Bicycling

not surprising at all. They take up very little room, so they are relatively easy to move, can be taken apart within less than an hour and parted out, often are locked inadequately, many establishments lack good/any bike racks in areas with decent foot traffic to deter crimes of opportunity . . . . . .

I am planning on building a decent 29er, that will be expensive enough to warrant designing some custom gps tracking solution so that if it ever is stolen, I can at least track it in real time. But I've had bikes stolen before, and from experience, having a bike locked in a safe, road-facing location for less than a few hours at a time is the best way, where I live, to avoid the pain of losing something so useful forever.

the ideal solution is to provide actual locked bike storage shacks/shelters in busy areas, but cities will sooner waste millions on horrid road infrastructure than anything to negate the fears that potential cyclists have about bicycle theft.

I knew a person who airtagged their bike before it was stolen, drove to where it was and visually confirmed it, then reported it to the police who said “Nothing I can do.”

In London?

Street Bike theft is a trivial crime that isn't worth wasting resources on. Most bikes are petty larceny unless they are $1000+ and that is the value of the bike at the time of theft, not the fact you paid $3000 for it 5 years ago.

Typically when the police are involved it's organized crime situations of mass bike theft from shops or containers that bring much higher chargers.