West Seattle Crime Watch: Bike owner shares lesson learned

Alki resident Steve Sox is getting the word out about the bike he lost despite a lock, explaining in his e-mail to WSB: “While I am interested in recovery, but don’t have much hope, I am also interested in alerting people to the danger of trusting your expensive bikes to bike rack locks on your vehicles.” Here’s his alert:

My mountain bike was taken from the locked rack on top of my car Thursday night/Friday morning near Alki Beach. They did NOT get the front wheel. So be advised that if you see bike as described below with no front wheel or a mis-matched wheel set that it might well be stolen.

I can positively identify the bike beyond the serial number.

If anyone happens to see the bike for sale at a yard sale, pawn shop, where ever, I would appreciate a phone call. My cellphone number is 206-719-2158.

Gary Fisher Sugar 2+ Full Suspension Mountain Bike
Colors: Black w/ grey and silver
Fox front and rear shocks
Cateye computer
No front wheel or a mis-matched wheel set.

Yes, I will offer a reward for information leading to the return of the bike.

Thanks, and please take a lesson from my stupidity. Do not overly trust bike rack locks to protect your property.

coffee geek August 23, 2008 (1:32 pm)

Steve, that sucks. As a multiple valuable bike owner I feel your pain. What the hell made you leave a nice bike on top of your car??? The Fox Shox and computer were screaming for thievery!! If you haven’t already, post a notice in the northwest forum of ridemonkey.com and the WA forum on forums.mtbr.com. Best of luck… I recommend Gregg’s Cycles in Greenlake and Fluid Ride on Northlake (U-Dist) if you have to buy a new ride. Stay away from Aaron’s in west Seattle (across from Thriftway). The employees are nice but the owner is a known giant ****.

mellaw6565 August 23, 2008 (1:38 pm)

Sorry to hear that Steve. I learned in Europe many years ago (after a similar situation) to buy a lock that wraps around the wheel and the frame together. Hope that’s an option for you for your bike and car top. Sending positive thoughts that you get the bike back.

gw August 23, 2008 (2:30 pm)

Steve- Don’t give up hope- I’ve had two bikes stolen over the years, and I found both of them- myself. (OK, so they weren’t nearly as nice as yours…)

Coffee geek- bummer about Aaron’s. I really liked idea of supporting my local bike shop.

Steve Sox August 23, 2008 (4:25 pm)

Coffee Geek – I am kicking myself for what I did. I had been gone for a week camping and mountain biking in Oregon, got in late Thursday and parked the car behind our house in a dead end alley only used by us and one other house. Got lazy, got robbed! As to Aaron, I agree that he is quite different and not my best friend, but his shop overhauled this bike last winter and just did an incredible job. I have heard multiple stories about them solving problems that other shops couldn’t touch….and equally as many stories about how difficult they are to do business with. Guess everyone has to weigh the positives and negatives and decide for themselves about doing business with them.

t August 23, 2008 (8:35 pm)

“…the owner is a known giant ****.”

Gosh ain’t the internet grand. Known by whom? Gimme a break.

If you need to stoop to anonymous trashing of local small business owners, do it somewhere else. If you have the guts to post your name and be specific about something that actually happened to you, that would be different.

Steve, sorry you lost your bike. Bummer.

JumboJim August 23, 2008 (11:05 pm)

The internet isn’t a lot different than real life in *some* ways. You could be on the bus and someone you don’t know tells you that a local business owner is a putz. That’s not a lot different than an anonymous blog comment. Both should be taken with a grain of salt (or two). That said, I have heard the same thing about that place. No personal experience though.
–
There is at least one other bike shop – Alki Bike and Board in the Admiral area of California. Disclaimer is that I recently met the owners at a non-bike function and have found them very nice. I did get my bike tuned there recently and they did a good job at a very fair price.

Bill Stephens August 24, 2008 (8:08 am)

Steve, sorry. I’ll be looking for your bike.
“t” I’m glad you gave us your real name. My name is Bill Stephens and I live about 5 blocks from Aaron’s and really, really would like to support my local bike shop, but I have had at least 3 incedents at Aaron’s. Yes he may be the best mechanic around but is a giant***. The last time I went in and waited to be helped and a very nice employee asked what I needed then put my bike on a stand and went looking for parts, I stepped back and a couple came in and stood waiting in front of me, Aaron came in and asked “who’s next” them proceeded to take my bike down and told me in a gruff way to wait, then yelled at his employee when he came back. Another time he spent the whole time going off on how crappy carbon is and acting like I was an idiot for having a carbon bike. I have other stoies too, plus he sets a bad example by always riding without a helmet. Go to Greggs and take your bike inside whenever you can. Bill

WSB August 24, 2008 (12:45 pm)

Stepping in to note that JumboJim manages to say in a few concise words what I have to often say in explaining the comment policy of our site and most others. (It is NOT just a “blog thing” – the majority of newspapers, TV stations, and other types of news sites have reader-discussion features.) The main difference, of course, is that the comment by the guy on the bus isn’t indexed by Google, which is also why it is incumbent upon business owners to monitor what is being said about them on the interwebs and to respond — that is, if they care. Google makes it ridiculously fast and easy to monitor such things. Case study: Earlier this year, we were contacted by the representatives of what we shall characterize as a large sort of local business that had been discussed repeatedly here on WSB, for months, because of impacts its practices were having on the community. People searching for information about that company turned up the WSB threads because our volume of content brings us very high Google ranking in most cases. That company, which I shall not describe further, first demanded we take the comments down, and we explained we wouldn’t be doing that. Then one of their reps said HOW MUCH WOULD I HAVE TO PAY YOU TO TAKE THOSE COMMENTS DOWN. We of course said, you must be insane, that’s not happening either. Anyway, long story concluded, they could have participated in the dialogue a lot sooner – it was right there online for anyone to see, if you google your own name and/or business name every few days. (Easier to find than, say, newspaper letters to the editor in the pre-Web days – you’d have to hire a clipping service!) And if you watch your own website logs (we always linked back to this company’s site, so their logs would have showed if anyone clicked from our site to theirs – that’s how we usually find out someone has mentioned us.) Comcast actually has someone monitoring Twitter right now and responding at the speed of light (no Slowskys) to gripes. P.S. “Real-name registration” is unverifiable, so the few sites who claim they do it are kind of kidding themselves.

-TR (full name and background info available at all times on our About page)

jbar August 24, 2008 (4:08 pm)

I have to echo what others have said…I have experienced major attitude at Aarons. Nice employees though. I won’t go into detail about what we experienced — based on how I’ve seen others get treated on WSB, I would get reamed. We took our business to Alki Bike and Board. I am a major proponent of giving someone or a business the benefit of the doubt, but I also know that when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Sorry about your bike…

coffee geek August 24, 2008 (9:27 pm)

*t*….The third time Aaron treated me like crap was the charm. I’ve also witnessed him snark at other customers, yell at his wife/kid, and yell at employees. That’s what happens when you run a biz. Do good and people say good. Do bad and people spread the word, usually faster. The final straw was telling me over the phone he could do a particular job (install a 1.5 headset on new frame), tried to do it but couldn’t (ending in a hissy fit), telling me he can’t buy every “specialty” tool, and finally insisting I give him $5 for his time. I should have told him where to go, but I gave him his $5 and swore to let everyone else know what a **** he is. Case closed.

Al August 25, 2008 (8:34 am)

Another one chiming in – I left Aaron’s due to bad service and attitude as well. Loved the employees, but not the owner. For an incredible local bike shop, don’t forget about Alki Bike & Board, Stu and his team are great. I go there for all my bike related needs and have yet to have a bad experience. Fantastic shop.

pedal nulu August 25, 2008 (9:21 am)

Pedal Nulu says, “Locks are for the honest people”.
Aaron’s gruff attitude, letters to the editor of the West Seattle Herald and idiotic crusade against wearing helmets define him more than the quality of work his bike shop sometimes does.

Rick August 25, 2008 (1:19 pm)

I live next door to Aaron’s,have owned a business in West Seattle for 30 years, bike exclusively (gave up the car) and won’t do business there for the reasons expressed in earlier posts. Unfortunately, I’m seeing more of this attitude in West Seattle. Kinda like the critical mass bull****. Rat City’s looking better all the time

Rick August 25, 2008 (1:30 pm)

On another note, Aarons will be expanding in September or October, taking over the liquor store space so you’ll have more square footage to be treated rudely at.

Reignman August 28, 2008 (9:30 am)

Amazing to see all the comments about Aaron’s. I’ve had the exact same experience. Their work is wonderful without a doubt. If I had a cup of coffee with Aaron I would tell him to put an employee in charge of handling/greeting customers. He’s that bad. I don’t think he’s an a-hole. I just think the only thing he cares about is fixing bikes. Like some kind of bike fixing savant. Everytime I go in there it feels like I’m on a bad trip in a crowded third world subway. Yet somehow the work comes out perfect. And the employees and his wife are wonderful.

I really like Stu and the team at Alki Bike but the last tune was terrible. They didn’t do either of the two specific things I asked for. I ended up 1/2 way up a 4000 ft climb and the bike broke because of it. I’m still pissed. The are making it right by giving me a credit. Still it ruined a day for me.

I’m torn on who to take my work to!

Maybe Stu and Aaron should join forces. Ying and Yang? The peanut butter to the other’s jelly?

What was this thread about?…oh yeah sorry you got your bike stolen.

Sorry, comment time is over.