It’s the moment all bike-riding students fear, walking up to a bike rack to see their locks on the ground and their bikes gone with the wind. Bicycle theft.

Arts & Sciences senior Erica Goven came upon that scene at the beginning of the semester.

“I was in shock,” Goven said. “I never thought it would actually happen.”

She quickly contacted Public Safety whose help she described as a “major fail.”

“They pretty much tell you they can’t do anything,” Goven said. “I went in and I had to wait forever for an officer to come, on a bike ironically, and they asked for my name and what the bike looked like. He told me, ‘If we see it lying around, we’ll pick it up.'”

Rick McAuliffe, director of Public Safety, stated that numerous factors “contribute to the ease” of bike theft.

“Most bike thieves are younger and appear to ‘fit in’ with a college crowd,” McAuliffe said. “They do not appear to be out of place or arouse suspicion. There are seldom any witnesses to report suspicious activity. Like ours, most campuses have dozens of convenient bike rack locations where people can go to park, or steal, bikes. Although Public Safety officers can check them periodically while on patrol, the odds of an officer interrupting a theft in progress are slim.”

The amount of time it takes to steal a bike is also minimal. A recent theft captured on camera shows a thief on foot approach a bike railing and kneel by the bike to take off his backpack. The thief then takes out a pair of bolt cutters, cuts the lock and rides away. The whole process takes only seconds.

“Recovering stolen bicycles can also be problematic,” McAuliffe said. “We’ve probably lost several bikes a week since school started. Most people know the make and model but few people record the serial number of their bikes.”

Goven was one of those few. She went through an odyssey of pawn shops, police departments and bike racks. Having found her bike at Mid-City Jewelry and Loan on 515 South 15th St., she had to fill out paperwork and file reports to prove it was hers.

“They were not very helpful,” said Goven. “And it was very frustrating that even after I got the police report and everything they still threatened to sell the bike, so I had to call the police and have them call the pawn shop.”

Goven finally received her bike two weeks ago.

“It’s frustrating. It’s not like I parked it out in the middle of nowhere. It was at the bike rack in the middle of the mall with other bikes.”

According to Goven there were five or six other broken locks all over the ground.

“I’m just surprised nobody thought that was strange,” she said. “I never thought a hot pink beach skimmer would be so much trouble.”

Both Goven and McAuliffe suggest getting the thicker metal U-shaped locks instead of the metal chain ones. McAuliffe also stresses not leaving a bike unattended overnight and reporting any suspicious activity around the bike racks.

College of Arts & Science junior David Wirth thinks that while bike safety is important, he’s not going to be thinking about it for a while.

“Fall’s beginning so my bike’s going to be inside where it won’t be stolen,” said Wirth. “It’s just too cold to ride it now.”