As the story was shared on Sean McGraw’s Facebook.

So yes, the last 15 minutes of my recovery + coffee shop ride today got very interesting. I was passing back through Ballard on my way home, just about to pass under the Ballard Bridge when a set of HED Ardennes wheels caught my eye at the recent encampment along the Ballard Blocks hole in the ground. Their was a rider on the bike, which appeared to be a white steel frame.

I passed under the bridge and flipped a U-Turn, came back under the bridge and pulled out my phone to get more details from Dieter’s post about his stolen Sizemore Bicycle. I was starting to grab a couple details and noticeable specifics that might be able to be verified in another drive by when the rider started to make motions that he was leaving the encampment. He then started down the Missing Link joke of a bike path towards Fred Meyer and I followed from several bike lengths back.

Once I got onto the Burke at Fred Meyer I freed my phone from my waterproof case so that I could be ready to call the police as needed once the rider + bike had come to rest again and I was able to get at least one more data point that could verify that I was sure it was Dieter’s bike. What happened next was probably the most unexpected step. As I continued to close the gap to the rider and bike, right by the work lofts and garages off the Burke, Dieter was approaching me coming the other way commuting home from work. We both live in Ballard and have passed in this way numerous times before. Dieter was so focused on being polite and giving a wave to me on his commute home, that he did not realize he just rode right by this bike. I flagged Dieter down right quick, he circled around and I told him quite definitively that I was sure I was following his bike.

We got back on our way, and Dieter picked up the pace pretty quickly with the remark “well it’s not, not it.” The pace got pretty fast pretty quick after that quip and we approached the rider and bike once we were parallel to the sand and salt DOT facility in Fremont. Dieter soft merged over to get the rider to stop while saying to the rider that it was his bike, and I approached directly behind Dieter.

I grabbed the left drop of the handlebar and said with a healthy amount of force. “This bike is stolen, you are done, get off the bike.” The response was a very timid and addled, “But I just paid 40$ for it.”

“I don’t care, we’re taking the bike, if you don’t want the cops called you are getting out of here right now”.

“I didn’t steal it”

“I really don’t care, you need to get out of here, now.”

I know my heart was still racing pretty solidly, especially for a recovery ride day, but we got all bikes back to Ballard.