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PROVO -- Bingham Cyclery in Provo is busy around the holidays. Parents giving bicycles as gifts has helped keep them in business for almost 50 years.
This year, manager John Washburn said, they had to order an extra shipment of about 30 bikes to keep up with demand. But for as many bikes that are in the cyclery, there are almost double at the Provo Police Department.
The Provo police department is recovering more bikes than ever. But because the owners of the bicycles didn't register the serial numbers finding the rightful owner is almost impossible. Police recommend that when Santa Claus drops off that new bike, parents should write down the bike's serial number, just in case.
"As a police department, we have so many bikes that we don't actively go out there to try to find the owners. We just can't," said Sgt. Matt Siufanua.
Each time the police department recovers a bicycle, they run the serial number through a national database. Provo Police have found a stolen bike from as far as Florida, but most of the time, they never find the owner.
"Most of the bikes that come here never leave," said Siufanua.
That is part of the reason Bingham Cyclery and other bike shops record the serial number of every bike they sell. And it's fairly successful.
"A bike showed up in the dumpster the other day, police officers came in with the bike and the serial number on the bottom of it. We were able to look up who purchased it through our records," Washburn said.
That's why police are pushing to have bikes registered. They're easy to steal, and hard to track down without that information. To register a bicycle, go to your local police department. Some, like Provo, require a $1.00 fee and a registration form, in addition to the serial number.
Email:acabrero@ksl.com
