Five years ago I lost my bike. A few months prior, I had moved into a half-finished block of flats in southeast London. The apartment was complete, but construction workers were still beavering away at the stairwell. Progress was slow, though, and I was keen to commute on two wheels every morning. So I started cycling to work and, at night, chaining my beloved mountain bike to the banister at the bottom of our apartment block, long after the construction team had gone home. Until, one morning, I woke up and discovered that it had vanished. The stairwell, coated in white paint, had a black scorch mark where my lock used to reside. I can only presume that construction workers returned in the night and took a blowtorch to the chain. I haven't owned a bike since.