I would like to return two unicycles to the owners who lost them in a car topper on the side of the road. Any ideas??!!
Photos, and a general location of where this occurred.
Probably lots of people driving to Nationals in Seattle right now… Someone is going to be very sad when they find their roof empty.
Tiff b your a legend as I get older I get more disappointed in society,I doubt I would get them back in Australia , my wife’s local train station has been turned into a drug dealers office our politicians have stuffed a beautiful country.
They were yours Thumper?
I love to hear of a happy ending 
No not mine just saying we need more people like tiffb in this world.
Ah I see. Well Tiffb sent me a PM saying he/she has found the owner now 
That’s great! So what country did this happen in, at least??
He/She said they’re from Montana near Glacier Park
Wow! Maybe we’ll see them at NAUCC…
Just saw this post now and thought I would repeat my story here:
Finally after 3 weeks of being lost my roof-rack container and everything in it has been found and I just picked it up! For those that don’t know what happened read on as it makes for a funny but long story.
Janna Wohlfarth and I were road tripping from MN to Seattle. We were in the middle of Montana near Glacier when we stopped and I noticed something didn’t look right. WTF? Our container on the roof was no longer there!!! It had both our muni’s and lots of expensive camping gear…about $4,000 worth of stuff. Fuck.
So we started to try to figure out what happened to it. Did it fly off or did someone steal it? The problem was we didn’t know when the last time we for sure saw it. Was it there when we stopped for lunch? When we woke up this morning? Yesterday in South Dakota? Hmmmm
I was leaning towards someone stole it while we slept at a rest stop due to several reasons. Surely we would have heard or seen it if it flew off? Or another car would have seen it and tried to stop us, right? Plus when we went to bed there was a dodgy guy next to us that kept monkeying with tools…so much so that Janna had a hard time falling asleep and wondered what he was up to.
We are both solid sleepers once we do fall asleep and he could have quietly removed a couple screws and if he had a partner they could have lifted it off without making much noise. Hmmmm
Or did it somehow fly off and do we backtrack 2 hours…4 hours…10 hours…or 20 hours looking for it? Even if it did fly off maybe someone else stopped and had already taken/stolen it. What to do?
Well we decided that we would drive back 3 hours to where we had lunch and look for it. We both thought it might have still been on then as we should have noticed if it was missing right? Maybe? We even tried looking at lunch photos to see if the van was in any of them but it wasn’t.
So back we went. And found nothing. Do we keep backtracking or just give up and consider it gone? We decided to give up and head back towards Glacier as there was still a chance we might see it better if it was in the ditch and we were on the correct side now. But nope. Nothing. 6 hours wasted and stressful for nothing. Shit.
This is the point of the story where my alternator went out but I’ve already posted that story on fb so won’t tell it again. But ya, pretty crappy situation all around. The only thing that made it ok was that we were in one of the most beautiful places in the USA and I was with the most beautiful girl in the world so I was still in good spirits.
The next day we both had to rush order new unicycles so that they would arrive in time for the North American Championships so that we could still compete. Mine alone cost $1,300 with shipping! And Janna had to order hers from Italy. But it had to be done.
Over the next few days I called some highway patrols asking if they had any reports of my container found along the highway. I also had posted in the lost and found section on Craigslist (yes they have a lost and found and it’s really cool especially when people know about it and use it). But nothing came back.
One week later as we were sitting in our hotel room in Victoria I get a message from Nathan Hoover, a good friend and unicycler. He sent a photo of our stuff and asked if it was ours. What?!?! U betcha it was ours! Wooo hoooo!
Apparently a lady found it in a ditch. It had fallen off, rolled down a hill and was covered by tall grass. She said we would of never seen it from the road and the only reason she did was cause her driveway was right by it and could see it when she was coming and going. The kicker was it was only about 15 minutes from where we realized it was missing. Ha.
So she saw what was inside it and decided they were pretty unique things and probably expensive. So she decided she would try and find the owners. What a kind person. Some people are awesome and hats off to her.
Still a bit confused what she did but I think she searched Facebook for “unicycle and Montana” and found an old post about someone who had traveled to Montana to unicycle a couple months ago. She posted a photo to it asking if he or anyone knew the owner of the things she found. And apparently even signed up on these forums and took the time to post this thread! Thanks Tiffany. You truly are an incredible person and I hope this good karma comes back to you tenfold.
The fb post got shared several times with people and other riders started figuring that it must be someone heading to NAUCC to compete. Nathan Hoover saw the white rainbow ski suit that was in the photo and knew that it had to be mine so that’s when he sent me the message and I was able to connect with the lady that found it.
Now how do I get it as we were a long ways away? Since we didn’t need anything right away, as we had already ordered new unicycles, I decided I would pick it up 2 weeks later when I was driving from Vancouver to Saskatoon. It would be a couple hours out of my way but would give me an excuse to see Glacier Park on the Canadian side. And that’s just what I did!
Now I have to figure out how to reattach it. The container only had 2 small holes in it which I can plug. The cross bars on the roof rack snapped and are no longer usable. Guess I’ll have to buy something stronger that hopefully won’t break so I don’t have another crazy story to tell.
Wow. Part 2 of Wow.
It’s like Montana is a vortex of ridiculous and amazing occurrences for you! So glad you got all your stuff back, and amazing that the container stayed in one piece! Good advertising for the brand. What kind was it?
Uh, except for the silently flying off your roof part. Maybe try a different brand…
We had a car-top container come off of my car once a few years ago. No unicycles in it, fortunately, since much of the content was destroyed. Brand: Samsonite. Apparently Samsonite runs a full range from top-of-the-line luggage to cheap stuff. This was a soft-sided car-top bag; like a giant duffel bag for the roof rack. It attaches to the roof with various ties and ropes to cinch it down. We drove all the way from Sacramento to San Diego with it loaded up, without incident. That’s over 500 miles/800 km to give you an idea. We had a full load of people in the minivan, 6 or 7, so needed the extra storage space up top. Normally the minivan is enough on its own.
On the way back we just couldn’t seem to get it tight enough up there. It would bounce around with the air getting under it. On reflection, we might have done better had we put more “regular” luggage in there. Among other things, we had some boogie boards, folding chairs and some other light stuff. Anyway, when we were about 2/3 of the way back home, and after once again checking that the straps were tight (in Anderson), we got back on the 5, got up to speed, and it started bouncing again, and then was suddenly quiet. Uh oh, I looked in my mirror and there it was behind us, spinning down the freeway in our lane. Danger! I was worried about causing a road hazard and people/cars being hurt. I pulled over as quick as I could, and Robert and I jumped out and started running back, but not before a tractor trailer ran over it. He apologized as he slowly rolled past us, but he couldn’t have moved over in time anyway. We retrieved a bunch of loose items from the road while the cars were (safely!) stopped, and dragged the torn bag onto the shoulder. Casualties: Some folding chairs and boogie boards, my tripod, and a don Miguel Ruiz book (autographed), which I kept, even though the spine is now Z-shaped.
So whatever car-top containers you use, it really does matter. The wind at highway speeds can be very powerful, so check the fittings and tightness regularly!
Cool What are you doing in Saskatoon?
Street performing at the fringe festival. You should come say hi!
Cool. I used to love the fringe, I haven’t made the trek since they cracked down on buskers a few years ago. Do you go every year?
I apply for lottery every year but don’t always get in. This is my 3rd time.