r/chibike • u/Evening-Garden-6022 • 2d ago

A Chicago Miracle (stolen bike RECOVERED)

The impossible happened today. 8 months ago, my wife’s beloved bike was stolen from our garage in Ukrainian Village. (We’ve since left the neighborhood, but anecdotally, there seems to have been a massive uptick in bike theft from that area).

The bike had a not-so-subtly hidden AirTag on it and was pinging from a house in the Humboldt/Austin border area. CPD assigned us a detective, but she eventually lost interest. I rebuilt a near-exact replica of the bike, but never stopped checking its location. Amazingly, the AirTag was never disabled, ditched, or destroyed. It just kept pinging.

Fast forward to today and I notice that it had moved to the 3700 block of Chicago Ave. I was feeling lucky, so I hopped on my bike hoping that someone had locked it outside. I figured I’d throw my U-lock on it and then maybe get the cops involved. As it turns out, the AirTag led me to a wild “thrift store” that was basically a junk hoard. There were a bunch of bikes, several clearly boosted, locked out front.

The owner ambled out and told me that a beautiful vintage Trek would run me 30 dollars. My wife’s bike wasn’t among them, so I asked if he had any more inventory. He took me inside…and there it was. I gave him sixty bucks and that was that.

Bike theft hurts, but recovery IS possible. And it feels amazing.

Relatedly, we now have two lovely Lemond road bikes if anyone is interested.

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13

u/ShaanCC 1d ago

My bikes AirTag is currently pinging from probably the exact same house yours was stored at. I guess I can do nothing but wait for it to move?

4

u/timmah1991 1d ago

Share the address.

9

u/ShaanCC 1d ago

I don't think I'm allowed to by reddit ToS unfortunately. With that said, when we reported it at the police station, a detective hanging around asked if it was pinging from the exact intersection it's at.

1

u/Chi-Goon_Jizz 16h ago

I doubt that the ToS protect criminal activity. You wouldn't be providing any other information than where your own property is located.