Stolen Bike in TO!

I know, there's other tragedies in the world. But here's the back story - part of my job at the Writers Festival is to be their Social Media person: I manage the Festival's Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and all that stuff. I'm still not sure I 'get' Twitter, but there are some people that I usually enjoy reading in their 140-character bursts, and "the Walrus tweeter" is one of them: the Walrus Magazine has useful and fun and entertaining things to say.

And this morning I see that the Walrus tweeter (Stacey May Fowles) has had her bike stolen. So. If you're in Toronto, and you see this beautiful bubblegum pink Simple Seven cruiser, get in touch with her mom.

Within moments, of course, she was getting responses: the message was forwarded with comments like "have you seen @MissStaceyMay's bike? help find it: http://bit.ly/aJE7hC" and @bikerevolution posted back to tell her "here are 10 things you can do to get your bike back."

And I'm passing the word on as well! She's a fellow literary cyclist, after all. It seems so strange that my brother lived for about a year near Jane and Dundas with a gorgeous hybrid that he parked, unlocked, in the yard behind his house, and never had it taken: it's like a tornado, I suppose. There are higher risk zones (I wouldn't sink a lot of money into trailer parks in Kansas and I wouldn't leave my bike unlocked in the Market at 3 a.m.), but in the end you really have no idea if you're in the path or not.

(Added September 22: Stacey is now doing a piece on bike theft - you can contact her at begood@staceymayfowles.com and let her know what your bike means to you, and tell her your bike theft stories if, sadly, you have them.)