Extending from a shelf of confiscated skateboards on one wall to random electronic equipment stacked across the room, a growing pile is taking over the musty room. This remote storage shed on River Street isn't a bicycle theft ring's headquarters. It's just one of the Santa Cruz Police Department's several holding pens for unclaimed recovered stolen bikes. This warehouse is the destination for only a small number of the bikes reported stolen in the city of Santa Cruz each year. And it contains a mere fraction of the bicycles lost to a local epidemic of theft.
Nobody knows the total number of bicycles that disappear due to theft.
But the one or two bikes reported stolen each day represent about half the actual number. As many as 1,250 bikes vanish each year, according to estimates, costing victims upwards of a half-million dollars annually. But, because bank robberies are higher profile, they go after the bank robbers instead. Thieves have also been known to clip or break locks within seconds, lift bikes off signposts or strip unlocked components. Anyone who's gotten ripped off will tell you a theft can happen in just a few minutes, anywhere a bike is left unattended.