Sometimes it is a slow news day here at MD, but we don’t just toss everything into the salad. That’s what I was thinking when I saw an interesting item the other day: some louts had yanked the 8,000-pound bronze statue off its pedestal in front of Timpanogos Harley-Davidson in Lindon, Utah. And then they took the huge granite pedestal as well But who would do such a thing?

The mystery is solved, but the story gets better. The “thief” is none other than the sculpture’s creator, famed artist Jeff Decker, who has crafted just about every memorable motorcycle-themed bronze I’ve seen. On Tuesday morning, the Salt Lake Tribune reported the statue had been traced to Decker’s studio. Phone calls from investigators were referred to Decker’s attorney, who claims the statue was on loan to the dealership’s original owner. The dealership is apparently in bankruptcy proceedings (the original owner sold some time ago), and the statue is listed as a business asset: no wonder Decker fired up the heavy machinery to get the $100,000 artwork (the statue is called “Land Speed,” a tribute to Harley rider Joe Petrali’s 1937 land-speed-record run) back. Police will let the civil courts sort the mess out: no charges will be filed against Decker.

The bankruptcy is a real shame. The Timpanogos H-D building is a spectacular and expensive-looking 60,000 square foot dealership that houses an observation deck, restaurant and rider lounge. The building, completed less than two years ago and built of reclaimed building materials, is a hell of a thing, judging by pictures from the dealership’s website.

Much of the reclaimed material was from the demolished Geneva Steel factory, a vast Utah operation that supplied most of the West Coast’s steel in its heyday. That operation itself went bankrupt and shut down in 2002.

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