A day or two ago Mr Agreeable flagged up a Santa Cruz that appeared ‘fishy’, which was being advertised for sale on eBay.

Enquiries by police revealed that the bike was stolen so colleagues in the Burglary Squad attended an address and recovered the bike, which is now in the process of being restored to the owner. The investigation continues.

The original thread was pulled as well intentioned forum users were contacting the seller with questions that might have raised suspicions with this individual and frustrated police efforts to recover the bike and arrest a suspect.

In all a good result and an example what of co-operation amongst the online MTB community and police can achieve.

Thanks to Mr Agreeable.

All the best.

good news.

Any news on whether there will be charges pressed or just a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again?

He’ll be out on Gloucester Road looking for a replacement next week!

…but at least its someones pride and joy returned. Good stuff.

A big well done to Mr_A.

result!

🙂

Cut their hands off perhaps

Or fly the little shytes out to Saudi to make ’em watch it happen

At least someone’s got their pride and joy back . MAybe the STW massive needs a SOP when a bike with e13 pedals and 5th element front forks gets listed on gumtree / ebay etc

hats off

ahem, i think i posted it first and sent the link to mr a…

pjt201, sorry seems I’ve done you a disservice! Good work.

All the best.

What’s needed is a way of registering interest in bikes/parts that match a description/model, so that if someone puts up a possible sighting, those with similar bikes/parts get an email.

Chapeau

As pjt201 says, he originally spotted the stolen bike on eBay, then I contacted the police who were able to match it to a theft and recover the bike. All of this took less than 24 hours so a big tip of the hat to the Burglary Squad.

Harry_Too, I’m no expert on police procedure but I think the decision to prosecute will rest with the Crown Prosecution Service, not the police.

Buzz Lightyear, eBay’s “favourite search” function will do that for you. Or even Google.

Good work pjt201 and Mr_a’s follow up, I was amazed at the comments in the original post suggesting that the seller might just be not much of a bike geek so it ‘might’ be kosha as he didn’t know the detail of the bike, i’m not a car geek but i can read who makes the components on my car!

As Mr_a has said before, obvious lack of detail = dodgy! It’s a way to get around it being flagged up when searching for your own bike parts i’d imagine.

Good result!

Result. Good on ya guys. Karma will be heading your way in the near future I’m sure.

Hi all, it was my bike that was recovered on Saturday, I was really impressed with the Bristol Burlary Team they contacted me well over a year after it was stolen and had the bike recovered less than 24hrs after they first contacted me, fast work.
A big thanks to the police and to Mr Agreeable for spotting the ad on ebay.

Sadly the theives haven’t looked after my steed quite as well as I had, basically trashing and neglecting a good bike until it looks like something from JJB. Heathens!!!

Don’t buy expensive bikes from ebay without receipts, that’s what I say!!!

Cheers Scruffyrider, although as pointed out above it was Patrick (pjt201) who originally spotted the bike on eBay.

mr a, i couldnt find your email in your profile

Ian, it’s bristoltrailsgroupATgmailDOTcom (change the obvious bits).

ahh bingo, i didnt realise that was YOUR email, 😉

ian – was your nicolai that was stolen (sorry if this is wrong, i just remember reading it on here recently) the sand coloured one mentioned here a few weeks back?

Ian’s bike wasn’t the sand-coloured one – it’s kind of a charcoal grey, with gold bits. I’ll try and get a picture up on the blog, but it’s down at the mo as I’ve just changed it to a proper domain name.

Oh OK thanks mr_a – I just recall hearing of a sandcoloured one spotted in ‘out of place surroundings’ It sounds quite rare, I can’t imagine there would be many of those around.

shoefiti – That sandy coloured Nicolai was spotted two weeks ago by ‘harry too’ in Soutmead. Thread is – Another Stolen Bike Spotted in Soutmead.

All the best.