It’s the day before Christmas Eve. It’s 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the drury sky has been the same shade of gray and glum all day long. I’m biking across town, which is one of my favorite activities to relax. It calms me to roll through the shifts in urban landscape, and calm is exactly what I need among the fury of cars that I imagine must be whizzing from shop to shop gift buying.

At this point in my ride, I’ve just pedaled underneath IH 35, headed east on 4th street. I head north on Chicon Street. There is a stark contrast between east and west 6th Street at the intersection of 6th and Chicon. The traffic has lulled enough for it to feel inviting, so I head further East on 6th street.

I pass the familiar sites, the Sixth Street Cool corner store with Bob Marley’s portrait smiling back at me. I think of him as an urban Mona Lisa, his smile following me at a diagonal as I turn the corner.

Next comes the bright blue and gold of Bike Texas Headquarters. I had been inside Bike Texas during the annual Bike-to-Work breakfast stop last year. Today, though, it was what was outside of Bike Texas that had me concerned.

I stopped pedaling and let the wheels cruise along the street. In my memory of the event, the parking lot was empty. Lights off, nobody home inside Bike Texas. There was one sole bicycle on the rack at Bike Texas, and next to the bicycle was a man with what looked like a file in his hand while he fiddled with the lock. My gut instinct was that this bike is being stolen. Right here and right now in broad daylight and I’m watching it occur. I yelled out from my bike on the other side of the street, “You stealing a bike?”

I had a beanie hat covering my ears, and a helmet on on top of that, and I couldn’t make out exact words of the man’s response, but the body language and tone of voice was gruff and terse. And the nature of his response confirmed what my stomach was telling me.

I am a little ashamed to say it, but my first though was, “Oh well, it’s none of my business.” And then my mind followed up that thought with, “There’s no way I’m stopping to approach that man by myself.” The momentum of the motion of the bicycle kept my wheels rolling away from the scene. “If someone saw my bike being stolen, I would want them to intervene.” Calling the police was out of the question for me. I didn’t want anyone being arrested and going to jail for petty theft. Behind bars would be a horrible way to spend Christmas Eve.

The light bulb went off in my head: I knew someone who works at Bike Texas. I’d call her instead of the law enforcement. Fortunately, she answered the call, and to my chagrin she said she was inside the closed Bike Texas Headquarters at that exact moment. I quickly gave her the low down on what I saw outside Bike Texas. She thanked me and said she would check on the scene out front.

A few minutes later, she texted me back. She recognized the man I saw out front as a known bike thief in Austin. However, she stated there was no bicycle on the rack for him to steal. I gulped! I was too late! The bike was already re-located, gone, vamoosh! – into thin air it seemed. Five minutes couldn’t have passed since first site of the bike theft to this text message.

Within those five minutes I had traveled half a mile away from the scene, and I now questioned the events that happened. “Was the bicycle a mirage of sorts?” I asked myself. Did I imagine it being there? Or if I had stayed at the scene would the bike still be there tethered to the rack with it’s lock?

Who knows? It’s an unsolved bike theft mystery. However, for now I make it a point to take the same route along east 6th street when headed to and from downtown to see if the mirage of the blue cruiser bicycle ever shows up again.