Is it just my town ?

I read somewhere that they’ve increased during lockdown as more people have taken up cycling.

We seem to get spates of it - more during dark evenings.
The council pick up a lot that are dumped and if they have not been claimed the public can buy them cheaply.

it was dreadful here and i think the bloke who they found with them all broke the world record

BlueBell
Here in Southend you can’t even go out on a good bike. The scroats will have it off you. My grandson hasn’t been out on his bike without his parents for over a year.

Its interesting to hear there are others having this problem well no it’s disgusting but everyone seems to think it only happens in my town and I just wanted to get a feel for whether it’s a much wider problem which is what I thought
it would be
I don’t think it’s a more people cycling in lockdown problem as there are only certain makes going and bolt cutters are used to go through the locks so it’s not just a ‘I need a bike to pop out on’ crime I can imagine someone with a van or lorry just going round grabbing them to order and selling them on as soon as
Blooming awful though the police don’t seem interested or maybe just don’t have the time or manpower

Our son’s bike was stolen when he was at Scouts. This was over 30 years ago, it was bought with hard-earned money from his paper round. I was absolutely livid, it wasn’t insured, in our peaceful little market town it was a shocking incident ( to me, anyway).

My rose-tinted specs need a polish nowadays.

These are not the odd bike though it’s two or three every day
Calendargirl and they all seem to be a few very expensive makes (my alsoran has never been touched ?) and they cut through locks… often they are kids only way of getting to school and college and often for work too

Just off subject but around 3 months ago, scumbags jacked my car up cut off the expensive part of exhaust(CATALYTIC). right under the nose of a member of staff, she thought they were mending it!! Going back to cycles,I think it's pretty much same all over, some scroats are just opotunist others travel round in gangs, typical wagon with sides up.
They usually take anything with engine on lawnmowers etc some of these are then made into motorised toys, scooter, trikes etc for their kids to ride around the streets.
.
Like op my gs saved money up for a much wanted orange bmx, he had it around months before the scroats just took it off him and taunted him by riding past him on it.

The police are ‘too busy’ nowadays for this ‘low level crime’. Report it and just get given a crime number to pass onto an insurance company. It’s a sad state of affairs isn’t it? Yet we see the police have plenty of time to knock on doors when it comes to following up on perceived hate crime or for taking the knee at community events etc.

MerylStreep, my son cycles to the station. He had two good bikes stolen, (despite strong locks) in quick succession.

He spray painted his next new one, matt black all over (including the chrome parts) to deter thieves. He still has that one!

My youngest DGS was surrounded by 4/5 very brave boys all kitted out in the standard North Face uniform and took his bike from him before blacking his eye in the process,he used his bike for college & work placement something these thugs would not know anything about.
The Police showed no interest they said if his brothers found the culprits they would be arrested if they used force to get the bike back from them they too rode around the area for a short while.

There are thefts of catalytic converters here too.

Two of our cars have been broken into remotely since the first lockdown. It looked like they'd tried to hot wire the one car but had been disturbed. Then only a month or so ago there was a pick up truck who was also disturbed parked in front of the 'hot wire' car and the chap said he thought we wanted it taken away It isn't actually worth that much money either but when I spoke the police switchboard they said they are of value in Eastern Europe.

BlueBell
My grandson has one of the named bikes.

I don't think there's a week passes without bicycles being stolen around here. Last weekend several very expensive bikes were stolen from someone's purposely built outbuilding, even though they were secured by chains and bolted to the wall.

Last year Cambridge had the highest incidence of bicycle theft, Oxford second highest. My granddaughter used to cycle into Oxford to get the bus to school. One of her then 11 Yr old friends found her bicycle had been stolen on her return from school. They used to chain their cycles very securely. My son in law, in Oxford has had two cycles stolen. Both secured in their own garden. The first one was taken by a man who used it to get away quickly after breaking into a nearby house and raping the female occupant. The police found the getaway bike and kept it for a year as evidence. My son in law had to buy a replacement in the interim.

Buy a bicycle from local buy and sell sites. Don't pay more than a tenner and put it in your hallway each evening. Other than that, try walking for fitness.

Seems to be prevalent everywhere despite many of the extra security that many bike owners have been trying to use.
Locally, the police reported a few months ago that they went into a house on a completely different subject, looked out of the window at the back of the house to see that the back garden was full of bicycles in various states!
After further inspection of the rest of the house, garage and garden - there were somewhere in the region of over a hundred cycles, some complete, some in parts. The resident apparently was a big of a Fagen as far as bikes were concerned and had a team of youngsters who roamed the area stealing bikes that were then either sold or the ones that had identifying marks were cannibalised and sold for parts!
Some of the bikes could be returned to the original owners but the rest were donated to a charity .
The guy's attitude was that "they're all insured so they can be replaced"!!!

You are right Urmstongran the police are too busy chasing motorists. Apart from the one who demolished our lovely , low, local stone garden wall and drove off leaving their front bumper behind, - and us to pay for repairs.
It seems bicycles are fair game just now with sales of second hand (stolen) ones at a premium.

We had a TV report here in Spain that there is a shortage of new bikes due to covid in China affecting production, so thefts have increased accordingly.

We live in a block of apartments and have had several bikes stolen from the underground carpark since the start of Covid. We have a video entry system but the thieves immediately follow in delivery people such as Amazon and could slip down to the garage. We have CCTV but it is harder to ID people when they were wearing masks. CCTV shows they are in and out in minutes. Police have been called and said it is people stealing them for easy money for drugs. We have now had a further lock fitted so only residents have access to the garage.

Yes, it is everywhere, I suspect. My son had two classy bikes stolen when he lived in London, but had no trouble when he replaced them with a tatty old thing . Mind you, the concierge at The Ritz was pretty horrified when he tried to chain it up outside, to take me in for afternoon tea: "I'll take that ,Sir," and it disappeared off, sharpish, only to reappear when we left....

I was told the police have fitted trackers into the frames of some bikes that have been left in hot spots for bike theft they have been tracked to containers already to be shipped shipped abroad. A policeman told my husband “we don’t want to catch the person who nicks one bike we want to catch those who nick a container full, there is more chance of them going to be jailed”

Some, but not all, bike thefts can be attributed to gangs and county lines etc

Certainly in our area, an "initiation" was for a young person to steal a bike, to prove themselves. Quite how or why that proved anything I don't know, but I was told this information by the CCE (Child Criminal Exploitation) Officer where I work.

Just heard that my step grandson who went to Uni this week has had his bike stolen from outside the local Asda. It was captured by CCTV from the shop. He tried to report it to the police but can only do this by appointment face to face, next appointment available 3 weeks time!!!!!
One way of massaging the crime figures, people just give up.