The Bicycle

My wife typically goes to bed and rises earlier than do I. When getting up to feed the cats, Cali and Neko, Annie saw bicycle handlebars sticking up behind a parked car; about 3:30 a.m. PDT. She assumed that one of the apartment building’s other tenants had a visitor who left the bike locked on the sidewalk. But daylight revealed a wayward fixed-speed roadster, apparently abandoned and unlocked. We both wondered where it came from and how in a neighborhood rife with bicycle thieves no one had ridden off with the thing.

Someone stole two of our then three bikes from a locked garage, in February 2010. Annie sees frequent posts on Nextdoor about bikes taken from behind locked fences or about neighbors reporting random two-wheeler chop shops. We wondered where the women’s rider came from. Perhaps someone, ah-hum, borrowed—then abandoned—it?

Surprising: The bicycle stayed on the sidewalk, unclaimed by an owner or grabbed by someone else, throughout the day. As late as 6 p.m., I saw the Adventurer cycle still parked on the sidewalk. But when I looked about an hour later, nothing. I’m amazed the bike remained so long, which presents another mystery: Who took it? I’ll never know.

I used Leica Q2 to capture the Featured Image and companion at 4:35 and 4:36 p.m., respectively. Vitals for the first, aperture manually set for both: f/4, ISO 100, 1/1250, 28mm. The other is same but 1/1600 sec.