The person that the police recovered the bike from wasn't the thief. Machak was stolen from three foot outside our tent in a campground in Northern Victoria. I was awoken by the voice of a young adult male saying: Just stuff it in the backpack.

By the time we were out of the tent, the pair had done a runner, with the Marinoni, leaving my CF Merlin behind.

The guy who listed the bike on eBay was in his 40s or 50s, and had an accent. And the police were confident that he was truthful about buying the bike from a salvage sale.

The saddle was sold by the seller and we are trying to get the buyer to understand that it still belongs to Machka. I've offered him the sale price of the saddle, but he is resisting. We'll keep working on that one, but in the meantime we will substitute another Brooks saddle we have.

I said to Machka quite some time ago that Machak would come back to her. These things do happen.

I don't know what led me to the wheel in the first place -- I was looking for a 36H rim for a single-speed I am building up for Machka, and they are quite rare these days. The wheel listing was distinctive in its own way, with the words Ambrosio and Nabedynamo standing out (it has a dynohub). The logical conclusion from that was to search for Marinoni, and sure enough, the Ciclo turned up.

From there it was a matter of reporting it to the police who did a great job of following up the information I gathered. We worked together on a "sting" and basically in a week we had Machak returned.

People are hugely critical of eBay and the police. But if it hadn't been for eBay in this case, we might not have seen the bike again. And the police were proactive because of the overwhelming amount of evidence we supplied identifying the bike. Being in a country town with a relatively low crime rate may have helped.

Anyway, this is a truly good news story. Machka is so happy she can't stop crying with joy.