Cycles of all sorts

The theft of bicycles is one of the major problems that slow the development of urban cycling. Bicycle theft discourages regular cyclists from buying new bicycles, as well as putting off people who might want to invest in a bicycle.

When clear owner identification is not possible and when there is a lack of social observance, people may be inclined to take possession of items to their own benefit at the expense of the original owner. Motive and opportunity are two enabling factors for theft. Given that motives for theft are varied and complex and are generally speaking not within the control of the victim, most methods of theft prevention rely on reducing opportunities for theft.

Several measures can help reduce bicycle theft:

• making cyclists aware of antitheft devices and their effective use
• promoting devices to enable remote tracking of a bicycle's location
• registration of bicycles to enable recovery if stolen
• targeting cycle thieves
• mounting sting operations to catch thieves.

Certain European countries apply such measures with success, such as the Netherlands or certain German cities using registration and recovery. Since mid-2004, France has instituted a system of registration, in some places allowing stolen bicycles to be put on file in partnership with the urban cyclists' associations. This approach has reputedly increased the stolen bicycle recovery rate to more than 40%. By comparison, before the commencement of registration, the recovery rate in France was about 2%.

In some areas of the United Kingdom, bicycles fitted with location tracking devices are left poorly secured in theft hot-spots. When the bike is stolen, the police can locate it and arrest the thieves. This sometimes leads to the dismantling of organised bicycle theft rings.