Thieves are stoopid

See the blog entry below this one? The introduction of our new bicycles? Yeah, well, those happy days are over.

We came home to lame-weathered Chicago to discover that our brand new bicycles had been swiped from our own building. We only owned them for a little over a month.

Monday morning, December 28th, Dave said, "bye," and I said, "have a nice day at work," and I heard the front door close and thought it was going to be a regular morning until about five minutes later when I heard the front door open again and Dave belted out a very panicked, "HEY!!"

When I came to the door he explained that glass was everywhere downstairs...the small window on the door of our basement bike room had been smashed. Of the twenty some-odd bikes in that room, his brand new $1,000 Specialized and my brand new $500 GT were the only ones gone, along with our new bike pump.

No, the bikes weren't locked up while in the bike room...nobody does that as there's no room and nothing to lock them to except an extremely hot water pipe. Someone must have been watching us, because the bike room isn't in a completely obvious location and it's extremely strange that only ours were stolen. We last came home with them together a few days before Christmas after gift shopping and they were stolen while we were out of town for the holiday.

It's shattered our sense of security in Logan Square. When we purchased the bikes I pondered the absurdity of paying so much while living in a bike thief-riddled town like Chicago. So I'm not surprised they got swiped. I just thought they'd get taken from us while out and about. I never would have guess someone would have pulled something so meticulous as to steal from our own home.

Anyway, that's that. $1,500 down the drain. Riding the CTA in the morning is miserable enough...even more so when then only reason you're doing it is because some asshole stole your bike.

P.S.--we called all the pawn shops nearby, combed Craigslist, etc. Our bikes were registered with the city, but I doubt that'll make a difference.

Also: http://chicago.stolenbike.org/ for more horror stories, if you're into that sort of thing.