Pedicab Man

One of our guys--who doesn't work for us anymore--left a bike taxi outside the French Quarter Inn at about 2:00AM. While he was upstairs at a party someone stole the bike and 3 radios, valued at about $6k. Looked like to me the thief just wanted a ride to his car which was probably parked somewhere behind Harris Teeter about 1 mile away. The bike was found by the Port Authority Police a short time later in this area. NO BIG DEAL, RIGHT? Guy takes a short ride on a bike, abandons the bike, police find the bike--what could be simpler? WRONG! Here is what happened next: 1. Idiot rider reports bike missing. 2. It's a slow night so Charleston City Police mount a 4 police car search which lasts for several hours and goes in ever expanding circles from the French Quarter. 3. by daylight, City Police have pretty much lost interest. 4. Big John goes to work at the Bike Taxi shop at 9:30 and notices a bike and radios are missing. He reports this fact to management. 5. Management mounts their own search which lasts about 48 hours. 6. Fifty Six hours after the bike is stolen one of the Port Authority officials finds a yellow bike taxi in his parking space inside their garage and says, "What the f--k is this yellow thing doing in my GD parking spot?" 7. Some pee-on at the Port Authority is charged with getting it the hell out of the way. 8. After a few hours it occures to the pee-on that maybe he should call the phone number listed in 4 inch letter on the side of the cab--now we're finally getting somewhere.

Anyway, it was a good excuse for me to get some extra miles of training in for my ride this summer which I did street by street by street. Yawn.