The story is as old as motorcycle theft itself: someone’s bike gets pinched, and the police don’t care. At least, that’s the stereotype, but one rider found the story different when his cafe racer was nabbed in Victoria, BC.
The bike, a good-looking vintage Kawasaki KZ650, was ripped from a hotel parking lot while its builder/rider was in the middle of a road trip through Vancouver Island, which ranks pretty high on the list of motorcyclist nightmares. Police went into action quickly; they figured out the owner of the van used to pinch the bike, who told them his daughter had borrowed the machine for the day. A little more digging by the police, and surprise, there’s the bike in front of a downtown dealership, already in the process of being dismantled for parts (which dealership, one wonders? The police presser did not say …).
Thankfully, the cops stopped the shop’s chop process, and the owner got his custom cycle back. The police press release says the theft is still under investigation, but there’s no note of the other crime here: the hideous misdeed of cutting off that bike’s airbox and replacing it with pod filters, while leaving that 4-2 exhaust … maybe the thief just wanted to give it a better home? Regardless of the motivation behind the theft, it’s good to see police jumping to action and quickly solving one of these cases, instead of stumbling over a warehouse full of chopped-up cycles months after the original thefts.
Any chance you might find the name of the dealership this was parked in front of ?
To quote the about : someone’s bike gets pinched, and the RCMP don’t care!
I m glad the RCMP on Vancouver island give a rats bottom because I ve found out the RCMP in surrey bc don’t from what happened to me. My New honda sh150i got taken from my house and it was locked up . I asked the RCMP officer on the phone to come by and pick up evidence . To quote him : ” What how long to expect me to spend on this !” .
Soon after I started seeing this one guy posted scooter after scooter in surrey bc on clist without reg . ICBC right off. I went and saw the guy and he s saying I ve got 100 scooters / motorcycle. The next day this guy texting Oh I found the reg for the vespa and sold it 2x the cash. Strange since he posted the same scooter for the next 2 months.
I left my name , number a list of scooter the guy was selling and never heard back from the RCMP. 3 Year on guess what ? The same guy still selling stuff that more then likely hot . I got so pissed off I call the surrey rcmp again and guess what they never follow up my info and only might be looking into him now. I say might because I just saw another 3 post on clist from him in the last 2 months. Sorry for venting but with RCMP You ve got the good guys like above, the bad and just plain ugly so to speak.
Dave–your comment intrigues me, but I doubt the email you left is your legit address. If so, please contact me directly. I am keen to hear more about this situation.
There has been a rash of bike thefts in Victoria in the last month. Hope the police do a little more digging and get the miscreants.
I recall touring through the deep south on my CB900F (and later, my CX500Turbo) back in the day, fairly broke, thousands of KM from home and of course no cell phones or anything like that at the time…
This could have easily happened to me!
You come out from your motel in the morning and the bike is simply not there where you left it. Nightmare.
Never happened to me – but the point is, I wasn’t even concerned.
Ahhh, the witlessness of youth…
Super-glad this story had a happy ending!