One man’s story from the naked city; never give up on your bike
There are four million stories in the naked city; this is one of them. Don't stop believing in your bike.
He loved it. He’d looked after it and it had been a loyal servant to him. It was a constant companion and it never let him down.
But that all came to an end on a chilly afternoon in Dublin in January the weekend 2016 turned to 2017.
Damien Ó Tuama returned to the place where he had left his beloved Brompton fold-up bike at Tailors' Hall, Christchurch, in Dublin city centre to find it gone.
It had been stolen. Ó Tuama was dejected, irate but he wasn’t beaten; not just yet.
A tireless campaigner with the Dublin Cycling Campaign; he gives many, many hours of his life for no return to lobby for better cycling facilities.
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He’s made many friends during that work and so he reached out to them on social media. He posted photos, he wrote messages and urged people to keep a look out.
“Friends,” he wrote at the time, “my lovely Brompton foldable bicycle was stolen from Tailors' Hall, Christchurch, over the weekend it seems.
"I had it tucked away under my desk - and along with it several laptops from the office were taken.
“I'm pretty annoyed to say the least. The frame colour is 'raw lacquer' (the naked Brompton) on which the welds show up quite distinctly.
"It's the six speed version, with extra long seat-post, dynamo hub on front wheel, pannier frame on the back, mounting frame block for a front bag, Schwalbe Marathon tyres... worth over €1,700.”
There was retweets and reposts and suddenly the Brompton, one of only a handful of its kind in the country, had taken on a social media persona all of its own.
Ó Tuama knew it was a long shot, that tens of thousands of bikes were being robbed every year. But he lived in hope and also reported it to the Garda.
That hope began to fade though when the days turned into weeks and weeks to months and there was no news of the missing bike.
Six weeks after it had been taken, there was a flicker of hope.
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A friend of Ó Tuama’s had spotted the bike being ridden on Parnell St. He was in his car at the time so it disappeared out of his sight in an instant in the traffic.
But at least its owner knew it was still in the city. With renewed hope he gave the search another fresh push.
And yesterday the breakthrough came from a very usual place; his brother's mate sitting on the DART.
John Twomey was taking the train through Dublin and at that section of tracks that traverses the north inner city, he gazed into the back yard of Store St Garda station.
Ó Tuama explains what happened: “John was gazing out the window and spotted the bike on the top of a pile of bicycles in the station yard.
"He texted my brother and I popped into the station, gave them my frame number and got the bike back.”
Save for a few scant details he knows nothing of where the bike was or the abuse it had been subjected to while missing.
“It turns out they found the bike in the last few days dumped in a lane near Store St,” he said. “The bike is pretty much perfect; just needs a little TLC and oil.”
He said the Garda had been great throughout.
“They downloaded CCTV footage after it was spotted on Parnell St and were generally very responsive,” he says.
“They also recovered a different, very old and battered, foldable bike I had stolen last summer.
“I spotted it for sale in February on Adverts.ie while I was looking for the Brompton on-line.”
The moral of the story? Never give up on your bike.
There are four million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them.
Reunited, Ó Tuama looking pleased.
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