Just after BMM tonight, I rode the KTM to the Shell Petrol Station on the Old St roundabout and went in to pay.
As I was paying, three kids on scooters pulled up and tried to fill up at the same pump as mine. The attendant (I discover, afterwards) wouldnt serve them without their paying first because they had no numberplates on the scooters. One of them comes in to see what’s going on and then goes back out. The attendant cancels the transaction and deals with mine. I thought there was a problem with having multiple transactions on the same pump. He then has some problems processing my card, so we are there chatting for a few minutes because I know the guy quite well.
I return to the bike…which is not there… I’m shouting WHERE IS MY BIKE!! A taxi driver points at the dark alley across the road from the forecourt and says he saw some kids dragging and orange dirt bike over there. I bolt off to the dark alley, see them trying to get the steering lock off and I shout at them to get the frack away from the bike as I am going to kill them. They all make off. I get to the bike - some fairing damage and the steering lock is damaged, but the bike starts. I lose the kids but return to the forecourt and thank the taxicab driver. I had no cash or Id have bunged him some beer money.
Met police wont fingerprint. Herts police will, but not for a Met job. Now all I got is the CCTV, particularly of the dude that came into the shop and stood behind me.
Lesson learnt: use your steering lock WHENEVER you leave your bike - even if it is only 3 minutes - it may just buy you enough time to get it back.
I don’t suppose you could give us a map-link to which street they took it down?
Old Street Shell is my local and should it happen to me/someone else - it’d be nice to have an idea of which direction to start looking for the little shytes.
If I’m not mistooken … that is down a ramp between a Post Office that is set back … and that bloody great blue office block? Exactly where I’d have guessed to be honest …
The area is a bad place to park a bike. I know the petrol station and the ally way you’re talking about - lucky the cabbie saw them as you’d never have spotted it otherwise.
Just an FYI to anyone else - the Post Office is set back quite a way from the other shops that are on the row - and you might think that the alleyway is just a delivery entrance but it aint.
Streetview shows it better - and you can rotate on the spot to see where it is in relation to the petrol station.
I think from now on my steering lock will be going on, even for petrol! So glad to hear you got it back, cant believe they even did that, right in front of you!
Good time to reprise an old post of mine as a reminder.
I was queuing to pay for my petrol in a garage in Lee High Road, SE12 a year or so back when two scrotes on an old rat sports bike rolled in. The passenger hopped off the back, walked over to my bike, looked at the dash and then walked back to the rat bike shaking his head. They then rode off without buying petrol.
What a perfect set up. The pillion is rightly in full rider gear, so if I’d been daft enough to leave the keys in, he could have hopped on my bike and p*ssed off.
Come on. It doesn’t take that long to lock the headset and remove the key. Just do it.
Doesn’t stop the “lift and carry away” brigade, but lets make life difficult for the scrotes.
If you don’t and your bike is stolen, tough. You ain’t insured against that theft.
glad you got your bike back! Man dunno what i would have done if it happened to me!