COLUMBUS (WCMH) – A woman participating in the Pelotonia bike ride this weekend has been reunited with her bike after it was stolen out of her driveway last Sunday night.
Bethany Truax, 30, said the bike was taken off her car bike rack at her house in Hilliard Sunday night. She noticed it was gone on her way to jury duty Monday morning.
Truax filed a report with Columbus police, including photos of the bike and a serial number. Police recovered the bike at a local pawn shop on the east side and Truax came there to claim it on Friday.
“I had a picture of [my bike] because I was so excited when I bought the bike, which was not too long ago,” Truax said. “I just bought it earlier this year, so I still had that photo and then I had to call the place where I bought the bike to get the serial number, so they had all of that for me. So yeah, it was a pretty quick recovery.”
Truax, who said she is riding in Pelotonia for the first time this year, said she had planned to borrow a backup bike from a friend after hers was stolen. Instead, she came to pick her bike up Friday, paying $70 to the pawn shop to get it back.
“They said it was state law, so I had to pay to recover it, but I mean, for how much I love this bike and what it’s worth, 70 bucks to recover it, not too bad,” Truax said.
Asked how she felt about the bike being stolen in the first place, Truax said it was “definitely an invasion.”
“I was upset,” Truax said. “There’s someone else just thinking they can come onto my property. I haven’t owned my house for too long either, so I thought I could trust the neighborhood. But then I was also kind of blaming myself. You know, I left it outside, it’s just fair game, I guess.”
Detective Mark Jameson, who works for the burglary unit at the Columbus Division of Police, noted that it’s easier for detectives to recover stolen property if people have photos and serial numbers.
“If people would record their property, their valuable stuff, serial numbers are a godsend,” Jameson said. “But if they could just use a smart phone and take a picture of anything and everything they value and hold on to it, put up in the cloud, and they use that when they file a report if something’s stolen, that greatly increases the chance of getting the property returned.”
Truax said she is riding in Pelotonia because she has a young cousin with a tumor. Her friend’s mother was also recently diagnosed with breast cancer.