Carl's Bike

This isn't actually Carl's bike. But this is what it looks like.

I work with a guy named Carl.

He's a great guy. I think he's in his early 70s. He is past the normal retirement age, but he doesn't want to retire. And I know our company doesn't want him to retire. As another coworker once told me, "we're here because of Carl." He's a senior scientist, and is, to put it succinctly, a genius. He never wanted fame, or fortune, or any type of crazy stock-riddled compensation. No. Carl likes to do what he does.

He's one of the most gentle people I've ever known. All he wants to do is tinker in his corner in the lab, where he comes up with lots of brilliant new ideas and solutions to a lot of tough problems at my engineering company. When they force him to take vacation, I think he just likes to work on his bikes in his garage in East Hartford. Oh yeah, Carl is a cyclist.

We have our office in East Hartford so Carl can bike to work from his home on Forbes St. Carl has told me how he finds bikes on the side of the road and fixes them up. You see, Carl was one of the chief inspirations when I decided to buy a bike to start commuting to work in the first place. He bikes to work just about every day. Heat or rain. Mud or snow. Carl bikes in on his trusty 1960s era Raleigh 3-speed with a Brooks saddle. When I got my bike he came out to the warehouse which was the only place we could store things like bikes in our old building and gave it a real look-over. We talked about bikes and accessories for the better part of an hour. I told him I was committed to bike in year-round too. I like to think we bonded over that. Comments soon came at me from other coworkers: "You rode in today? Who do you think you are...Carl?" "But it's snowing out! You aren't becoming another Carl, are you??" Before I started, it was just kooky ol' Carl riding his bike in like some sort of eccentric. When I started and gas prices went up...well, maybe Carl wasn't so kooky after all.

Thursday, Carl's bike was stolen.



It was stolen right from in front of my office building. We have 2 buildings, a couple blocks away from each other in the Prestige Park industrial park in East Hartford. When Carl has to go between them, he usually rides over. My building has a set of stairs at the entrance, so there's no easy way to get a bike inside, and since it's set back from the road a bit, it's a corporate park and he's not there very often, Carl usually just sets his Raleigh 3-speed on its kickstand out front by the bushes and takes it back to his building when he's goes back. Thursday around 5 pm, I was at a workstation in my lab and Carl came up holding his vintage helmet. He asked me where my bike was. I told him I keep it in my office. Then he told me his was gone. They left his helmet that had been hanging on the handlebars on the ground.

If you've never been heartbroken before, the look on Carl's face would've fixed that. Whatever anger you have for any geopolitical situation you have wouldn't match the personal anger that hit me at that point. I couldn't believe it. I immediately in my anger ran outside looking for anything in my field of view that resembled a bike, or anyone who might still be riding it in the neighborhood. Of course that was futile. I checked the bushes. I checked the dumpster. I even ran over to the side street to look. We determined from talking to people entering and leaving the building that the theft occurred between 3 and 4 pm. I guess some school kids cross through the tech park, but who would steal an older gentleman's bike?

I don't often wish other people ill-will no matter what my disagreement with them. But whatever lowlife stole Carl's bike in East Hartford on Thursday afternoon: I hope you get head cancer and die.

This story has a happy ending.

On my way home Thursday, I took many detours. Scouring the neighborhood. Looking for any bikes. I wasn't alone. My coworker Mike took his motorcycle and did the same thing. Miraculously, he happened by a service station on Burnside Ave. and saw a bike abandoned on the side. It was Carl's Raleigh 3-speed with the Brooks saddle. Being on a motorcycle, he couldn't take it himself. He called back to the office and told our lab-guy Dave the situation. Dave gave Carl a ride over. Carl somehow got his bike back.