When Dave Park’s thousand-dollar bicycle disappeared from his garage two weeks ago, he figured it was gone forever.

Imagine his surprise when, stopped at a red light in his car at Lansdowne and Dupont streets on Saturday afternoon, he turned to his right and saw someone riding it.

“At first I thought: Oh, that’s a cool bike,” said the 35-year-old software developer. Then he spotted the customized handlebars, the $150 seat, the distinctive black grips with red stars on them and the new pedals he put on, and was stunned to realize it was his bike.

“I couldn’t believe it. It was kind of like I hooked a big fish,” Park said. “I just needed to act.”

Park decided to follow the cyclist. His forward-thinking fiancée, Vanessa Crossley, in the passenger seat, started filming the chase on her iPhone. They followed for a couple of blocks and then into an alleyway, where they confronted the rider.

Watch: the iPhone video

Park felt no fear, he said; he was too caught up in the excitement of the moment.

The couple rolled up next to the cyclist and informed him the bike belonged to Park. The rider, whose face is blurred in the video, was “shocked, but not super shocked,” Park said. The man said he got the bike from a friend.

“There was no fight from him,” Park said, adding that he didn’t care whether the man was the thief; he just wanted his bike back.

“It was this golden opportunity, basically a dream come true for any person who’s had a bike stolen,” he said.

Crossley stopped filming and pulled up a PDF of the police report describing the bike and showed the man. It matched, down to the serial number.

“That was just like, ‘Checkmate, buddy. We just dominated you.’ He kind of started to move away from the bike and I just grabbed it.”

Park hopped on the bike and rode back to their home, near Bloor and Dufferin, and Crossley drove.

Park, who at 5-foot-5 is not an intimidating presence, said the confrontation could have ended much worse had the man been less cooperative.

“I would have run after him,” he said. “I probably would have gotten beat up, but I was going to try my best to get the bike back.”

When he called police, he said, they told him he shouldn’t have accosted the man without calling them.

Const. Victor Kwong agreed.

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“In this situation, we’re happy that it concluded okay, but there are many other factors to consider. Number one is always personal safety,” he said.

“If you’re following the guy, perfect. Follow the guy, but call police. We would send someone expediently.”

More than 3,100 bikes were reported stolen in Toronto last year.