A cyclist in London has expressed concerns criminals may have used Strava to track down his location and plan a frightening garden raid which saw three high-value bikes worth in excess of £30,000 professionally stolen from a shed.

Russ Beresford lives in Greenwich, south-east London, and was the victim of the break-in at his property on Monday evening (5 January). It happened at some point after it got dark but before 8pm, the time when he discovered the missing bikes. The only time he left the property was when he briefly left to buy some milk.

Avoiding detection, the thieves managed to climb into the garden and break into his bike shed, Russ certain it would have required at least two people and a ladder to get in and out, especially with the bikes. Once in the garden they pushed lights into the ground and picked the bike-specific shed’s lock, making off with a Pinarello Dogma with £5,000 Princeton CarbonWorks wheels, a Factor Ostro Vam and a Factor gravel bike, the combined value of the stolen bikes in excess of £30,000.

“It’s lit up like Blackpool Illuminations in my garden but they must’ve jumped over quickly and they basically buried the back lights in the back of the garden in the earth,” he explained to road.cc. “That’s when I spotted there was something amiss, I thought ‘that’s weird, those back lights are off’. I thought they’d been tipped over by a fox or something but then there were a couple plant pots over and I saw the door open, I was like ‘oh f**k’ and then obviously I opened up the doors and they were gone. 

“They picked the lock, it doesn’t look forced at all, there’s no damage, so they knew what they’re doing. They came prepared obviously, but they were probably in and out within a split second. I was at home most of the evening as well, it happened between it getting dark and when I called the police about eight o’clock and I only popped out to get some milk. Aside from that was in the house doing just some pieces, cooking us some food, the kitchen looks over into the garden so they must have been in out so quick.”

The fact the criminals left Russ’s wife’s several-year-old Specialized Ruby makes him think they knew exactly what bikes they were looking for and they were only interested in his high-value models.

Worryingly, Russ has been left wondering if Strava and other social media posts of his bikes were used to locate high-value bikes and find his location. While the ride-sharing app has extensive privacy features, such as map-visibility settings that can prevent people seeing where rides begin or end, a feature Russ does use, he is concerned social media and GPS may have helped narrow down the location of his home and bikes.

Strava says it takes privacy seriously and offers users activity privacy settings, profile-specific settings, as well as the ability to hide portions of an activity map entirely, although as Strava’s own site accepts: “Applying Map Visibility settings to your activity does not mean it would be impossible for someone to deduce a hidden location using additional information”.

“I’ve shared pictures quite a few times obviously, some clever software could scroll through stuff nowadays and put a picture together of where the nice stuff is,” Russ said.

“I’m thinking someone’s done some proper research on this and worked out that there’s some really nice bikes in that shed or in this property. I’ve hidden stuff on Strava, but it gets quite close still. And then it takes someone to find my name and address, it’s easy to find nowadays, isn’t it?”

Painfully, Russ did not have bike-specific insurance cover, so will be left with whatever can be claimed via home and contents policies. He fears it might only get him back “half a bike maybe”.

“Obviously hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but I never left them unattended, I’ve got bike shed in a garden that was, I thought, relatively secure. It’s quite expensive, the bike insurance, but obviously going forward I’d definitely take it out for anything I buy next. I’ll get a little bit back from my home insurance but it’ll get me half a bike maybe for the next one, I’m going to live and learn.

“I reported it straight away, fair play they [the police] phoned me this morning at 7.30. I had the serial number for the Dogma, I’ve got the serial numbers coming for the Factors, so they upload them to their system so if anyone checks it will come up as a stolen bike.

“I’ll register the serial numbers on the Bike Register as well, so if anyone in a bike shop is a bit suspicious it will come up as a stolen bike. One day I might get one back, you never know, I won’t hold my breath.”