Hi

I'm really sorry to hear about your bike. I live on Vancouver Road (so not far from you) and the same happened to me last June (and it appears it's happened to a few others in the local area (http://www.se23.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5320). Same deal with me - I had 2 bikes stolen out of the shed and taken over 2 garden fences, one of which was about 8 feet high. With all of these shed burglaries taking place in the same area, does make me think the thieves are local.

I trawled eBay and Gumtree daily for months in hope of finding my 2 beloved road bikes, but sadly no luck. Fortunately I was covered by contents insurance. Unfortunately, when it came to renewal time, by premium almost doubled.

Try having a look on this site http://bikeshd.co.uk/ BikeShd amalgamates all of the bikes for sale on second-hand websites in London so victims of bike theft can easily search to see if their bike has been posted for sale. It also appears to be updated hourly. I didn't know about it at the time of my thefts, but it would have made looking for stolen goods easier.

For anyone who's reading this in passing, the police told me even if you keep your bike in a locked shed, make sure it's locked, preferably with 2 different locks (say a d-lock and a hefty chain) and if you can, lock the bike to something anchored to the ground, as it's much more of a deterrent. My replacement bike is now kept inside, and even then, it's double locked to the ground. I've also put an additional dead lock on my front door. Yes, very paranoid, and it's not ideal, but theft is painful.

I really hope you have some joy finding your bike.