Three Men Tried To Steal My Motorbike While I Was On It!
Spring is in the air here in North Wales, so I decided to take one of my motorbikes to the office yesterday. On the way home, not too far from where I live, I was sat at traffic lights when all of a sudden three men on off-road bikes surrounded me. One left, one right, one right up to my back wheel. And they were really close, like, inches from me kinda close.
I immediately felt uneasy, like something was about to happen. I think we as a species have a sense for this kinda thing. Anyway, seconds later the guy on my left reached over to, I assume, grab the keys for the bike, but I was on the BMW, which has a keyless ignition, luckily.
I clocked what the guy was trying to do, panicked, and kicked the side of his bike as hard as I could. Which, thankfully was enough to put him off balance, causing him to topple over. Then I clobbered the guy to the right around the head - he was wearing a helmet so it wouldn't have hurt him, but I suppose I figured it would be enough to shock him and buy me a couple seconds. I dunno, I was basically shitting my pants at this point.
As I soon as I'd hit the guy to my right, I took off like the absolutely clappers, running a red light in the process (thank goodness nothing was coming the other way). My BMW is a fast bike, at 1000cc and over 170BHP. They were on dirt bikes, which are nowhere near as quick as mine. I also had knowledge of the local roads, which I hoped they didn't. As I flew off, they gave chase but quickly dropped back. A brief glance of my speedo showed I was doing over 120MPH, but it was working.
In my panic I didn't know what to do - shall I go home? What if they see me pull in and find out where I live? Should I go somewhere else? But it's rush hour and if I get caught in traffic they could catch up to me again - my bike is a lot quick on the open road, but in traffic, they would have the advantage.
I decided to floor it and get home as quick as possible. There's a straight road that leads to my village, so I figured if I can't see them behind I'll quickly swing the bike in and hide behind the garage (which can't be seen from the road). If I could see them, I'd just carry on and continue trying to lose them.
I'm nearing my drive now, so I glance in the mirrors and see nothing; I decide to risk it and swing in, going up our gravel drive as quickly as I dare, while simultaneously hoping the kids aren't playing in the drive. They aren't. I dive in behind the garage and wait...5 seconds...10 seconds...I hear bikes getting closer. They fly right past my drive, going way too fast for our single track village road.
My wife later asked the owner of the village pub if he caught anything on his CCTV. Here's what he found for us:
It looks like only 1 of them had a number plate, and it's pretty much parallel with the road, so impossible to identify from the video. We've passed it onto the Police and we're waiting to hear back from their forensics dept. to see if they can pickup any prints from my bike. I don't remember if they had gloves on though, and I'm not very confident it will come to anything.
I'm fine now, but it shook me up. I just hope they were opportunist idiots, rather than something more sinister. I've already bought myself a camera for the garage.
Stay safe out there, folks.
Update
The Police forensics unit have just been out. I showed them the video and they swabbed the bike for prints. As expected, nothing was found. They did say that they were called out to another attempted bike theft in the area yesterday, so it seems I wasn't the only one.