Monday, April 22, 2013

finding joanie

well, was pretty devastated to be leaving for work on thursday morning to find my bike wasn't in the apartment entryway as it has been on and off for years. my roommate said he noticed the door was propped open, but no one moving anything in or out. that must have been when it happened.

Some asshole stole this bike from my lower haight apt bldg sometime after 10:30 pm last night. Please help! #joaniebaby
i wrote this and posted it everywhere i could think of on social media. facebook, twitter, google +, flickr, pinterest, stolen bike registry, craigslist, filed a police report. set up an IFTTT.com account and had 5 recipes "spamming" my inbox and texts. i also went old school and took a picture of her to local bike shops. went to flea markets in sf, friends went to east bay flea markets. i looked around homeless encampments for chop shops and random bikes. and then i got numb and started to plan a life without joanie.

and of course i tagged Jenny Oh, that amazing reuniter of stolen bikes. she's basically the 6 degrees of kevin bacon for bike thievery. we had a few false starts out there, but it was awesome to know that eyes are out there and we're keeping a lookout for bikes to return to their rightful owners.

sure enough...someone saw her post on fb and this is what happened:

Well, basically, I woke up in the morning last Thursday and found a red bike in my front yard with the seat post sawed off and immediately said, "FUCK! Some random bike in my front yard, where the hell is mine?!" And mine was gone. Whoever stole hers, traded it out for mine. I think someone definitely scoped me out and knew that I had a bike. My friend Kelsey Simmen reached out to Jenny Oh to post about my bike and on Jenny's page, I saw a picture of Melyssa's bike and said, holy shit! I have that bike! I hope Karma pays me back.

so in order to pass that karma on forward, i'm posting a pic of Meryl's bike. you can contact us here, leave a comment, and i'll get in touch with her.



joanie did not escape unharmed, but she's back. and i can't believe it. power of social media and taking matters into our own hands is incredible!

FOUND!! Stripped for parts but that's joanie!!

it does not fix the inherent real issue of inadequate bike parking in apartment buildings, nor does it solve the issue of bike thieving jackholes, but it's something. it's community. and i'll take it.

thank you so much to everyone who retweeted, reposted, commented or just even thought, "wtf, someone stole joanie?!" a special shout out to those who went flea market and division street hunting with me. also to those two that bought me chocolate, it was much appreciated. as last week in america proved there are bad people in this world doing unheard of things (or just being a bike thief), but there are far more good people to counteract those actions.

FOUND!! Stripped for parts but that's joanie!!

also, 1/2 of her namesake is joan jett. don't mess with joanie.




11 comments:

  1. So happy you found your bike.. I had been watching Craigslist in our area about 400 miles south ( you never know) and was disappointed yesterday when I read you'd been to the flea markets and no luck. She's a beauty, glad she's back!

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    1. thanks so much for looking out! i can't believe it!! one of my recipes was triggered by portland craigslist, just in case!

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  2. Sorry Joanie didn't make it back in one piece, but glad you have been reunited.

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  3. Wow- I'm impressed that you got her back! I'll keep an eye out for the blue one. Sucks about the seatpost and seat.

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  4. Congrats on getting your ride back!

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  5. might not be over yet, although i wouldn't go alone. i'm willing to bet money that the last saddle is mine. there's a small tear on the side that is not shown. <a href="http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/bik/3701337367.html>http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/bik/3701337367.html</a>

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  6. thanks everyone! i STILL can't believe it!

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  7. I'm glad she's back. Why would they chopped her seat post and take her grips? That makes no sense. Sorry about the other bike too. I hope it's found safe and sound.

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    1. thanks betty. we are definitely sad about the blue bike. i have my eyes peeled. i have NO idea why they took the grips. maybe to sniff the gorilla glue that they had on it. i'm only sort of joking about that. one of the grips was starting to chip, so meh.

      the saddle was a brooks, so i can see why the sawed it off. i had it on there pretty good, so looks like our method of keeping the brooks on worked. check out my post on it here.

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    2. brooks b17s honey. broken in. ugh.

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