And the saddle bag came back !

09-18-2004, 07:43 AM

Most cyclists have their tales of woe about stolen bikes or equipment:
I know I do. Still it is not all bad.

This spring my bike disappeared from outside my bank on the main
street (Gore St. of Perth Ontario (pop 6000). I immedinately notified
the police who immendiately tossed me into a patrol car and did a
quick sweep of the town in case we could find the thief still riding
around. No luck but kudos to the police for such consideration.

About 3 or 4 days later, as I was walking along Gore St., it occured
to me that a bright yellow Bianci road bike was not a common sight in
Perth. And while the police would keep an eye out most of them
probably weren't cyclists. However there were a lot of teenage males
racing around, doing wheelies and riding on the sidewalk. They might
have noticed it.

Across the street, just in front of my bank were about half dozen
teenage lads, 2 or 3 of whom were on bikes. I walked across and
explained my problem. One of the lads on foot asked, "A yellow bike
with one blue saddle bag?' Yes! He said that he had found it lying
in a pedestrian walkway (alley) across the street and after two days
had taken it home. If it was mine, I could walk around the corner of
this block and it was under the staircase in the little parking lot
behind the bakery.

I walked around the corner and there it was. No harm done and nothing
but two bungee cords missing. I mounted up and rode home.

The reason why there was only one saddle bag on the bike was because I
had lost one about a year and a half ago when riding about 30-40 km
southeast of Perth. I've been keeping an eye out for a replacement set
of bags wenever I've been in Ottawa but haven't seen anything that
would be as good as my old Montanard bags.

This morning I was parked at the Town Hall when two men rode up to me
and the one with the patriarch's beard and riding a Minelli
full-supension said that he had noticed that I only had the one bag.
He mentioned that he thought that he had picked up a similar one about
a year or two ago but could not remember where. This sounded promising
so we rode over to his house, he walked into the shed and 10 seconds
later came out with my missing saddle bag.

It had a few tire tracks on it and was a bit sandy but otherwise in
great shape. Judging from the tire marks it looks like it got tossed
off the dirt road by a passing auto and landed in the ditch where I,
somehow, missed it in my searches.

Although there are many cyclists' tales of woe out there, sometimes we
have happier tales to tell.

John Kane
Perth Ontario