Remembering back to the mid/late 80s, 15th St SE on Cap Hill was the cutoff line, the red line if you will, for a “good” neighborhood. I know this because I had friends that lived on the 1400 block. I even stayed with them one summer while I worked in town.

The local Metro stop was & is Potomac Avenue Station. I would use this stop 20 years ago, and even though the stop is only two or three blocks away from my friends’ house it was a still a little leery at night and you had to watch yourself. This was when violent crime in DC (and America for that matter) was starting to get a little out of control. I remember lots of carjackings happening that summer, which was a new phenomenon at least in DC.

Come to think of it, I had my car stolen around the corner from Po-Ave Station that summer too. It was found and returned, busted steering column and all. At least they didn’t wreck the thing or drive it into the river.

Fast forward to today, and my favorite Mexican restaurant is a block away from the Station, there’s a fun local bar where you can play dominoes a block away and for Christ’s sake there’s a new Harris Teeter right across Pennsylvania Ave.

Neighborhood on the upswing, right? Maybe not so much.

I ride the bike down to Po-Ave in the mornings because it’s cheaper than take the D6 (the rainy day alternative) to the train and plus I can sleep in an extra half hour or so. After work I can zip over to the gym or just come on home. The bike’s seat is cable-locked, the frame is secured to the bikestand with an OnGuard steel lock and both tires have cables which fasten onto the lock. If you’re going to steal this bike, you’re going to need the right tools, and know precisely which tools to have.

Upon exiting the escalator today I noticed the bike was leaning over and I didn’t think it was _that_ windy today. Upon closer inspection I find that someone has tried to steal the bike first by attempting to break open the lock, and second by trying to physically wrangle the bike’s frame back and forth against the metal bikestand, to either pop the lock or break the cable (the cable is about as thick as a grape).

The lock held but is pretty messed up and hard to actually unlock or lock again. The metal bar of the bike frame that descends from the handlebars to the pedals was so mangled that it’s dented and crushed to almost half its normal thickness. Whatever punk(s) was trying to steal it was moving/bending so vigorously against the stand that the stand, which is bolted to the concrete sidewalk, is loose and wobbly.

It was after I had reset the chain and righted the seat the I noticed that the back wheel frame is bent, due to the force applied to the cable as they tried to bend the bike free of the lock. I know from experience that this back wheel costs about $120, and that was four or five years ago. Thanks, fuckers.

A couple of months ago I contemplated parking the bike at Eastern Market, like I used to when I lived at Jump Street. I opted not to, because they don’t have proper bike racks, and that I should use (and support) my local stop. Well fuck that. I’d rather lock it up to a parking sign now and have it be in a more populated part of the neighborhood.

That is, when I can pay to get it fixed. Both brakes were already needing to get replaced, so that’s probably going to push it up towards $200, not including any frame work.

UDPATE: Maybe I should get one of these instead: