Avoiding Bike Thieves Thievin' Ways

Bicycle theft is a huge, and growing problem in cities all over the world, including our fair city, Calgary Alberta. We've seen double-digit increase in theft for the last few years and the trend line does not seem to be leveling off.

Sadly, bike theft is also not a problem that police in this city are willing do to much about either. While they'll do their best to look through online sale listing to see if they can see any reported stolen bikes listed, they are not actively trying to catch thieves - through a bait bike program for instance. This means the safety of your bike really relies on you, your lock choice, and the strategies you employ to try and keep it safe.

As an example of how prevalent theft is, here is a simple search on Twitter, using "yycbike" and "stolen". SO MANY BIKES! SO MANY BROKEN HEARTS!

So, in the interest of doing what we can to help our community, please consider some of the following strategies that we use in our own lives to keep our bikes safe. We would also like to encourage you to leave a comment if you have any advice or strategies to offer to help keep your bike from being stolen.