NEW YORK (AP) -- I had a bike stolen the other day. It was an '80s vintage 10-speed that I salvaged off a scrap heap a few years ago for riding around Manhattan.

But it's not the bike I miss. It's the helmet.

The silver helmet with a strange chin strap and a brand name I couldn't pronounce was my main souvenir from three weeks I spent tooling around Turin, Italy, while covering the 2004 Winter Olympics as a reporter for The Associated Press.