We all grew up watching heroes in tight costumes apprehend criminals, but most of us eventually give up hope of fighting crime— even if we keep the spandex. The same was probably true of Ed Dorsey and Andy Goessling, two cyclists who (by day) work for Strava and Rapha respectively. Yet after a bike theft one Wednesday in August spurred some quick-thinking, the duo became cycling superheroes.

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Goessling, who manages the Rapha Cycle Club café in San Francisco, noticed a man leaving the store with a red Cannondale bike that he had not arrived on. Goessling sprang into action.

“[I] grabbed a bike from the rack that belongs to a regular customer that was kind of the right size for me, almost,” he says, and set off in pursuit. He called the police as he caught up to and tailed the rider, who he says was riding “pretty slowly, kind of just ambling along.” (It's worth noting, though, that Goessling is a Category 1 racer who finished fourth at the USA Cycling Professional Criterium National Championships this year.)

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Meanwhile, Dorsey, who lives nearby and says he stops at the café at the end of most rides, noticed the “distinctive-looking red bike” on the rack on his way in.

“I was just hanging up my bike on the hooks inside when I saw Andy come running out from behind the bar, It didn’t take long to put two and two together and go after them.” says Dorsey, who has been a victim of bike theft himself. Given that he was riding his own bike, and was clipped in and wearing a helmet, he had a much easier time catching up.

The thief led the pair on a chase through the city, even briefly going the wrong way down a busy one-way street. (To see the chase in real-time, watch Dorsey’s Strava Flyby; he gets to the café about 11 minutes and 30 seconds into the recording.)

“He kept riding through crowds and trying to lose us, ” Dorsey says.

Dorsey and Goessling knew they had to help direct the chase to avoid more conflicts. “We didn’t want to end up following him to somewhere where all his mates were waiting.” Dorsey says, so they first tried to “ride the guy into the sidewalk and some trees and things like that, but it didn’t really work.”

Goessling then tried to kick the thief off the bike, “which turned out not to be the best idea,” Goessling says, since he was riding an ill-fitting bike himself and had a phone in one hand; he ended up taking a tumble.

“The guy was pretty off-balance after Andy kicked him, so I just tackled him off the bike,” Dorsey says. The two men held the perp in place—“just using our bodyweight, really,” Goessling says—while he cried and begged to be let go.

“He clearly didn’t want to be a bike thief,” Dorsey says.

“It was a bit sad really to see how the guy ended up feeling like he needed to steal a bike.” Goessling adds.

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They say it only took three or four minutes for the police to arrive, after several bystanders put in 911 calls.

Once the police made the arrest, the pair ghost-rode the rescued bike back to the café. Anxiously awaiting their return was the bike’s owner, Meredith Storton. She later posted a comment on Dorsey’s Strava ride file saying Dorsey and Goessling are “her heroes.”

Dorsey remains humble. “[I] really just wanted to make sure the situation was dealt with by people better qualified to deal with it than me,” he says, adding, “Obviously I also wanted to make sure that the bike found its way back to its owner as well.”

As if Dorsey didn’t have enough to bolster his self-worth that day, his Strava file shows he also set several PRs and a top 10 segment finish during the ride—and it captured the pursuit.

See Dorsey’s full Strava file here.

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