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WATCH: Vid of man reclaiming stolen bike goes viral
Friday, August 17, 2012    
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'This is why you don’t steal from bicyclists!' Jake Gillum shouts as he follows suspect. 'You are going to jail!'

(Joseph Rose, The Oregonian

Every bicycle commuter who has ever fantasized about getting sweet video revenge on a bike thief should watch the eight minutes of footage that Portland's Jake Gillum uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday afternoon.

Gillum's $2,500 2009 Fuji road bike was stolen from on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard and 36th Avenue on Aug. 3. Four days later, it popped up on Craigslist – in Seattle.

Accompanied by a group of friends ready to make a citizens arrest and record the encounter for the ages, Gillum drove 160 miles to set a trap for the person selling his stolen ride.

There's a chase. The Seattle police get involved. And there's an arrest.

Warning: Gillum, his buddies and the guy selling the stolen bicycle sling some mighty profanity. Not for delicate ears.

Gillum, a 28-year-old graduate student, also told Digital Trends how he used the Burner iPhone app to trick the thief into thinking he was calling from a Seattle area code, so as not to raise suspicion when his "503" area code popped up on caller ID.

The video comes less than a week after the wild "Raiders of the Lost Bike" tale of complete strangers using social media to help a San Francisco man track down his bike in Portland – six years after it was stolen!

Alas, there are hundreds of stolen bicycles in Bike City U.S.A. that will probably never be reunited with their owners.

Bottom line: Bike thieves stink. 

READ MORE: The Oregonian, The Blaze