The Sad Tale of The Empty Bike Rack.

 Just over a year ago Roger found a bicycle for sale second-had.  It had a belt drive, internal hub, and a show-stopping single front fork.  Roger fell in love with his new bicycle which was light and quiet and fast, making up somewhat for any deficiencies on the part of the rider's fitness level. 

"You go ahead!" He would cry. "You're so much faster than me!" And off he would zoom toward the horizon, darting in and out of traffic and zipping down shady side-streets while I chugged along in his wake.  He started and held whole conversations as he sped ahead of me, chatting happily whilst never expecting a reply which was a good thing as I was long out of earshot, left in his dust.

He rode his bike to an optometry appointment down in Edwardstown, locking it securely to the bike racks out the front of the shopping centre.  In a fit of extra security, he threaded his bike lock through his brand new high-visibility yellow helmet and locked that up too.  Then he went to the optometrist for an hour and as he walked toward the front entrance he noticed that the bike racks outside were empty.

"That's OK," he thought.  "I probably misremembered and my bike is on another bike rack, just out of sight."

Nope.  Here you see a space where a bicycle should be.

The nice security man at Centre Management looked at the security cameras.  "I can't let you look at them," he said.  "But I can confirm that someone who wasn't you took your bike away 10 minutes ago."

Oh the agony!  Had he not chatted to the optometrist, not gone to the loo, he would have been riding happily home on his fast, quiet bike.  Instead he picked up the shattered pieces of his brand new helmet where it had been cast aside in the car park, and waded through the tedious process of making a police report and thanking his lucky stars that he had recorded the serial number of his AWOL bicycle.  How he regretting knowing all about the recent upsurge in bicycle thefts in Adelaide, the knowledge that his bicycle would likely take a little trip interstate, conveniently out of the reach of an SA police report, and there be resold, never to be seen by him again.

He caught the train and bus home, thanking his lucky stars that he hadn't yet thrown out his old helmet, and that his old faithful touring bike was waiting for him there.  He wept and wailed over a cup of tea, lamenting his loss.  I, while sympathetic, took sanctimonious high ground in my tedious ritual of double-locking whenever I parked my bike in public and freely delivered my opinion on the benefits and shortcomings of various bicycle locks.  "It will make you a stronger cyclist," I declared, "if you lug a 2kg super-lock around with you wherever you go."

I don't think he particularly wanted to hear that.  He joined Facebook marketplace in the forlorn hope of seeing his bike and started scrolling in a fruitless search for his beloved.

In the face of such grief I could do nothing, so I left him to scroll and, when weary of that, to go and buy a decent bike lock.

Here we have a man with a bicycle that he doesn't have any more.