SALT LAKE CITY — Hundreds of bikes are stolen in the city every year, and the numbers are growing. For a place that claims to be "bike friendly," it's a problem.

At least Adam Stone, Kai Fernandez and Patrick Muyanna seem to think so. Fernandez' bike was stolen earlier this year and Muyanna has had two bikes taken.

"It feels a little violating," Fernandez said.

"I thought I went crazy," recalled Muyanna. "I was just trying to find my bike but ..."

Stone had three swiped in a matter of weeks.

"Someone knows this neighborhood very well and has been poking around," he said. "That's what scares me. It seems like they're becoming more brazen as the days go by."

Crime of opportunity

While maddening, these stories are hardly unique. Salt Lake City is home to thousands of other theft victims just like these cyclists. Bikes are locked up, whether in daylight or in the dark, and within a matter of seconds the chain is cut and the crooks are rolling off with a new set of wheels, likely never to be seen again.

"It's such a crime of opportunity, and it's such a quick crime," said Salt Lake City police detective Greg Wilking.

It's a crime that appears to be getting worse. KSL Investigators looked at the number of bike thefts over the past five years and found each year the numbers get higher and higher, up 77 percent since 2011.

"If we can find out where these bikes are being stolen from, and then where they're ending up, maybe we can bust a ring of people," Wilking said.

With that in mind, we took a bike of our own, primed and prepped with a GPS system placed under the seat, to see how quickly it would be stolen.

'Why'd you steal my bike?'

We rolled the bike to a couple of different spots in Salt Lake City, and in both cases took a chain, locked it up and then waited.

Within 16 hours, surveillance cameras picked up a woman fiddling with the chain in broad daylight, then walking off. She tries a second time, still no luck. But surveillance video shows her circle back a third time with a tool in her hand. Sixty seconds later, the chain is cut and she's off.

Our GPS device shows the woman riding the bike to a home just a half a block away. Tracking her on a smartphone, we then followed her joyride as she pedaled from place to place.

A few hours later, the ride finally came to an end back at the same house, where we eventually caught up with the woman.

"It appears you may have something that belongs to me," KSL's Mike Headrick said, confronting the woman.

"Oh, yeah. OK. I don't want to be on TV," she responded.

"Did you steal my bike?" Headrick asked.

"Yeah. I found it," she said.

"You found it?" Headrick questioned.

"I went to return it over there," she claimed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Headrick said. "But you clipped the cables, right? I have video of you right here clipping the cables. Why'd you steal my bike?"

How bike-friendly is Salt Lake City?

Since taking office, Mayor Ralph Becker has been pushing for Salt Lake to be a bike-friendly city with green lanes and street signs, not to mention the downtown bike-sharing program.

"We want to be a city where people feel comfortable on their bikes," said Becker.

But when such a high number of bicycles are getting stolen, some say it doesn't seem so friendly.

"The city makes a big deal, and our mayor's made a big push to make it bike-friendly, and I feel like nothing could be farther from the case right now," Fernandez said.

"I know our folks are focused on it," Becker said. "You're prompting me to go back and see what we're doing and see if there are more things we could be doing."

A 2nd theft

Meanwhile, at a second location, the KSL Investigators' bike caught the attention of a different couple. Surveillance video shows a woman appearing to select the bike. The man then pulls out some bolt cutters and gets to work. About 20 seconds is all it took before the chain was off, tossed to the ground, and the thief never looked back.

But the GPS knew exactly where he was going. We tracked his path throughout the night, watching as he spent hours pedaling the west side of Salt Lake City.

Then, for a day and a half, the bike never moved. But when it finally did again, we followed the rider a few blocks away. First, he was spotted smoking with friends. Next, he rolled by the Gateway Mall for an unscheduled interview.

"I'm asking people questions on the street here," Mike Headrick said, stopping the man. "So, I have a question for you: Why'd you steal my bike?"

"What bike?" the man responded.

"This bike," Headrick said.

"I didn't steal your bike," he claimed.

"Yeah, this is my bike," Headrick said.

For what may have been the longest three minutes of his life, the man was peppered with a barrage of questions and, in return, gave some extremely vague answers.

"If someone else stole it, where'd you get it?" Headrick asked.

"I don't know where I got it from," the man said. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Headrick asked. "You just randomly get bikes?"

"Yeah, from people," the man answered.

"People just give you bikes? For what?" Headrick asked.

"Just give them to me," the man said.

"Like, 'Hey man, here's a bike'?" Headrick asked.

"Mmm-hmm," the man said.

In the end, the man gave the bike back.

Preventing bike thefts

When KSL Investigators began this story, the hope was to find out where all the stolen bikes were going — possibly pawned off, chopped and sold, maybe even a large-scale bike theft ring? We didn't find that, but instead witnessed a series of crimes of opportunity.

Police say many of these crimes can be prevented just by improving the bike lock. They suggest using a U-lock instead of a regular cable lock.

"If (thieves) see that your bike is secure, they're going to move onto the next one that's less secure," Wilking said. "It's about making that target hard."

Law enforcement authorities also suggest bike owners register their bikes with their city or police department, which will make it easier to track down in the event it does get stolen.

KSL Investigators used a GPS system from a company called Spy Spot. It cost $150 for a small unit, plus $25 per month for the tracking service.

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