Editorial: Costly ride for bicycle thief

A Swiss tourist stole bikes and was found while riding in the national champs. Photo/Thinkstock

Like the wheel of a particularly pricey mountain bike, what goes around comes around.

At least that's what Daniel Buchs found out at the weekend.

The Swiss tourist had rented mountain bikes, a Yeti worth $5000 and an Avanti worth $2000, from different Rotorua stores using a false name and claimed that he didn't have his identification.

He was going to pay when he returned the bikes, but he never brought them back.

The Avanti was found in the forest with its wheels removed but the Yeti, rented on January 29, was gone.

Images of it were circulated across mountain biking networks, including Facebook pages, and police were said to have received sightings as far afield as Wellington.

That paid off. On Sunday, in a forest full of mountain bikers taking in the national champs, our thief, for some reason, decided to take the highly recognisable, bright yellow Yeti for a ride.

He was spotted and cornered by local bike shop owner Rob Smail and Rotorua Bike Festival co-ordinator Kim McVicker before police arrived to make an arrest.

Buchs, who admitted the thefts in court this week, faces sentencing tomorrow, all because, he says, it's expensive to ride mountain bikes.

Not as expensive as having opportunists steal them from you.

Good on the local mountain biking community for working together so well to catch a thief.