VANCOUVER (CP) - Peter Wilson knew there were only two ways the thief could get out of his mountain bike mecca neighbourhood in North Vancouver, B.C.

He stationed himself on one road and friends cut off the second entry and exit point of the community and waited, determined to stop a roving drug addict who had run from a back yard with a local rider's $5,000 bike.

"I got a call from my friend's mother, who watched this guy in her back yard. She called him and told him to hurry over. But my friend was out on a sailboat, so he called the bike shop and sleepy Deep Cove sprung into action," said Wilson, who customizes mountain bikes.

"I caught him in front of my house. This guy had walked from downtown and he was so high on drugs and weak that he couldn't even pedal the bike. But he knew exactly what community to target."

Wilson says bike burglary is becoming epidemic in both the famous trail-etched Deep Cove and the skir resort community of Whistler, a slick mountain park that demands high-end bikes.

He's amazed at the tenacity of police and local riders who are trying to crack what many believe are organized gangs of criminals.

Police have taken the investigation online. North Vancouver RCMP told a devastated Guido Flohr to scan EBay for his two stolen mountain bikes, each worth $5,000.

Flohr is a seasoned traveller and rider who comes to Canada for several months a year to attack the trails of Deep Cove and Whistler. He hid his bikes under blankets in his car.

"They had to have been watching him for a while. They were so well-hidden you couldn't have just seen them from outside the car," said Wilson.

On the last day of Flohr's trip, a worker at Cove Bike Shop in Deep Cove logged on to EBay. There was no mistaking that Flohr's bike, customized at the shop, was pictured in the queue for sale.

Wilson said police were called because they couldn't figure out how to go about getting the bike back.

"We wanted to buy it with cash but this guy insisted on doing everything through pay-pal (a method of buying by credit card) so he could stay anonymous," Wilson said.

"The police were amazing. I still don't know exactly how they did it, but an officer came down and I loaded her up with mountain bike knowledge I've accumulated over 10 years in the business and she obviously did a good job fooling the guy. I think the police put in the winning bid and convinced the guy to let them come look at the bike."

Officers found a stash of other stolen souped-up bikes and were able to recover one belonging to Flohr, who has since returned to Germany and wasn't available to comment.

"Guido thinks these cops are amazing," Wilson said. "He thinks the Mounties are like animated superheroes straight out of a comic book."

North Vancouver RCMP Const. John MacAdam said charges are pending.

MacAdam said that while this most recent EBay bust is the first time the property crime division has been successful recovering something through the online auction site, it's worthwhile for victims to scan it regularly.

"It's something we've been keeping an eye on over the last few years. It's definitely on the rise, thieves trying to unload things on EBay."

MacAdam didn't have exact figures on how many bikes have been stolen this year but said police are treating the situation seriously.

It was a lucky bust. Wilson said it's rare to find a stolen bike intact on EBay. Often it's dismantled and the parts are sold individually.

Few bike theft stories have such a happy ending, said Rob McSkimming, vice-president of business development at Whistler-Blackcomb.

"This summer there was a guy walking around the village with bolt-cutters and some of the shops saw him and tried to go after him but he got away.

"The thefts seem highly organized, they come in waves. All of a sudden a bunch of expensive bikes will go missing."

He's working on opening daily and overnight secure bike storage to help keep property safe. He says hotels have overnight storage, but even that isn't proving safe.

Police in North Vancouver are starting an engraving program, etching people's licence plate numbers into their bikes for easier identification.

Every precaution like that helps, said Wilson, because a lot of riders don't get insurance for their bikes.

"It's so expensive. I think the insurance companies are catching on that it's a high-risk area."