What to do if your bike is stolen

Hi Wqvm, late reply, sorry.

Here in the Met (along with other forces I'm sure) we do offer free bike marking at events (sadly only at these events and not at any police station front counter).

Visit http://www.bikeregister.com/events and enter your postcode.

With regard to making more effort, it's a sad fact of the times in which we live that resources are finite and getting reduced as time goes on. The most frustrating part (for me) is just how few people bother to make a note of their frame numbers or go on to register them on sites such as bikeregister.com I don't have the figures to hand, but there are thousands of bikes reported stolen each year and only a tiny number are traced back to their owners.

Recently my colleagues came across a chap who had 8 or so mid to high value bikes (£800 - £4000) and we have only been able to trace owners for around 3 of them. This is despite contacting the manufacturers and trying to establish which shops the bikes were shipped to. As things stand, unless we can prove the other 5 bikes are stolen, they will probably be returned to the suspect.

You are right to be cautious, given the nature of the offence, I would expect any thief to be carrying bolt croppers/screw drivers/cutters etc and many of them wouldn't hesitate to use them to make good their escape. If we tackle a thief in 'action' (so to speak) we carry enough equipment and are present in sufficient numbers that we are usually able to detain them safely. Also, think trapped rat.....