A local man who gets around town on one of his two bicycles says he had to buy back one of them earlier this week after it was stolen on Friday night.

But Jim McColl didn’t mind paying the $20 to get it back.

McColl, who is a volunteer photographer around Kingston and can been seen at local concerts and festivals, was taking photos of a band performing at the Blu Martini on Friday night.

He was in the process of looking for a new lock for his bike but didn’t have a chance to buy one before the Friday concert, so he hid the bicycle in a good spot behind the bar.

“Usually nobody touches it,” he said.

After realizing it was stolen, he checked out a few social media sites where local items are sold but couldn’t find it advertised there.

McColl said he knew of a local man who buys, fixes up and re-sells bicycles at cheap prices to people who can’t afford a new bike.

A few days later, he visited the back of the man’s home where restored bicycles are on display and McColl located his missing bike.

“I wasn’t going to call the police,” he said. “I was just happy to get the bike back.” McColl paid $20 to reclaim his bike. McColl said he was told that the bike came in the day after it was taken.

McColl doesn’t drive and uses his bicycle to get around town to look for jobs in the summer and to get to his his volunteer photography assignments.

He works full time during the university year at Leonard Hall at Queen’s.

“I use the bus a lot and I put my bike on the bus to go downtown and them I’ll ride around downtown on my bike.”

“It’s a lot quicker riding your bike downtown than using a car.”

Over the years, McColl estimates he’s had about a dozen bikes stolen from him.

Several friends have offered to lend them their bicycles while he was without his.

McColl is not alone in losing his bike. According to Frontenac Cycle’s Graeme Healey and Carla Teixeira, bike theft is a big problem in Kingston.

Last fall, they prepared a “Bicycle Theft in Kingston” report and sent it to local city officials as well as members of the Kingston Police.

The report included a survey of 254 people on social media or who showed up at their downtown Kingston store.

Of the respondents to the survey, 44.8 per cent had at least one bike stolen, and 9.8 per cent had three or more stolen. Just over 44 per cent reported having parts of their bike taken, the most common being seat and seat posts, wheels, lights, brakes and handlebars.

Healey, who has been with Frontenac Cycle for 16 years, told the Whig-Standard that multiple customers were coming into his shop on a daily basis because their bicycle — or parts of it — had been stolen.

“Bike theft often reflects what’s wrong in our community as it is heavily connected to poverty and drug addiction,” read the report.

One way to be able to recover one’s bicycle McColl suggested, people should buy GPS tracking devices and put them on bicycles and other valuable items. McColl said they could be easily hidden under bicycle seats or inside the frame of the bike.

“That way they (thieves) don’t know it’s there.”

In this case, McColl was satisfied to get his bicycle returned from the bicycle re-seller, in better condition than when it was stolen from him.

“I’m very happy to get the bike back and I said thank you to them,” he said.

“It’s a good thing that he does and he’s been doing it for a long time.”

With a file from Steph Crosier

imacalpine@postmedia.com

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