It is a decades old problem that isn't going away any time soon.

But that doesn't mean that Sgt. Terence Maxwell and his team of officers in the Vehicle Crime Unit aren't doing what they can to curb the common practice know as cycle theft.

It costs the insurance companies an estimated $2 million in claims each year, cost that is absorbed by law-abiding cycle owners in the way of higher premiums.

Cycle theft began to escalate in the early 1970s with Mobylettes and carried on into the 1980s with the Peugeots.

For the last decade it has been any variety of bikes, from the Yamaha V-50 and V-80, the Honda Scoopy, the PGO, the Akros and Malaguti that have become the target of bike thieves.

It not uncommon for a bike owner to come out of their home early in the morning or leave their place of work at the end of a hectic day to find their bike stolen.

Some will be recovered, but most won't. Statistics released by the Police indicate a 33 percent recovery rate, which means one in three will be found.

In October, November and December of last year there were 326 bikes stolen and 111 recovered.

They will show up in any number of places, including on the side of the road or at various dump sites which the Vehicle Unit is very familiar with.

In 2000 there were 930 bikes stolen and 310 recovered, which puts the recovery rate that year at exactly the 33 percent mark. On average there are about 100 bikes stolen a month, which works out to be about three a day.

The most popular makes of bikes stolen in 2000 were the Yamha (230) and the Honda (180), and it could be from anywhere - from a parking bay in a busy street in Hamilton to a supposedly secure shed in a quiet neighbourhood.

Thieves don't discriminate. A sobering fact; most of them aren't even old enough to legally ride the bikes they steal!

"Sixty to seventy percent of the bikes are stolen by young people, anywhere between 12 to 15 (years old)," said Sgt. Maxwell, a 22-year veteran of the Police Service who has been in the Vehicle Crime Unit 18 months.

He estimates that cycle thieves are often found in the 12 to 22 or 23 age bracket, though there was an arrest just before Christmas of a 40-year-old Southampton man who stole a bike to support his drug habit.

"We hear some real horror stories," said Sgt. Maxwell. "We caught a bike thief in action a few weeks ago, just before Christmas, with a brand, spanking new Suzuki RC 100, which had only 57 kilometres on the clock. We caught him that same day. That bike wasn't locked at all and was taken right off the street!"

That, in some cases, is the crux of the problem, said Sgt. Maxwell. During a tour of one section of stolen bikes in the impound yard at Prospect, he pointed to about a dozen bikes that were not locked. The evidence was still on the bike in the form of the lock itself. One bike had two of them!

Considering it will take a skilled thief less than a minute to break the locked handlebars on some bikes and then start the bike, it is no wonder the often heard explanation is: "But I only popped into a shop for two minutes!" That is more than enough time for an opportunist to act, considering some bike owners are careless enough to leave the key in the bike.

"Fifteen to 20 seconds tops," was Sgt. Maxwell's estimation on a typical cycle theft.

He says using the two locking methods - the handles and another good bike lock - helps, but even then that all depends on the quality of the second lock.

"If you lock a bike on the steering lock only, you are asking for trouble," he said.

"It has to be double-locked, the steering lock and some sort of preventative lock. The `snake' lock is really good. Yamaha sells them." The officer pointed to one stolen bike which had a solid looking `snake' lock attached to the carrier, but obviously not used.

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In another part of the yard are a number of partially stripped bikes...most of which were recovered from one person's yard! In situations like that, Sgt. Maxwell lays the blame squarely at the feet of parents.

"Parents are living in an absolute dreamworld and I will not accept, under any circumstances, that parents do not know that their children are stealing if you have a yard that is littered with bikes."

"I hear the excuse all the time `oh, well they work on their friends' bikes'. Give me a break, there aren't that many bikes in Bermuda that you have all these thousands of parts.

"Let's be frank about, everybody between the ages of 12 and 20 knows how to steal a bike on this Island. Parents have got to start saying, `where did this come from, your bike was smashed yesterday'?

"We definitely need parents involved and we need the schools involved, too. Schools are the main swapping place for stolen parts."

Statistics also show that bike theft goes up when schools are out.

"We find more bikes stolen during school holiday periods and you can draw your own conclusions," he says.

"Statistically, I can tell you who it is, it is mostly young people. Two Christmases ago we had five youths all under 15 years old - the youngest 12 - and between the five of them stole 60-plus bikes.

"On occasion two of those kids took a bike from their home, drove all the way to Somerset before they ran out of petrol, stole another one to come all the way back to the city, stole another one to go to St. George's and then stole another one to come back to the city and then stole another one to go home. In one day!

"They disappeared from school and stole five bikes that day."

Sgt. Maxwell says the nonchalant attitude to bike thefts taken by so many people is not helping to curb the major problem.

"A lot of people say `ah, well who cares, the insurance company pays anyway'."

"When you're looking at two to three million dollars worth of crime every year you know that the insurance companies are not going to absorb it, they are going to pass it on.

"What we find is a lot of our major criminals who progress into other serious crimes started as cycle thieves."

Even when bikes are recovered, the officers in the unit face the difficult task of returning them to their rightful owners. Many in the yard sit there waiting for owners who, for one reason or another, never collect their vehicles.

"Believe it or not we have a lot of problems getting the owners to come and get their stuff, it's amazing. Last week we dumped three truckloads at the dump. If they claimed off the insurance then it is no longer theirs anyway and the insurance company will send one of their guys to come and pick it up.

"We put it in the paper first, then we send them registered letters and after 28 days of being in the paper we are entitled to dump it, by law, so we do. We often keep bikes for months and months and months, and some of the bikes in here are virtually brand new, but they will be scrapped and dumped if people don't come and get them."

But be warned, taking bike parts from the dump is a criminal offence, Sgt. Maxwell points out.

The equivalent of a 50cc bike that sold in 1970s for about $500 now starts at about $3,000. The 80cc bikes are in the $4,000 range brand new, almost the cost of some new cars 25 years ago. Some types of bikes are sitting targets for the thieves.

"We had two young boys in custody over the weekend, 13 and 15, out two o'clock in the morning stealing bikes.

"The 13-year-old was prosecuted last year for a huge amount of bikes."

The reason for bike thefts cover any number of reasons from the need to get home late at night, to joy riding, to capitalising on the profit of selling the parts. Sometimes youngsters turn to stealing if a part they need is either too expensive at one of the cycle shops or simply not in stock.

"There is a huge market in selling parts for the illegal drug trade in Bermuda."

"A number of the older people have said they sold the parts for drugs. A lot of the kids steal to get parts while their parts are being sprayed or chromed.

"There is a problem with the high price of parts and the fact that there is limited quantity available. You go to any of these retailers and a lot of the parts are not in stock and the kids have to wait months. Let's be honest they are just not going to wait."

Sgt. Maxwell oversees a department of ten officers, who keep the department operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, trying to get to grips with one of the Island's major crimes.

"All the guys in the office are very keen about cycle crime, they work incredibly hard.

"I'm very proud of the men under my command. We are driving the numbers down.

"I will never be able to solve this crime completely, but I'm hoping that before I retire I can put a serious dent in this crime."

Those with information on cycle thefts can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800 623-8477, Police headquarters at 295-0011 or the Vehicle Crime Unit's direct number at 299-4318.

"We're always grateful to anyone who wants to give information," said Sgt. Maxwell.

Next week: Cycle crime from the insurance company's perspective.