Bike Thief

Bike are stolen a lot in Cambridge so sensible cyclists buy a sturdy lock. Mark (pictured) is sensible and so his bike is securely locked. Unfortunately for Mark he managed to snap the key off in the lock three weeks ago and has been on a mission to free his bike ever since.

Like most people he first turned to the Internet where he spent a wseek investigating possible solutions. There are tutorials on opening it with a biro (pen) freezer spray, bottle jacks and voodoo. These it seems are all just rubbish (well with the possible exception of Voodoo). Accepting there was no easy way he tried hacksawing it. Alas the hacksaw was of poor quality and so hardly managed to get through the plastic cover. To say he was crestfallen would be a gross understatement.

It was suggested that some better blades might be in order.

Today we had a meeting at the University and would be near the ensnared bike so armed with some proper double hard hacksaw blades and a sensible adult (me) he tried again. After much huffing and a considerable amount of puffing it was free, and it only took two of us about 15 minutes and 2 blades! As we manfully wrestled the now broken lock from the bike a security guard shuffled up to us and asked us what we were doing. Mark being a nice chap, tried to engage the guard in conversation. Alas the only response from the Guard was.

'We've got bolt cutters for that, but we won't use them. You're on CCTV'.

He told us we were on CCTV at least 3 times, I wonder if he was Jeremy Beadle...

Then he shuffled off again.

Anyway as soon as we'd managed to get the old lock off Mark produced another one from the boot of his car and proceeded to lock the bike back up again in exactly the same place. I wonder if he'll notice I've hidden the keys ;)

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