They stole my bike…

It happened before. But still. I cursed the #$%^ junkie that took it. Cursed my own carelessness that I left it for 4 weeks without locking it with extra locks. Cursed the attendants of the semi-guarded bike-park for not paying attention. Cursed this &*^$# city of Utrecht that could not provide the people that work here with decent and safe facilities for bikes.

Utrecht! Okay, in Amsterdam I had dozens of bikes stolen. It’s part of the game. A fact of life. Seldom a bike survived the first year. Every year I ‘invested’ money a new second hand bike.

I hate riding the bus even more than I hate bike-thieves.

So I needed a new bike… a new used one that is. There are at least half a dozen second hand bike shops near Utrecht Central Station (why would that be?). I settled on a 10 year old Gazelle for 110 Euro’s at Willemstraatbike. My old bike did cost me 125 and was much more rusty (Second hand bikes in Utrecht are cheaper than in Amsterdam — I have to give Utrecht that credit).

To mark the bike I glued a sticker on the rear fender — finding your bike near Utrecht Central Station with more than 100,000 bikes can be a nightmare. I used an old sticker, from 1986 when some friends and I wrote for an alternative newspaper De Orkaan. There is no other bike in this world with this sticker — except of course my ‘old’ bike, because I marked it with a similar sticker.

I rode my bike to work. And back. And put it in bike-park. Stepped back to have a good look at my new bike and to remember the place I put it. Next to it was a bike with an Orkaan sticker….

Unharmed, untouched for 4 weeks. I apologize, Utrecht is a safe place for bikes, there are no junkies, no thieves… only stupid people like myself.

Wanna buy a bike?