New Ridley Orion and Cannondale gone from shed

[ikke]

Doing what I can to retrieve bikes following break in of my shed in Reading on Friday night. New road bike and commuter hybrid gone.

Ridley Orion, basically as new with ~100 miles on it. I don't have a picture of mine, but the image below shows what it looks like (except mine has white bar tape). It’s a large frame bike (I think 62cm), carbon frame, and has AW Cycles marked on the seat stays. It has a Shimano Ultegra groupset. Was chained to anchor in the concrete shed floor. Thought at first that this had been forced out but on closer inspection the bolts are still in place but they've cut through (!) the anchor with something pretty heavy duty.

My link

Cannondale Adventure 700 hybrid
Other distinguishing features include a non-standard “Bar None” handlebar, Schwalbe Marathon tyres, an Edinburgh Bicycles decal on the seat tube, a Crud Catcher rear mudguard attached to the seatpost.

My link

Also gone, but of less importance, is a dark grey Edinburgh Bicycles Cadence ladies' mountain bike.

Thanks

John

 

[juanpelota]

Sorry to hear that Ikke, sounds like they were pretty determined. Nice looking Ridley, no doubt you'll check the usual places Gumtree, Ebay etc.

I've recently moved my two BH's into the shed from the garage, but still have doubts as it's down the end of the garden. I've invested in an attack alarm secreted to the shed door which effectively pulls the pin if opened without knowing how to disarm it. Only £4.99 for the alarm. A bit late now I know, but worth considering.

If nothing else the din will wake the neighbourhood up and should scare off the intruders before they find the pin.

Hope you get your bikes back.

 

[e-rider]

sounds like these guys knew what you had in there and came prepared to get it - they must have been watching you are had information from neighbours etc.

What lock did you use to attach bike to anchor?

Hopefully the house insurance might come to the rescue?

 

[ikke]

Thanks guys, guess someone must have seen me wheel the bike in through the back gate. Defo thinking of an alarm for next time, along with every other conceivable protection. Also, have learnt my lesson not to skimp on the security hardware. Had previously laughed off suggestions that you should spend 10-20% of bike value on locks and the like.

The ground anchor was, I'm now very sorry to say, a B&Q special like this. The scum behind this came tooled up and have somehow munched through the steel with some heavy duty cutters, suggesting that the chain and lock (something like this)did their jobs. After the rozzers have been round to do their fingerprinting tonight I'll take a few pics to show how it was done.

Home insurance may cover the first £2k, which would take care of most of the missing stuff...fingers crossed. Will let you know...

Cheers

John

 

[Flying Dodo]

Commiserations ikke.

When you look to replace your fleet, consider a Torc anchor (or a Shed Shackle if you've got a wooden shed) and one of their heavy duty chains. I went for their extra, extra heavy duty stuff. The chain weighs more than one of my bikes!

 

[e-rider]

Use a Kryptonite M18 D-lock and bear in mind that bolts croppers and crowbars are the two favourite tools for theives that break into sheds etc. So always ask yourself whether the security you have in place could be breached by bolt croppers and/or a crowbar.

 

[Canardly]

Christ when they start cutting through ground anchors that is heavy stuff.

 

[ikke]

Thanks for the recommendations, guys. The Torc anchor looks the business and an absolute must, and I'm definitely going to install an alarm as part of my comprehensive shed review.

In case you're interested, this is what's left of the old anchor. They managed to get the bolts halfway out, then somehow chopped the anchor itself in half.

Good news is that insurance claim seems to be off to a good start. Hoping to get back a decent proportion of the loss, in which case, following my brief flirtation with carbon, I'm warming to the idea of one of these...

Cheers

John

 

[Flying Dodo]

It's interesting whilst looking at your pictures, that the advert on photobucket on the left hand side was from B&Q for the very same useless anchor. Spooky.

 

[e-rider]

that anchor has been cut with bolt croppers. To defend against bolt croppers you simply need something with a large diameter or thickness

what did you have on the outside of the shed?

 

[ikke]

that anchor has been cut with bolt croppers. To defend against bolt croppers you simply need something with a large diameter or thickness

what did you have on the outside of the shed?

Bog standard padlock which was snipped off with little apparent fuss.

Still astonished that they managed to half rip the retaining bolts out of the shed base.

 

[e-rider]

probably first levered up with a crowbar and the cut with the bolt croppers - 2 simple cheap and effective tools for the job!

I have revised my shed security as a result of this thread - I was already using 9 locks!

Got an alarm now too.

 

[SquareDaff]

Have experienced this before. Not pleasant. By all means upgrade your locks (I have 3 on mine) but also upgrade your hinges. It's quite easy to take a door off from the non-locking side. I put "ship bolts" through all of the hinges on my shed (door and frame) and every other door panel. They're not expensive and altho a little time consuming it's a case of what would you rather do - spend 2 hours fortifying your shed or loads more hours filling in insurance forms!

It's a sad reflection on society that you need to do it though