Seriously: Cloaked bike thief at large around campus

Seriously%3A+Cloaked+bike+thief+at+large+around+campus

Collegian | Alyson Serio

Callum Burke, Opinion Columnist

Editor’s Note: This is a satire piece from The Collegian’s opinion section. Real names and the events surrounding them may be used in fictitious/semi-fictitious ways. Those who do not read the editor’s notes are subject to being offended.

Shortly after coming back to Colorado State University’s campus after fall break, sophomore Allen Wrench discovered that his bike had been stolen yet again.

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“I was fed up, to say the least,” Wrench said. “Even my roommate’s bike got stolen last month, and his bike was a piece of shit.”

Wrench is only the latest victim in what appears to be a rash of bike thefts that have plagued campus all semester. Initially, two dozen squirrels in a trench coat were the main suspects, but there might be another culprit out there.

Rider DeSchwinn, a freshman at CSU, said she saw a bike stolen back in October.

“I woke up around 3 a.m. one night hearing rustling outside of my dorm room,” DeSchwinn said. “I live on the first floor of Corbett Hall, so it’s not uncommon to hear noises outside of my window.”

“Usually, it’s just students fooling around in the courtyard or squirrels plotting their next meal or the occasional drunk screaming obscenities about an old ex-girlfriend, but this time was different,” DeSchwinn continued. “I saw someone in a black cloak clearly stealing a bike.”

When I got to the second floor, I caught a glimpse of someone outside by the bike racks. At first, I thought it was a student in my hall. It was only, like, the first week, and I’ve seen freshmen here wear far weirder clothing.” -Clancy Wheeler, CSU senior and resident assistant

DeSchwinn tried to call the police and report what she’d seen, but she had looked at so many TikToks earlier in the night that her phone was dead. The thief vanished by the time she found a charger.

Bobby Pelotoni, a Fort Collins local and avid bike rider, said, “I spend a lot of time around town, you know, biking through groups of pedestrians or biking up to drive-thrus, and I see that person in the disturbingly out-of-style cloak thingy all over town.”

Pelotoni added that the cloaked figure’s appearance is hard to miss. “Even when I’m biking, you know, because I bike a lot, I can tell there’s something going on with his head.”

DeSchwinn also commented on the cloaked figure’s cerebral dimensions.

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“Seriously, I don’t know what he has going on up there, but his head looks bigger than Megamind’s,” DeSchwinn said. “Either he has a whole other head under that hood or his perm is on point.”

These calls and reports mean nothing without physically catching the bike thief. Wrench asked The Collegian to document and report on his plan to catch the big-headed thief once and for all.”

“It’s not really hard — even on a bike — to spot him around the city,” Pelotoni said. “Dude looks like an Emperor Sheev Palpatine bobblehead. No idea how he can ride a bike with that dump truck of a dome, you know?”

Another witness noted that even the cloaked thief’s legs and feet are quite peculiar in shape. 

Clancy Wheeler, a senior at CSU and resident assistant at Summit Hall, said she saw the cloaked figure the first week of school this year.

“I was doing my nightly walk-through of the halls, and when I got to the second floor, I caught a glimpse of someone outside by the bike racks,” Wheeler said. “At first, I thought it was a student in my hall. It was only, like, the first week, and I’ve seen freshmen here wear far weirder clothing.”

Wheeler added that the clothing was not what caught her off guard but the shape of the person’s feet. 

“The person lifted their cloak just high enough for me to see their legs,” Wheeler said. “That was when I noticed a forest of leg hair, and their knees looked like they bent backward. I know — weird shit.” 

“His feet were about the size of an American Girl doll, and they made noise when he walked on the concrete, almost like a clop or a click,” Wheeler added.

These calls and reports mean nothing without physically catching the bike thief. Wrench asked The Collegian to document and report on his plan to catch the big-headed thief once and for all.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Reach Callum Burke at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @burkec0621.