The Hodaka Club Forum

STOLEN BIKES!!! Please keep your eyes open for the bikes pictured below. They all belonged to my 15 year old son and were take in the past two weeks from storage in South Lewis County, WA. All but the XR are very recognizable and identifiable.

2002 Honda XR70 in very nice shape but RED grips.

1981 YELLOW Honda Z-50 with Fast Fifties graphics, and electric start motor and full lighting (the bike he learned to ride on!).

1978 Yellow Yamaha GT80

his 1968 Hodaka ACE 100. Blue Frame, Super Rat Chamber and custom exhaust.

Also took a Briggs powered Go Kart.

It may take a couple of posts to get all the pics so look through them all. If you see them for sale, or recognizable parts for sale, please let me know.

XR - looks the same but with RED grips
GT80

Custom Z-50
Go Kart
Thanks for any leads you may find. I posted here as the HODAKA is the most prized of the bikes, though the Yellow Z-50 - his first bike - would be really nice to get back.

Thank you.

This is heartbreaking, Gary. I'll put the word out to my vintage bike friends here. They are stand-up guys who go to a lot of swap meets and are very integrated into the vintage bike scene. They are also guys who know what these bikes mean on a personal level. Perchance, do you have any frame/motor numbers? I wouldn't suggest publishing the entire number, but even partially redacted numbers may be an helpful identifier. Good luck, Gary. I really hope you get your son's bikes back.

So sorry for this! We will be on the lookout on this side of the state.

What a shame, Dad Gum thieves. That's just outrageous. I better get those security cameras I bought two years ago and get them hooked up. I could not imagine having my bikes ripped off. That's bull&%#@. They ought to be shot.

My 1971 Super Rat was stolen around 6 weeks ago. Broad daylight too! A report was filed with the San Bernadino Sheriffs Dept. The NEXT morning, I found it and got it back: In broad daylight. Those thieves are probably STILL trying to figure out how I found it! The Sheriffs have a pretty good idea, but sometimes SILENCE IS GOLDEN! I had to call them to let them know I found it, and gave them I name and where that person lived. The officer understood and explained that if I retaliated I would be in trouble. So, I know who did it, who their friends are and how they knew there was a Classic Dirtbike in my barn. The thieves don`t live near me: they just come to the desert to visit. Now the people they visit know that I know that their visitors stole my Rat and I have`nt said 1 single word. Sometimes SILENCE IS GOLDEN!!! Joe Ormonde.

Terrific!! That's what I call a 2-fer.

I have an even better one for all of you to read. In 1994, I had just bought the place I live at. I was gone for 2 days so I had my brother Carl stay to watch my place. He woke up to find that my CR500R and my other brother Andy`s 465 were stolen from my barn. Carl calls Andy, Andy called my other brother Frank, I get home and hell came calling to those thieves. A reward was offered at the (HOLE IN ONE DONUT SHOP) here in Phelan, and sure enough 7 messages were on my answering machine. Yeah man : we know where your bikes are!!! $200.00 ? 100 bucks each? Call me at XXX_XXXX. Next message: Yo dude: That`s really messed up them ripping you off dude! We know exactly where your dirt bikes are! 200 bucks right? Call me at XXX_XXX. So we grabbed the $100.00 each kid who took my 3 brothers where you won`t believe what happened. A great big kid tried to stop my brother Carl from getting into the back yard. Carl took him out with THE CLUB steering wheel lock. Andy, who thinks he`s John Wayne goes into the back yard and the idiot that stole his Yamaha was trying to get it started! Andy asked the moron what he was doing.He said: I`m trying to get this bike started! Who are you? Well, that`s MY bike that you`re trying to start.That 14 year old kid had 3 previous Felonies! A bunch of under age kids all smoking dope and drinking beer while their moms were inside doing God knows what.So help me! So, they thought they were going to scare Andy. Well, it was dark so they did`nt see Andy`s 44 Mag with a 12 inch barrel.When they did they all called for their mommies!!! Mommies ran outside (We`re calling the cops! ) Andy told them: I`m surprised they are`nt here yet.We called them 30 minutes ago. These kids stole 2 dirt bikes from my brothers home . This one is MINE!! She acted like she had no idea what was going on, scolded her son and his friends on and on. Sheriffs show up. Talk to the moms.The morons loaded up the 465,took the Sheriffs to my CR and after that I don`t know what happened to those kids. May the Good Lord strike me dead if this story is`nt true! Joe Ormonde

OOh!! I love it when the good guys win!!

Yeah, times must be hard!! It only cost me 20 bucks to get my Super Rat back!!! Joe Ormonde

Well at least we recovered the Yamaha GT80!

Fast sleuth work on my end (found it listed on an online site) and the county Sheriff who really hit the ground running, did a fake “buy” and paid with some handcuffs!

The bike is pretty much unscathed save a few little scratches. Seems to run fine as well.

Now for the rest of them. Keeping our fingers crossed! We got a few more leads . . .

The Hodaka is the one we really need to find!

A friend of mine had a bike stolen, the brains that stole it unplugged the key switch to hotwire it, but tried to jump the switch side of the plug, not the harness side. Wouldn't start so they pushed it in the ditch which is where it was recovered later. After it was found, plug it back it, turn the key and he rode it back to his house.

A few years back someone stole two bikes from my barn...my son in law's KTM250SX-F and my grandson's Z-50 Honda. We reported the theft to the local police but in spite of their deductive prowess, never put it together with the report that there was a KTM leaned up against the guardrail on a street less than a mile from here. Friends told us that the KTM was not far away so we found it leaned up against a guardrail post with the kickstarter swung out. Apparently the thieves couldn't start it but never noticed the exhaust plug in the muffler. My son in law removed the plug and it started first kick. We never recovered the Z-50 but neighbors said they saw a huge guy riding the little bike down the street as fast as it would carry him (which wasn't very fast considering he weighed over 300 pounds) in the headlights of a pickup truck behind him. Kinda makes you wonder why they wouldn't pick up the little bike and throw it in the back of the pickup truck instead of drawing all that attention to themselves...but they got away with it so maybe they were smarter than us, and the local police. My grandson still misses that bike and his younger twin brothers could certainly use it.

A friend of mine had a couple of Yamaha race bikes stolen out of his garage a few weeks ago. He bought a place in Phelan a few months ago and while he was at work they cut through his chain link fence, busted out the roll up garage door window, and then pulled the release lever. The took the two bikes, riding gear, and other items that they could simply ride off with. His neighbor told him that they though he was home, but that it was four teenagers on two bikes. My friend had said that the police had told him that by the description of the theives they think that they know who they are. His insurance company is only going to cover the one bike with the title, the other non-titled bike isn't covered. Anyway, I had been leaving one of my bikes out at my friends place in Joshua Tree. It was in a locked overseas container along with a couple of my friends bikes, a Honda generator and other stuff. I decided to bring it back home so that the zombies, tweekers and meth heads get a bag of coal instead of one of my bikes.

I`m looking into a battery powered GPS system that I can install under the gas tank. If they steal it, at least it can be tracked.I would need several of them: 1 for each Dirt bike. Short of that they can`t be stopped. Just be sure to have the serial numbers written down AND the engine codes too! When they stole my Super Rat I made sure that the Sheriff included them in the theft report. I saw an engine for sale on ebay. Looked like a Super Rat to me. I asked for was the Engine code and if it was correct for 1971 I would buy it. The seller pulled the listing and blocked me! Why? Remember:one thing can lead you to another. We need a registry so that ALL of our serial numbers can be in 1 place. Frame and engine both. Even bare frames and spare engines. That way we can all know whats hot and what`s not! Joe Ormonde.

DG29,
I just moved from Yucca Valley last year and can honestly say that you hit the nail on the head. There are way too many tweakers and other shady characters in that area. Personally, I think you made a smart decision, I've had friends who've lost stuff in locked containers too. When you said Yamaha race bike I though you were talking about Scott, he's a tuner that lives north Parasite Park that does some amazing things with 2-strokes.

Makotsun, I'm glad you got one back, proof that determination pays.

I always chain up all by bikes, even in the garage. I have an ABUS chain and lock, was the best thing going in '09 and a few heafty cables and locks too. It may seem overkill but I still have all my bikes.
Good luck keeping it all safe

Bev

The guy they caught who stole the Yamaha 80 should be grilled, because if these were stolen from the same location, he knows where the rest of them are and who else was in on it.

Unbelievable!! I tried to make a comment on here about the stolen bikes and it said my message had too few characters. What is up with that?? I was trying to say that the guy who stole the Yamaha 80 should be grilled/waterboarded because he should know where the rest of them are. Hope this gets through this time.

Water boarded? Ha! that's exactly what that monkey needs

The deputies are working this pretty hard. They now have the names of the two who supposedly did the deed. When it’s all over I’ll add a few details I don’t want public yet.

In any event I am fairly optimistic we have a decent chance of getting a few more back. The Hodaka is the only one I really care about right now.

At this point I’m just trying to inventory what is missing out of 25 years of accumulated stuff! What a pain. Kinda has damped our holiday spirit.

Quite often it`s someone you know or someone that helped you store the stuff. They tell EVERYONE they know or see (Boy, so and so must have $10,000.00 in stuff stored in his senile Grandmas shed!)! I helped him out so he gave me some tools! See: look! Brand new tools! What a great guy! I never saw so many tools in my life! Then they tell another person and so on and so on. Facebook. When you have lets say a coin collection hidden in lets say your Pantry, you DON`T post a photo of the EXACT location of it on Facebook!!! So that`s where they hide it!! Great! When they go away next weekend(They posted that too!) when they get back home,guess what`s going to be missing. Think people!Joe Ormonde.

So today I got to watch the sheriff’s department execute a warrant on the way to recovery of the little yellow Honda Z50 and the Briggs Go Kart! Two perps in custody, and a lead on the Hodaka. Got a number of other bits and pieces, and keeping my fingers crossed.

More updates if we get them soon.

Wonderful !!! Joe Ormonde

Awesome news Gary!!