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Cyclist has £2,000 bike stolen moments after being hit by car

Essex Police seeking information to help recover bike following theft from dazed and bloodied cyclist in Chelmsford earlier this month

An Essex man has been robbed of his £2,000 mountain bike – just moments after he feared he was going to be killed after a car hit him, leaving him dazed, bloody and bruised.

Paul Seyfang, aged 65, was on his way home from work on the evening of Thursday 15 August along Rainsford Road when a car pulled out and hit him, sending him flying from his bike, reports the Essex Chronicle.

The impact left Mr Seyfang badly shaken and with bruises on his arm and blood pouring from a gash on his knee, but his injuries were the least of his worries once he realised an opportunist thief had made off with his bike.

But as the lifelong cyclist stood shaking in the road with a bruised arm, and blood soaking his socks from a gash on the knee, he turned around to find his £2,000 bike had been taken.

"I knew people could be truly horrible but I didn't realise someone would do something quite as sick as that," he told the newspaper.

"I was travelling to my home in Chelmsford when a car pulled out of the County Hotel without looking in my direction.

"I was hit square on, the middle of his bumper forcing myself and my bike to the ground and the car still proceeding forward over the top of me before eventually stopping. I thought I was going to die.

"But when I turned back to reassess the damage to my bicycle I realised that as I stood there bleeding and shaking from a head-on collision, some despicable person had stolen it."

Mr Seyfang, the owner of a replacement windscreen business who rides to work each day, went on: "I still do water-skiing and water-boarding and neither of those is as dangerous as cycling.

"But I never expected that I would need to lock up my bike after being involved in an accident. The police officers who attended said they'd never heard of anything like it before.

"After living in Chelmsford for all my life I feel so sad that this type of person now resides in our fair city," he added.

A spokesperson for Essex Police commented: "Police are investigating after a bike was stolen from a man on Rainsford Road, Chelmsford.

"The victim, a 65-year-old male cyclist, had been involved in a collision at 5.30pm on August 15 with a car when a thief took the opportunity to steal the bike.

"The bike was a white Marin Rocky Ridge Hard Tail with a buckled front wheel."

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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12 comments

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Magic | 10 years ago
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Strewth, riding a 140mm travel hardtail for your commute surprised he could see over the stem. They only cost £1100 he must have had one hell of a lot of Upgrades on it, hope he's got receipts  39

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Hasis | 10 years ago
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Sorry, but did he really say "I still do ... water-boarding?  13

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banzicyclist2 | 10 years ago
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That's terrible!  2 everytime this sort of thing happens it needs reporting so the government gets increasingly embarrased into doing something about it.

Makes me feel  31 but also makes me even more determined to keep on commuting and riding at weekends.  14

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Hector Ch | 10 years ago
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NickK123 | 10 years ago
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Either the number of these incidents is increasing or the level of reporting has increased, or perhaps both. We do not appear to be in a good place and it seems to be getting worse. Thoughts are with Paul and I hope he recovers quickly. To the thief, I hope the fleas of a thousand camels ....  19

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Fixie Girl replied to NickK123 | 10 years ago
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NickK123 wrote:

Either the number of these incidents is increasing or the level of reporting has increased, or perhaps both. We do not appear to be in a good place and it seems to be getting worse. Thoughts are with Paul and I hope he recovers quickly. To the thief, I hope the fleas of a thousand camels ....  19

“If you see lots of shark attacks in the news, you think, 'Gosh, sharks are out of control.' What you should think is 'Gosh, the news loves to cover shark attacks.”

― David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

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ambrosen replied to Fixie Girl | 10 years ago
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Fixie Girl wrote:

What you should think is 'Gosh, the news loves to cover shark attacks.'

In this case, I'm trusting that the reason road.cc loves to cover this is because they're looking forward to the day when SMIDSYs are as rare as shark attacks, and the first step is to get the world to realise there's a problem.

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NickK123 replied to Fixie Girl | 10 years ago
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Fixie Girl wrote:
NickK123 wrote:

Either the number of these incidents is increasing or the level of reporting has increased, or perhaps both. We do not appear to be in a good place and it seems to be getting worse. Thoughts are with Paul and I hope he recovers quickly. To the thief, I hope the fleas of a thousand camels ....  19

“If you see lots of shark attacks in the news, you think, 'Gosh, sharks are out of control.' What you should think is 'Gosh, the news loves to cover shark attacks.”

― David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

A fair comment!

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cidermart | 10 years ago
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Utter scum!

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dog_film | 10 years ago
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I'm almost ready to stop riding...sick of it.

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jackh | 10 years ago
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Hope the front triangle is damaged and the thief ends up with their face in the tarmac as well...

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jarredscycling replied to jackh | 10 years ago
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jackh wrote:

Hope the front triangle is damaged and the thief ends up with their face in the tarmac as well...

Before comment, it would be truly be deserved

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