Few Steinbach residents who have their bikes stolen will ever see them again. The local RCMP are trying to change that.

Community Constable Dennis Redikop has begun an initiative called "bicycle registration".

Steinbach RCMP are encouraging all residents who own a bike to come down to the police department and have it registered. All the registration requires is the model, color, and serial number of the bike as well as a piece of contact information from its owner so if a stolen bike is relocated it can easily be returned.

“We like to think we live in a safe community,” observes Redikop, “and I think we do, but sometimes there are thieves who like to take advantage of that.”

Without any organizational system in place, Redikop points out that it is actually very difficult to find the owner of a stolen bike after it is found. According to Redikop, 80 bikes were reported missing in Steinbach in 2016. Of those, only around 50 were ever found, and of those, only 10 % were returned to their original owners.

“Usually, if we can’t find the owner, we send them to the city of Steinbach and they get auctioned off," Redikop explains.

RCMP are hoping their new initiative will go a long way to improve these statistics and have taken a few steps to facilitate the process.

“We’ve partnered with the local bicycle shops,” indicates Redikop, “so if you do purchase a bike locally you can choose to register it and they’ll fax a form to us and we’ll have it in our registry.”

In addition to that, Redikop plans on spending time during the next few weeks traveling between Steinbach schools, encouraging students to get onboard this initiative. He stresses that the more people that register their bicycles, the better the registration will work.