At 7PM last Saturday night, some friends and I went to sit atop the Cool Beans’ roof and enjoy veggie burgers and a couple beers.
Renee and I walked; the friends rode and parked their bikes in the rack at Riprocks across Hickory St.
When we came downstairs at 8PM, some friends on the Cool Bean’s patio mentioned that the bikes had been messed with. We could see a tangled mess of bike frames with wheels and handlebars jutting out at odd angles. We walked across the street and untwisted the two bikes to find that the nice Klein ladies’ road bike had the rear wheel completely taco’d. Eyewitnesses reported that 4 guys at Riprocks finished a couple rounds, then 2 of them got up and started slamming the bikes around on the rack. Our friends/eyewitnesses yelled at the vandals, and they yelled back “it’s OK, these belong to our friends!”
Yeah, right.
Here’s the rear wheel as seen that night:
The Riprocks bartenders said the same group of guys released some roid rage on the men’s bathroom by ripping the soap dispenser off the wall.
Yes, we called the Denton Police. Officer Don Lane showed up, surveyed the damage, remarked that a good bike shop could fix the wheel and that frames are almost impossible to damage, and then he filed a report. We beg to differ on how easy it would be to damage frames, particularly the aluminum Klein road bike. Now the Surly Long Haul Trucker, it has 4130 cromo steel genealogy in it’s favor.
Supposedly these hooligans are from out of state, so they probably left Denton to go destroy bicycles elsewhere. A UNT bicycle officer was simultaneously investigating and won us over with politeness and genuine concern.
Bicycle Path on the loop is re-using the Ultegra hub from the destroyed rim and building up a new wheel. The Wald basket, well, it’s steel so we bent it mostly back into shape. I’d guess anyone strong enough to mangle a Wald can bench press more than I can.
The more Fry St becomes like 6th st in Austin, the less I like it. Meanwhile, the square is kicking ass.
Bike Denton 