I ask the man at the local bike shop. “I’d like to buy a bike to commute to work?”

“What type of bike are you looking for?”

“One which is so boring that nobody would ever want to steal it!”

“I have just the bike for you…”

Bike 7 was a Ridgeback velocity. There was nothing interesting about it at all until it was stolen from outside my work.

I thought the bike was safe – it was boring, it was parked in front of a security camera and it was locked.

I don’t know who stole the bike or how they got through the lock because when security reviewed the camera footage they could only see cobwebs and spiders. It seems when they bought the camera they didn’t realise just how appealing the casing covering it would be to eight legged creatures!

I thought I’d never see the bike again but about six months later I was jogging past a railway station when I spotted it chained to a bike rack.

It couldn’t be my bike. Could it?

I checked and it looked the same. It had the same mud guards, the same mark across the frame that mine had and it had mountain bike pedals. The same as I’d put on.

It had to be mine!

I called the police and asked them what to do. They sent two officers who waited at the bike for the thief to return.

A few hours later I got a call asking me to come back to the bike. When I got there they were standing with a man who looked similar to me. That man said the bike was his.

The police checked his story and it turned out he

1. Worked in a university. Just as I do.
2. Bought the bike on the cycle scheme.  Just like I had.
3. Went to the same bike shop as I had.
4. Added the same mud guards as I had.
5. Added the same mountain bike pedals as I had.
6. Had the same mark across the frame as it was a design flaw in the bike.
7. But unlike me he had a serial number for the bike so the bike shop could confirm it was his.

I never saw my bike again. The most boring of bikes had the most interesting of endings!