(Photo courtesy Jade Koide)
It’s been a while since we last shared a good stolen bike recovery story. So here goes…
Portlander Jade Koide emailed us last week with a pretty remarkable story that involved the theft of a bike that had a lot of sentimental value to her.
Back in the 90s Jade’s uncle built up a gorgeous steel Bob Jackson road bike that he’d built up for his wife. When she passed away, he gave it Jade. In June of 2011 Jade was on a Pedalpalooza ride that ended up at a beach off of Marine Drive on the Columbia River. It was one of those rides that ends with a party and goes all night long. In the wee hours when Jade was finally ready to head home, she went to grab her bike and it had been stolen. Right off the beach.
Jade was crushed. But she’s smart and immediately listed the bike on our stolen bike listings (which are powered by Bike Index). Nothing happened. “I had given up hope for it, but thought about the bike often,” Jade shared with us.
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Then last week she got an email through Bike Index. It was written by Scott Scholl, the service manager at the Bike Gallery store in Clackamas. It read, “Hello. I just recovered your stolen Bob Jackson road bicycle. Please contact me.”
“I thought it might have been a hoax,” Jade recalled, “But it wasn’t.” She called Scott and it was indeed her bike.
According to the Bike Gallery, a man waltzed into the store with Jade’s bike one day and said he just needed some air. Scholl immediately noticed it was a special bike and started asking the guy questions about it. According to another employee at the shop, Scholl had “a bad feeling about the guy” so he asked to take a closer look. Scholl went to the back of the store, searched for “Bob Jackson” on BikeIndex.org, and there it was. He then told the man the bike was stolen and that a Clackamas County Sheriff was on his way to the store. Suffice it to say the man didn’t stick around to plead his case.
Jade is very thankful for Scholl’s quick thinking and for BikeIndex.org. “What an incredible bike community we have here in Portland,” she said.
— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org
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