Hi Orchid,

Yes, keeping a bike inside the house is generally pretty safe. But several of the bikes I lost were parked (and locked) on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

As in I rode my bike to school, parked and locked it, went to class, and when I returned, it was gone.

Based on an article I just read, about using "bait bikes" to catch thieves this is still a problem on the UW Madison campus all these years later.

I remember one of the times my bike was stolen, the police told me that ALL of the bikes parked in a large rack were stolen. They gave me the idea that there was a gang of bicycle thieves who would just pull up in a truck, cut the locks off all the bikes, load them all into the truck and drive off for part unknown...

And yet, I also think I've heard that a few years ago the UW was experimenting with a program where there were "sharable bikes" parked throughout the campus. The idea was that if you needed to get somewhere faster than walking, you could grab one of these free bikes, ride it to where you needed it, and leave it there for the next needy person to find and use.

I wondered if this program was still in use anywhere. so I checked: Here's a link to Madison WI bike sharing program. but Google seems to indicate this sort of a program is also in place in many cities, including Toronto, Portand, OR, San Jose, CA and New York City.