Stolen bikes

I was drunk so this is a bit vague. Walking home from the Princess Victoria on Uxbridge Road last night bloke tried to sell me what looked to be a very nice trick bike for 40 quid outside the John Snow shop.

I don't know much about bikes like this but it looked nice. Red frame white fork and ridiculous fat headset and wide bars. Kept telling me it was legit and did I want it because he needed to buy electricity! Man and bike didn't fit together.

I'd have taken it off him if I had the cash on me because I'm convinced he'd nicked it.

It's generally not a good idea to buy stolen goods, even with the honourable intention of returning them to the owner. There have been some cases in which people have done this, sometimes at the owner's request, and the bikes have been returned to the owners, but at the end of the day the thief will have got what they wanted, the owner or the buyer will be out of pocket, and often it proves impossible to trace the owner. The police will also potentially not be able to catch the thief in possession of the stolen bike. Obviously, you can't always take a stand on principle, and in some cases the owner will be desperate enough to pay money to get their bike back, but generally you should avoid the temptation. Report such incidents to the Cycle Task Force instead (contact details here) so that they can carry on building up a picture, e.g. they might get three reports of this bloke trying to sell to people in that spot and try to catch him in the act.