Take Anything But The Bike!

I arrived at my house this morning, after spending the night out only to find the car door to the suburban in the driveway open. Hmmm, that's not normal, I thought. I wondered if maybe my mom had forgotten to close the door, still all the while thinking that it was a little out of character. I began walking past the door and noticed the entire car had been ransacked. I had my keys in my hand and was walking towards my apartment door and I bolted for the front door instead. If someone had ransacked the car, maybe I had spooked them and they were still around. I fumbled around for the hide-a-key to the house and got inside the upstairs. I immediately woke up everyone in the house alerting them of the possible theft. My heart was racing at this point and my hands wouldn't stop shaking. My mom and step-dad walked outside to check out the car, nothing had been stolen, just ransacked and gone through. I began to calm down and my mom began trying to talk me out of riding. I knew that I needed to ride and I wasn't going to let some two-bit thief stop me. I headed down to the basement to my apartment and noticed that my TT bike wasn't in its usual spot, hmmm, that's not normal, I thought. I summed it up to my mom moving it while cleaning and headed inside my apartment. I quickly changed and headed back into the basement and looked for the TT bike. I finally found it, sitting next to the back door of the basement. I headed out the back door and through the gate with the bike. As I was coming down the side of the house my mom was walking towards me. I asked her why she moved my bike to the back of the basement? She looked at me confused and said, "Well you had it outside next to the grill and that's not safe!". I replied with "No, I never move my bike from the basement unless I am riding it, and I certainly don't leave it outside". She continued on and said well then who did put it outside. Pieces started falling into place. She and I both looked at each other, "Someone was trying to rob us!". All I kept saying was, "Why my bike! Why my bike!". Maybe someone moved it outside, someone that had been in the house recently, I'm sure that's what happened, no one would really try and steal my bike. I headed out to the lakefront for the morning ride and tried to put it out of my mind. I had a training ride to focus on.

(The almost-stolen-but-the-bike-gods-were-on-my-side-bike!)

I got out to the lakefront to see the usual crowd of tri-geeks. We all headed out for a nice breezy ride. About halfway down Haynes, the Giro began passing us, I waved to Accident Andrews and the others and watched them speed ahead. About a mile further up the road the Giro slowed down for some people who had flats. The tri-geeks surged ahead and we headed down Chef. Right before the turnaround the Giro caught up with us again, Accident Andrews passed me and then turned around to jump in with us. He said he was spent and was going to ride home with us. We pace-lined back home and made it back all in one piece. Accident Andrews and I headed to breakfast with Elvis (another Giro rider). Accident Andrews brought me home instead of riding home and I headed back inside with my bike. I walked upstairs to talk with my step-dad about what had happened this morning. He said that someone had tried to take my bike, they found broken glass from the wall outside, (we have broken glass on top of the wall to keep people out), apparently whoever was trying to get out with my bike got spooked when they tried to leave through the gate and when they couldn't get out with the bike in tow they jumped over the back wall and most likely hurt themselves on the broken glass. I hope they hurt themselves real bad! I looked at my step-dad and said "Why didn't they take the TV? Why didn't they take jewelry? Why didn't they take anything else?" He laughed and said, "Well, I guess they wanted your bike more". I shook my head and walked out of the room saying "Take anything but the bike!".