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An alert Vancouver resident had his bike stolen, then returned, all within an hour, thanks to some citizen sleuthing and the Vancouver Police Department K-9 unit.

Chris Hilliard was asleep in his condo at 4:30 a.m. Friday when he awoke to the sound of metal crashing to the ground. A peek from his fourth-floor balcony revealed a thief had cut through his steel U-bolt bike lock and made off with his ride, a $600 GT Traffic 2.0 model that he’d secured at an outdoor bike rack.

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Hilliard’s first instinct was to give chase, but his wife convinced him it was too dangerous. A few minutes later, unable to resist, he went outside to look, but the thief was long gone.

By then the 34-year-old IT project manager was too keyed-up to sleep, so he decided to go out for a coffee, driving to a shop he knew opened early in Gastown.

On the way, driving down Main Street, he suddenly did a double take: there was the man with his bike.