Miriam Jones drove her Specialized Rockhopper all the way from Alaska, only to have it stolen outside a Metrorail station. (Photo courtesy of Miriam Jones)

Three days after telling his story about how he found his stolen bicycle for sale on Craigslist and managed to nab it back from the would-be reseller, Danny Lesh has become something of a folk hero to people who have had their own bikes stolen. Since DCist’s initial report, Lesh’s story has been rebroadcast across local television, radio and the rest of the Internet.

On Monday, Lesh woke up to learn that the Cannondale he lent his friend the previous day had been nicked off the friend’s front porch. A few hours later, he saw his bike listed for sale on Craigslist, along with the phone number of the man attempting to sell it. But when the Metropolitan Police Department told him no officer would be able to contact the Craigslist poster, Lesh hatched a plan to meet the vendor, go for a “test ride” and ride off in a taxicab waiting around the corner.

The seller, who told DCist his name is John, briefly threatened to call the police on Lesh, but that, of course, never came to pass. Still, Lesh’s vigilantism did not appear to deter John. Until yesterday, a search for his phone number on Craigslist yielded several more bikes for sale, some of which were new models being offered for considerably less than their standard prices.

And John, it turns out, isn’t just dealing bikes that were stolen in the District. Yesterday, DCist was contacted by Miriam Jones, an Arlington resident who said that her four-year-old Specialized Rockhopper was taken from a bike rack outside the Ballston Metrorail station on April 13.

Jones, who moved to the area from Fairbanks, Alaska in March, said that morning was the first—and ultimately last—time she deposited her bike on the racks outside the Metro entrance. Like Lesh’s friend, she also secured her ride with a cable lock. When she returned from work that evening, she emerged from the station to find that her bike was gone. (To boot, Jones also said that she was mugged at knifepoint while walking home.)

She filed a report with Arlington police and, knowing that stolen property can often show up for sale online, started browsing Craigslist for her bike, but neither avenue yielded any results until Jones read about Lesh on DCist. Jones found Lesh’s own Craigslist post warning that bicycles purchased from John were likely stolen and found that her Rockhopper had made its way across the Potomac to be sold on the black market.

The metal studs on the tires were the giveaway.

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the area who has studded bike tires,” Jones wrote in her email to DCist. That might be a stretch, but the studded tires Jones used to pedal through the long Alaskan winter are certainly enough of a customization to stand out in the Washington area.

“I had carried this bike on the roof of my car from Alaska, driven 5,000 miles only for it to be stolen two weeks later,” Jones said in a phone interview.

Seeing the bike she had hauled from central Alaska in the dead of winter—a journey that included a three-day ferry ride to British Columbia and passing through the snow-capped Canadian Rockies—on sale for $150 by a Craigslist vendor in D.C. was a shock for Jones.

“I was like, ‘Fuck, oh my god’,” she said.

But like Lesh, Jones hasn’t had the easiest go of it with MPD. After notifying the Arlington cops that she had spotted her bike on Craigslist, Jones was told to call D.C. authorities. That was something of another dead end.

“They said, ‘You’re an Arlington resident, we can’t help you’,” Jones said. Last night, she attempted to contact John with a text message and inquired if the Rockhopper was still available. He replied that it was not. (The Craigslist post has been removed.) “I don’t know if that means it was sold or people are on to him,” she said.

But even if news coverage and bike-theft victims who take matters into their own hands have John on the ropes—a Craigslist search today for his phone number returned only posts by Lesh and Jones warning about the stolen bike racket—Jones is far from optimistic that D.C. police will resolve the situation.

“It seems to me they’re not really interested in catching this guy,” Jones said. “Even though they have lots of opportunities.”

An MPD spokesperson did not respond to questions for this article, but yesterday on WTOP, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier was asked about Lesh’s case. Lanier told the radio station that “her department would have supported Lesh if they’d had more time” but that his decision to retrieve his Cannondale was risky.

Lanier also said that police recover a “great deal” of stolen bikes, but many of them go unclaimed because their owners can only get them back by presenting a serial number. The District stopped requiring bicycle owners to register their rides in June 2008.

In her Craigslist post, Jones is pleading for a clue as to where her bike ended up, even offering money if it was, in fact, purchased illicitly. In the mean time, she bought another bike, but its hardly a worthy successor to the Rockhopper.

“I did buy a really shitty mountain bike on Craigslist a couple weekends ago to ride around town,” Jones said. “But it definitely does not replace my bike.”