Stolen Bikes...

The weekend had started so well. Holst's Planets last night by the RSNO (following a great dinner at Kanpai, and a not so great first half with a weird modern composition by James McMillan for Jean-Yves Thibaudet (who played)) was fantastic (Mars is still the best planet).

Ah, early rise on Saturday to go on a Fungi Foray with Valvona and Crolla, something we've done a few times before and always thoroughly enjoyed. "The door to the garage is open..." Mel shouts just as I'm about to get into the shower. Sure enough, small window smashed, Yale opened, two bikes gone. There goes the day. It was only later (after phoning the police, and going to town on social media to advertise the fact the bikes had been nicked) that I noticed two bikes leaning against our sadly departed neighbour's wall. Not our bikes. But after reading of the recent Porty/Duddingston bike theft troubles it was becoming clear we were some sort of Grand Theft Auto style thing where some neds nick a couple of bikes, ride about on them for a bit, then nick some more and dump the old ones. Presumably riding down the street at god knows what time in the morning they saw the car with the bike carriers on the roof and took an opportunistic punt.

So my Cotic X and Mel's only-bought-in-April Ridgeback have disappeared to who knows where. It's not really the physical bike going that's the most annoying thing, but rather, firstly, the loss of all of that time and effort I put in to picking the frame and components, slotting it all together, and refining over the last couple of years into my favourite bike in the garage; and secondly that knock-on hassle of now having to sort out insurance, and beef up the security on the garage. Fortunately the Kaff was left at work yesterday, and the mountain bike was left when (presumably) they discovered it had no chain. The two old bikes likely didn't fit their bill.

Anyway, police arrived, detailed descriptions of the bikes given, and photos printed off (one of the benefits of taking pics of the Cotic whenever I changed something). We had a chat about the new unitary force, keeping chickens, cyclocross and enduro motocross.

It's the type of thing that makes you feel stupid for not having the beefed up security already, and not having made a note of the serial numbers of the bike frames. Not helped by my father-in-law's usual after-the-fact sort of response. "I was going to say to you, some people have been broken into around here (a mile from us) and it was bikes they always took, and your door is easy to break in..."

Much of the day has been spent moping. I've been tidying up glass and got a new chunky cable form B&Q to lock everything up, and had a wander to the park. That's about it (well, okay, when I went to B&Q I drove through some of the... less savoury... parts of town to see if there was any chance of spotting the bikes. To no avail).

Tomorrow I'm off to Clydebank for part of the day to watch the season opener for Scottish Cyclocross. Feel a bit guilty about that as Mel didn't get to do what she wanted to do today (the fungi foray was actually a birthday present from me) - but I know a guy who is writing up the series for the Herald, and I've been specifically asked if I can get him photos for the piece tomorrow night. Of course, watching loads of cyclocross bikes spinning round the track isn't, probably, going to help get over the loss of my own. Let's think about silver linings... It'll be a pain sorting out the insurance, but once that's done.... Recreate the bike....

(the box in the photo is one good thing from the day, picked up from the post sorting office, which was filled with some fab cooking things so I can create some macaroons - violet flavouring and colouring so I can do the parma violet macs again, but also have plans for some rhubarb and custard flavour ones which could be interesting. The cat was sitting on the arm of the sofa, but as soon as I emptied the box and put it on the floor she was up, down, and curled up in the box, where she stayed for about 45 minutes sleeping - she's back in it now after it got shifted to the dining table while I hoovered).