It's now December and winter is looming. I've been thinking of taking the bike off the road for the winter as my journeys to work on it have ceased to be enjoyable due to the cold and the dark. Any time now the council will start putting salt on the roads again - not good for a motorcycle made mostly of aluminium!
Very early on Saturday morning I'm woken up by someone at the door. I decide it's either somebody ringing the wrong bell by mistake or trying to stuff leaflets though letter boxes - I'm not getting out of bed. A bit later at around 7.30 it happens again - but whoever it is is being more persistent. Not in the best of moods I crawl out of my pit - maybe it's the police and there has been some sort of incident outside? It's my next door neighbour. He tells me my bike has been stolen during the night! He says he heard a clinking sound at about 3.30 in the morning - he looked out the window but couldn't see anything. When he went out to work later there was only a motorcycle cover attached to a padlock and chain thrown on the grass next to where my bike was parked. Closer examination of the chain showed an attempt had been made to cut through it with bolt cutters, and when that didn't work an angle grinder had been used. You would have thought the noise from that in the middle of the night would have woke up the whole neighbourhood? The clinking noise my neighbour heard was obviously my motorcycle chain.
The theft must have been planned in advance. A few weeks ago I was out working on my bike when a kid on a moped rode into the car park and rode round without stopping but blatantly having a good look to see if there was anything worth nicking - he had a good look at me and the bike as he rode off again. It was pretty obvious what he was up to. A while after that I came out one morning to find the cover had been half pulled off my bike overnight. Someone had obviously been having a good look to see what sort of machine was hidden under the cover. A similar thing had happened with my previous bike a year or so ago, but as no one ever came back to steal it I assumed it wasn't what they were looking for and they were only interested in mopeds and scooters. Also, my bike was a single seater so no use for the sort of crimes that involve having a passenger on the back. I assumed that was also the case this time and my bike wasn't the sort of machine they were after. It looks like I was wrong. The bastards must have planned the robbery in advance - maybe waiting until they had a buyer lined up. They must have been well organised and came round mob-handed in the middle of the night. The bike under a cover, chained up, and had the steering lock on. It was right up against a kerb with cars on the other three sides - so they must have had enough people to lift the bike up (weighing over 400 pounds) over the kerb and into the back of a waiting van. As well as footprints I found a mark the sidestand had made digging into the grass as they got it over the kerb.
The police were absolutely fucking useless - apart from giving me a crime number for insurance purposes. I had reported the recent incident with the pulled off motorcycle cover (as well as the similar incident last year) but they said there was little they could do at the time. All the local polices stations have been closed over the last few years and the nearest one is now in Colindale - a 25 minute drive away. The only thing locally is a part time 'plastic police' pop-up cop shop style thing in the village - but it never seems to be fucking open! I checked it's opening times online and walked down there when it was supposed to be open - but it was shut! In past experience I have found ringing 101 to be fucking useless - endless menus and keypad pressing sending you round in circles without ever getting to actually speak to anyone. I eventually had to resort to reporting the theft online without any contact with a human being. In due course I got an e-mail giving me a crime number, but little else. A few hours later I actually received a phone call from a forensics officer - who told me they weren't even going to bother sending anyone round to check the cut through chain and lock for fingerprints. No one from the police came round at any point to look at the scene of the crime or to ask me for any details or information as to what had happened - not even a phone call, apart from the forensics to tell me they weren't interested in coming round to check for any evidence. The police could hardly be less interested - this must be a great time to be a criminal. Not only are the police totally powerless to prevent crimes such as this (mine wasn't the only motorcycle to be interfered with on the estate) but when thefts like this happen they make no effort whatsoever to investigate or catch those responsible. The criminals involved know they can operate with virtually no fear of being caught or any attempt being made to trace them.
For the second time in just over a year I have been forced to become an ex-biker, and this time after 39 years on and off it looks like being permanent. To say I am gutted is putting it mildly. It's not just the money I am losing - I had a £900 excess on my bike insurance so I've lost that straight away. Plus well over £300 I just spent on new tyres and brake pads. Owning that bike for just five months cost me a lot of money! Assuming the insurance pays out I'll still only get about half what it was worth, and certainly nothing like what I paid for it even though I got it at a very good price. Although it was a 2005 model in was in virtually mint condition and only had about 14,000 miles on the clock - it was barely run-in! It was the fastest and most powerful bike I've ever had, but I didn't even have it long enough to get used to it - I didn't even have it for a whole summer. I only got the chance to have two good days out on it. The fucking scum who took it have pretty much finished me with motorcycles for the rest of my life. I thought I had a good few years of biking left in me, although maybe on a more 'sensible' machine as I grew older, and a Super Sports Triumph Daytona 955i wasn't exactly sensible although it was a lot of fun. I am highly unlikely to ever be able to afford to replace it - and even if I bought another bike the low-life thieving bastards who stole this one will be watching to see if I get another one now they've had one off me. If I get another bike it's virtually certain they will steal that too, and there is nothing the police will do either to prevent it or catch those responsible. The same day my bike was stolen I got an e-mail from the police to say they would be closing the case.
Being a biker has been part of who I am for 39 years, and now those cunts have even taken that from me - a part of my personality, part of my very identity has been taken away from me as well as my bike. And I feel totally powerless to do anything about it. I may feel gutted by all this, but I am also very angry about it. I feel like a special chapter of my life has been ended by factors totally out of my control. Part of who I am has been taken away as well as part of my freedom.
I had virtually no car or motorcycle accidents or claims ever until just over a year ago and was on maximum No Claims Bonus. Then in little over a year I had had one motorcycle written off under me by a BMW, my car written off by that bitch a Range Rover who blamed me after admitting it was totally her fault, and now a stolen motorcycle too. My No Claims Bonus is toast, and my insurance costs are going to rise massively - all due to other people! Surely this must be the end of my run of bad luck? They say things come in threes so....
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