Can you park an expensive road bike anywhere?

I locked my race bike to a lamppost outside ASDA for 10 minutes once. I got away with it but I was crapping myself the whole time I was away from her!

Yes. Yes you can ride it anywhere. In fact, if you let me know where you are going to lock it up, I have a 'friend' who will 'keep an eye on it' for you

Short answer: no. As others have said, it's a 20 second job with a 5mm hex and a set of snippers to take £1,000 worth of bars/shifters/stem, no serial number, easy to shift on eBay. And no-one - NO-ONE - will stop a bike thief.

Depends on the bike and the location. There are plenty of ~£1000 bikes parked up in certain areas without hassle but equally I had a £0 heap-o-junk stolen from outside Elephant and Castle.

I'll leave my CAAD9 most places without too much worry but then it is matt black with comparatively low spec components and rarely in the same place twice. Something brightly coloured with nice parts locking up in the same exposed spot every day is asking for trouble.

At the end of the day, insure it and use it. Don't be stupid but if it does go missing it's only a bike.

A mate of mine had his stem, bars and levers nicked in the same way as you a few years back. London fields again, funnily enough. Lots of petty crime, and not so petty crime in the area.
(side note - I once had a police surveillance camera in my living room looking out over a neigbour. He was selling guns. Nice.)

Leaving an expensive bike 'locked up' in London is a bit like dropping a £50 note in the middle of oxford street and hoping nobody sees it before you get the chance to turnaround. As bashthebox says, get a trash bike for your chores or take the tube.

The short answer is no. Would you like a quick story? I have a steel D'accordi, about 20 years old, downtube shifter 105 7x2speed group that I use to get around London (I live in Hackney). One saturday, about a year ago, I parked my bike (two lock! 1 Ubolt, 1 cable) near London Fields for about 3 hours in the afternoon. I came back and found my bicycle, less the bars, stem, levers and brake cable. And it turns out my insurance doesn't pay for partial theft only partial vandalism (this is common, so is component theft it turns out)

So yeah, unless you invest in some serious locking bolts (though even then...) I would leave a newish Di2, and what I'm sure is a lovely cockpit, basically unlocked in this otherwise very lovely city.

Here's a good bicycles.stackexchange thread on component locking, that started from the above incident: http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/10396/deterrents-against-par...

You'd get away with it 90% of the time, if you have a decent lock or two. But I wouldn't park my carbon anywhere I haven't got my eye on it. Far better idea to get a London bike - old steel racer or a nice single speed.