John’s Ramblings

Regular readers will recall my dilemma regarding my recently re-acquired Centurion bicycle:

• Sell it to some fellow in Iowa who purportedly had a dream to ride it across Iowa during RAGBRAI, after converting it to a fixie, or
• Keep it, and eventually convert it to a fixie myself.

After a test-ride and some soul-searching, I opted to sell the bike to the guy from Iowa. His story was that he had the same frame, had done the conversion, then had the bicycle stolen. His “only hope” to complete his goal was me and my Centurion. So I agreed to send it to him. We came to terms on price and shipping, and I billed the man via PayPal. I went to my LBS to get a bike box, and I disassembled the bike for shipment. I tucked it into the box, sealed same, and slapped on the shipping label. Not wanting to delay the separation, or to spend the next few days tripping over a bike box in the front hallway, I arranged for pickup, and put the box on porch. That was three weeks ago.

Can you tell where this is going yet?

He’s now had the bicycle in his posession for over two weeks, and has yet to pay for same. He no longer answers emails and he does not answer the phone. A creative internet property search for the Cedar Rapids area revealed that the house I shipped to was rented, and when I contacted the owner I found that the renter was vacating said premises as of the end of April. “Good Luck” he said.

Chock-full of goodwill and compassion after having seen the Dalai Lama during his visit to Seattle, I trusted this man and believed his story. There was no way he would steal my bike after having his own bike stolen, right? Wrong.

I’m out a 33 year old bike, which if you depreciate the likely cost of a lower-end 10 speed in 1975 over the life of the asset, isn’t much. I’m out $50 for shipping, plus my time to pack the bike. Count in part of a gallon of gas to get a shipping box from the LBS. I think what bothers me most is that the “nobler purpose” I figured I was accomplishing by selling the bicycle was a complete illusion. I would have been better advised to give the bike to Bikeworks for the Bikes to Ghana project.

I’m sad, but not angry. I will not call down the wrath of my readers to waste time sending emails that will go unread, nor to make phone calls that will go unanswered. Then you will have wasted time on a fruitless pursuit, as I have.

However, if you happened to be riding RAGBRAI this year and you see this person riding my bicycle, you might want to mention to him the value in doing good deeds vs. bad.

More fool me.

Tags: Cycling, iowa, ragbrai, stolen_bike

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