That bike that you describe in your question would have cost about $2.5k new, but I got it on a trade and a little cash, legitimate. It was probably sold for drugs. The guy who bought it, if he actually knew what he had, probably stripped it for parts or resold it to a shop.
Back in the 70’s I knew a couple of thoroughly dedicated potheads, brothers, who had dropped out of U of M at Ann Arbor when their old man died and left them some money. They went straight down to Key West and bought an old Victorian mansion, turned it into a B&B. That’s where I ran into them. One brother was a good business man and concierge, but the other was a consummate criminal. Pot was damn near legal in Key West back in those days, retailed out of the Key West Fire Department Station No. 1, down the street from the hotel. It was run by the Fire Chief, a guy named Bum Farto. No shit. Bum Farto: Purveyor of powerful, sweet-smelling Jamaican Red Bud. Four fingers, ten bucks. The only pot in town.
So the criminal brother wants to start his own ancillary business. He rents a UHaul truck, a deuce-and-a-half, and spends the weekends packing it with stolen Schwinns, cheap old clunkers, off Miami Beach. He brings them back to Key West, paints all of them black with orange stripes, and rents them out from the front porch of the B&B for $3 half a day, $7 a full day. Money to the right local officials protected him from any heat emanating from up Highway 1. As the only bike rental in Key West, he does a booming business. Soon, he had a mechanic and a couple of girls renting the bikes for him. Anytime he ran short of bikes, he’d just head for Miami. Eventually he bought a charter fishing boat with his profits and became independent from his brother. He specialized in square grouper. Bum Farto, always looking for another independent supplier, was his only customer.
One day, Chief Farto was pushed into the back of a big black Lincoln and disappeared off the face of the earth. The criminal brother, no longer protected, got busted and did hard time in Belle Glade, one of Florida’s state hell holes.
Today that generation of Conchs are the old men you find on porches and in bars telling skeptical tourists stories of gun running, pot smuggling, and even Key West’s first successful bike rental. All but Bum. He hasn’t told a story in decades.