the bike up and hop in drenched in sweat.

My phone rings.

I don’t answer.

Read more…


About the author:


Related posts:

Comments

14 responses to “Man steals his own bike back one year later”

  1. I just had a bike stolen last Friday but I certainly won’t go that route to recover it. Especially not in downtown Seattle — I’m probably too cautious in traffic to actually get away.

    I assume the city has a bike registry, and I hope I don’t have problems recovering my bike because it wasn’t in it. I should look into that for my other bikes…

  2. Lynn

    When I was at college, someone I knew had a rickety old bike that she didn’t lock, altho she had a lock on it. One day she came downstairs planning to ride it to class, and it wasn’t there.

    A couple years later, she came across it at a park about 10 miles from college. It still had the lock on, and she still had the key – so she locked it, and left.

  3. […] with the pretense of purchasing it and while on a test ride, he simply rode away with his own bike. The Seattle Bike Blog has the story.Funny money at the fair: Cowlitz County sheriff’s detectives have busted a fellow suspected […]

  4. Al, that sucks! Be sure to register it with the stolenbikeregistry.com.

  5. Shannon

    my bike just got stolen Matt! so bummed, love that you got it back!

  6. I just watched the news about this man’s bike here from Ottawa Ontario Canada.Out here in Ottawa he have a lot of downhill mountain bikers and what makes it worse is our bike thieves.We ride $3,000-11,000 bikes and they swoop right off our eyes,parked outside for a moment to enjoy ourselves at a bar.Then coming to our bike stolen. So our cops made a sting ring by rigging high end bikes and watched a full eye without a thief knowing. He won’t get far because there is a missing chain link :P But ask your police to start something like this because a bike is persons life.
    Andy

  7. doug

    Wow, that is a great story! Hilarious.

  8. Garry

    Weird the individual works for me and after this incident, I have seen reciepts for his purchase and the purchase of the upgrades. It is nice to have a blog that does zero fact checks on anything posted.

  9. […] Seattle PI picked up the story of my stolen bike, Seattle man steals back stolen bike as well as the Seattle Bike Blog and the Seattle Times, the story got picked up by KIRO radio, not once but twice! Then it got […]

  10. […] Will I Get Sued For Stealing My Bike Back? | blog.mattgoyer.com – A new twist in Matt’s adventure to steal his bike back. […]

  11. […] after we wrote about how Matt stole back his stolen bike, we get this Sweetbike.org tale of Gretchen’s ride and the vigilante, […]

  12. […] could get used to news weeks like this one. Story after story of recovered stolen bikes have been pouring in, […]

  13. […] string of awesome stolen bike recovery stories is not over […]

  14. […] hearing Matt Goyer’s story, we knew that was not a very dependable option. Matt delayed the guy with his stolen bike for a […]

— Advertisement —

Join the Seattle Bike Blog Supporters

As a supporter, you help power independent bike news in the Seattle area. Please consider supporting the site financially starting at $5 per month:


Latest stories

Bike Events Calendar

Mar
19
Tue
6:00 pm South Seattle Safe Streets Coali… @ Virtual via Zoom
South Seattle Safe Streets Coali… @ Virtual via Zoom
Mar 19 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Joint meeting between Rainier Valley Greenways & Beacon Hill Safe Streets.ShareMastodonTwitterFacebookRedditEmail
Mar
21
Thu
7:15 pm Point83 @ Westlake Park
Point83 @ Westlake Park
Mar 21 @ 7:15 pm
Point83 @ Westlake Park
Meet up in the center of the park at 7ish. Leave at 730. Every Thursday from now until forever rain or shine. Bikes, beers, illegal firepits, nachos, bottlerockets, timetraveling, lollygagging, mechanicals, good times.ShareMastodonTwitterFacebookRedditEmail
Mar
23
Sat
11:00 am Sharing Wheels Bike Parking Lot … @ Sharing Wheels Community Bike Shop
Sharing Wheels Bike Parking Lot … @ Sharing Wheels Community Bike Shop
Mar 23 @ 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Sharing Wheels Bike Parking Lot Sale @ Sharing Wheels Community Bike Shop | Everett | Washington | United States
Sharing Wheels will have completely cleaned and refurbished bikes, As-Is bikes, parts and accessories at our spring Parking Lot Sale! All road bikes will be 50%. All other bikes are 20% off. We have mountain,[…]
Mar
25
Mon
5:30 pm Downtown Greenways monthly meeting
Downtown Greenways monthly meeting
Mar 25 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Last Monday of the month.  Join us! https://seattlegreenways.org/downtowngreenwaysShareMastodonTwitterFacebookRedditEmail
Mar
27
Wed
6:00 pm Ballard-Fremont Greenways Meeting
Ballard-Fremont Greenways Meeting
Mar 27 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Ballard-Fremont Greenways meets monthly on the 4th Wednesday of the month. Join the google group for monthly meeting information: https://groups.google.com/g/ballard-greenwaysBring your enthusiasm and ideas to share with the group or just stop in to say hello[…]
— Advertisements —

Latest on Mastodon

Loading Mastodon feed…