Update on our bikes

Hey, y'all--we got our bikes back!

Walter actually saw a kid riding my bike a few weeks ago. He stopped him and they had a conversation about it, which essentially went like this:

Walter: "You're riding my wife's bike!"
Kid: "I bought this bike."
Walter: "But it's my wife's bike."
Kid: "It maybe used to be her bike, but it's mine now."

At that point Walter wasn't sure what to do--there's a pretty good chance the kid actually did buy my bike from another kid, and he didn't feel like wresting the bike away from a kid on the street. So he let him go.

But then a week or so later, he saw both our bikes on the porch of a house around the corner from us. He called the police, who went with him to the house and let him retrieve the bikes. The kids weren't there, but their mom was, and she didn't know where they'd gotten the bikes. I get the sense that there's a pretty fluid underground market for bikes in Charleston. At any rate, he brought the bikes home, and I was really happy to see them. Mine is now in the shop getting souped up (new crank shaft, fender, hand grips, and huge basket). (Trey tells me that the current terminology is that my bike is getting pimped, but I don't think that's really appropriate for me or my bike.)