So I found out late last night that Chris is a liar. He made up the story of the bike getting stolen as a way to get back at me for not picking him up. The bike is safe. However...

Another thing is I talked with Max and he even said himself he should also have been held responsible. Since he decided to leave when I did, and in our situation we would have needed two people (one to watch the car and another to pick them up) he was at fault.

The people saying I made a bad judgement call also are misinformed. When I said the church parking lot was safe, it was safe; it could barely be seen from the trail and can't be seen at all from the main road. The bike was unattended at most 40 minutes.

I take this as a sign that no one offered any sort of practical advice as not one person saw it from my point of view, yet Max said himself he also was responsible. Instead, everyone on here was just trying to be an armchair judge and so many people were adamantly arguing against me without backing it up or taking in the circumstances. A majority of the responses I received were along the lines of "You are wrong. End of story."

So thanks for nothing.