Well… I received a call from the city police yesterday, they recovered my 5th gen after it had been gone for almost a year. The officer was fairly comical about the whole situation, "good news – found your bike, bad news – it’s not red anymore it’s rattle can blue now". I loaded up the kids and we headed for the impound lot, needless to say it's in rough shape. The ignition has been punched out, broken tail light, but no heavy damage to the fairings. I’ll know more once I get it into the garage and give it a good once over. As long as the engine is strong I’ll start tearing into it and start a list of what needs work. The rear tire is the same one from a year ago and doesn't appear to be flat spotted so that's promising. The attached picture might make the bike look decent but be assured bike is "good from far, but far from good".
This was a project bike that my daughters and I spent a year of so rebuilding. They were as upset as I was when it was stolen last year, right at the beginning of summer. But now we have our project bike back at home and we can start again. This time we’ll chain it to the garage floor when it’s not being ridden.
From what I have been able to piece together it looks like it was parked in a parkade that was scheduled for cleaning, I believe it was in an apartment building. I asked the cop if they could stake the place out and see who was riding the bike but he just laughed at me. I figured - fair enough, he must have better things to do.
No theft insurance on the bike at the time, I paid $2,500 for it and the extra cost for theft would have paid for a replacment in a short amount of time. Figured I would roll the dice.
The whole situation started with a car prowling on my wife's mini van that was parked in front of the house,they grabbed the garage door opener and headed for the alley. At some point they must have called a buddy with a truck and loaded up a bunch of my favorite stuff. None as important to me as the bike.
I consider myself very lucky.... I had given up long ago on ever seeing the bike again.
Sorry it got stolen. Congrats on finding the bike. Good luck on the rebuild-- and pls paint it back to red would you? That blue.... Yikes! Even flat black if you must but not that blue... :wacko:
It totally sucks to be violated like that, but you are indeed fortunate to have it back. It is unfortunate that property crimes are so low on the list of importance - but that's the reality these days. It's the rare bike or car that's reunited with the rightful owner. Sounds like you rebuilt 'er once, so you can do it again. Post up some photos as you go along. Best of luck with it.
Yeah, the stake out for the rider may only produce someone who bought it from someone else, etc. It's a nice mystery to want to solve and I would be just as curious but too many thefts on a daily basis to try and track all of them. The recovery is the real bonus here. Glad to hear it.