Top 10 UK bike theft hotspots

Bike blog : stolen bike — Wheels of a stolen bike left with locks attached to the bike rack. Photograph: Michael Prince/Corbis

Theft, as any bike owner will tell you (usually without much prompting) is a significant downside to cycling. But where in the UK are you most, or least, likely to get your pride and joy swiped?

A partial answer comes courtesy of Halfords, who in an exercise to plug its range of bike locks has used freedom of information requests to each UK police force to obtain the latest cycle theft figures.

The grand total for 2010 was 115,147 thefts. That's a lot of bikes. But as Halfords points out, the most recent British crime survey, which looks at people's actual experience of crime rather than recorded offences, came up with a figure of 533,000 stolen bikes in a year – meaning only about one in five victims bother reporting it to the police.

That's a pretty resounding vote of no confidence in the police's interest in cycle theft. I'd have expected the proportion of reported thefts to be slightly higher, if only so people have a crime number to pass to their insurers.

Below is the list of the top 10 police force areas for cycle thefts. It's interesting even though it is of limited use given the way it is skewed by factors such as the vastly different population areas covered by various forces. The top 10 is little surprise, mainly taking in major urban centres, university towns or other places known for heavy bike use.

In contrast, Fife in eastern Scotland seems to be the place for peace of mind, with only 78 reported bike thefts during 2010, even though it takes in the student town of St Andrews.

While no Scottish forces make the UK top 10, Strathclyde and Lothian and Border lie just outside with 2,081 and 2,026 recorded thefts each.

I'm more or less unique among my cycling friends in never having had a bike stolen. If I have a secret, then I'm afraid it's likely to be little more than sheer good fortune. Aside from that I use the usual tricks: one heavy duty, Sold Secure Gold-standard lock attached to an immovable object with a separate cable round both wheels. I do have one useful tip for city-dwellers – never lock your bike to a Victorian iron fence railin, as they can be easily broken with a sharp tap from a heavy hammer.

More boring still, and not an option for everyone, is to have an old and dilapidated clunker to leave locked up round town, as well as something more fun for commuting or leisure.