What on earth do you do with nearly 3000 stolen bicycles?

“The most hated man in Torronto” has been arrested after police found a hoard of bikes and drugs at a number Mr Kenk’s properties and rental properties.

Mr. Kenk’s legacy now fills a former police garage with a leaky roof. Organized by brand name and mostly resting on their handlebars, wheels pointed upward, are 2,396 of the bicycles that police say Mr. Kenk either stole or arranged to have stolen.

The jumbled collection of bicycles suggests that Mr. Kenk is the unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves. But as he awaits trial next month on 58 charges related to theft and drug possession, the biggest mysteries of all are Mr. Kenk’s motives and his ultimate plan for the armada of steel, rubber and aluminum he amassed.

“He’s easily the most hated man in Toronto,” said Alex Jansen, a filmmaker who has been working on a documentary about Mr. Kenk for more than a year as part of a study of his rundown neighborhood’s transition to hipsterdom. “But I just found that it’s not as black and white as I originally thought.”

Read the rest of this incredible story at The New York Times website

Via Core 77

If you live in Toronto and have had your bike stolen, police urge you to register here

Further info here

[photo from EYE Weekly]