Here in the sporty Okanagan, bicycle theft is all too common. Do a Google search on the subject and the hits just keep coming. Expensive bikes, cheap bikes, e-bikes, kids bikes, adult bikes -- it just doesn't seem to matter.
So wouldn’t it be cool if a caped crimefighter magically materialized to strike fear into the hearts of would-be bike thieves everywhere?
Sadly, we don't live in the Marvel or DC universe.
But we do have a dynamic duo of our own nevertheless. They don't wear capes -- not that we know of anyway -- and they don’t have superpowers. But in the last couple weeks, they've twice foiled the nefarious plans of Penticton bicycle thieves and in each case bravely recovered the stolen property.
Take that, Batman and Robin.
The scourge of justice began two weeks ago when Olivia Fobert, who with hubby Brett Turner runs Penticton's Joy Road Catering Service and Joy Road Pop Up Bakeshop, reported her $5,000 Turbo Vado e-bike stolen.
It was pilfered from the Joy Road company van, parked at the couple's downtown home. What’s worse, it was the second break-in they'd endured over the course of the past month.
According to Turner, the crooks intended to wrap the bike in duct tape to conceal its identity. And he knew that because, in the absolute weirdest of coincidences, the criminals had taken the thing to the rear loading zone of the Pop Up Bakeshop to do it, where a security camera caught them in the act.
Unfortunately, Turner and Fobert didn't watch the remote footage 'til sometime later. By that time, the bike would have been taped and gone.
But that’s when more coincidence, and our two heroes, stepped in.
When they realized their bike had been ripped off, Fobert and Turner did the right thing. They immediately contacted the police, and they sent out bulletins to local bike shops like Main Street's Freedom Bikes.
And that, ultimately, proved to be the beginning of the end for the bad guys.
We'll let Freedom Bikes' Jessy Hoffman, who along with shop manager Josh Shulman makes up the newly minted plucky pair, take it from there.
"I was off for the day and was doing some errands," said Hoffman, "when out of the corner of my eye, behind Joy Road, I saw a couple of guys who looked suspect for the bike they had. But I was driving, so I found a place to stop and went back to look. But they were gone."
"Later when I went out to get a coffee, down at the food truck where the Three Gables (hotel) used to be, behind the food truck I saw some guys with black electrical tape taping a white bike to disguise it.
"So I ran up to the shop as fast as I could go and asked Josh if anyone had reported a stolen Vado."
"Damn right," replied Shulman. And the two simultaneously uttered their new catchphrase, 'Let's go!'"
When they reached the scene, the crooks were now removing the tape. "I think they saw me eying them up earlier, so now they were trying to make it look white again," said Hoffman.
"And we asked them why they're taping up a bike? And they said, 'Oh, we just found it here.'
"But it was instant. There was no fighting or arguing. We told them we were taking the bike and they just handed it to us."
It was a job well done for the fearless twosome, and today Fobert and Turner once again have their e-bike, minus only a swiped baby seat.
But Shulman and Hoffman's crimefighting career would surge once more just this past Thursday when Shulman spotted another suspicious scene.
"I saw a couple of guys early in the morning in the alley," he said, "just as we were setting up our workstation out back. One was walking, the other was riding a stolen-looking bike.
"It was blatant. Yeti frames are super expensive. And this was obviously spray-painted."
Shulman ducked inside the shop, found Hoffman, and it was 'Let's go!' once again.
They tracked them on foot, watching as they were "literally checking alleyway door handles" along the way.
"So we caught up to them and basically just called him to his face that we knew this wasn’t his bike," said Shulman. "And of course he tells us 'Oh, I just bought it off a guy.'
"But this guy's been in the shop before. And I've wondered what's up for awhile, cuz I've seen him with so many different bikes over the years."
"And he's always wanting to buy service parts and tools," added Hoffman. "So we're curious why some of those guys are trying to buy tools off of us all the time to work on bikes."
Hoffman and Shulman got "feisty" with the probable perp and then gave him a choice. Either give up the bike right there, or they'd escort him to the police station.
He chose the latter.
"There was a couple times when we thought he was going to make a dash," said Shulman. "One time I actually reached out and grabbed a loop on his backpack because he was getting a little far away. And he was like 'Don't touch me, man.'"
At the station, Shulman and Hoffman were told the bike wasn't in the system.
"But we told the officer that we have this stolen bike bulletin," said Hoffman. "We could even identify some of the parts.
"And we advised her that some bike thieves are now pulling serial numbers from cheap electronics, painting the bike, and gluing on the new (false) numbers. So when the police run the serial number, nothing comes up."
"The officer then checked the case number," said Shulman, "and was able to visually confirm what we were telling her, that a lot of the parts matched the bike that was reported stolen. And based on that, she made the decision to keep it."
Ultimately, the bike was returned to its rightful owner, and Shulman and Hoffman soon got a wildly grateful phone call.
Shulman hopes the thief didn’t get off too lightly.
"At the very least I'd hope he'd be charged with possession of stolen property over $5,000," he said. "At least hit him with something."
But the twosome agree that bike owners could be more proactive.
"If this ever happens to you," said Hoffman, "get the word out as fast as possible. Get to the local bike shop and give them as much information as you can. And make a police report. If you don’t get it back in the first few days, it's usually gone. Often to another town."
"If you’re buying a bike," added Shulman, "ask the seller where the serial number is located. Any self-respecting bike shop will have it on the receipt they give you."
"And I hear great things about Project 529. It’s a good place for people to register their bikes."
Both also agree that better locks mean better safety.
"Ninety percent of the time," said Hoffman, "thefts happen because $5,000 bikes are protected by $40 bike locks. These people are stealing power tools from construction sites, but a good lock is still harder to cut even with an angle grinder."
Later, Hoffman took us onto Main Street, showing us how experienced thieves will remove lag bolts on sidewalk fixtures like bike racks and parking meter supports, slide off still-locked bikes and cut the lock later.
"So make sure whatever you're locking the bike to doesn’t just have a small bolt they can release," he said.
"And we always tell people that if you’re locking your bike up at a coffee shop, don’t put it around the corner. Lock it in the busiest foot traffic spot, like by the front door at a grocery store or right out front at the coffee shop, because they're not going to pull out their power tools when there are people right there."
To Shulman, the pandemic has made a bad situation even worse.
"These days," he said, "there are a lot of new bikes out there with new owners who don't realize how bad bike theft is. And people can hide their identity right now with masks, without seeming suspicious. So these guys are feeling a little braver than they have in the past.
"We're just tired of seeing good people lose their bikes."
