EVANSVILLE, IN (WFIE) -
A warning from Evansville Police on Sunday to secure your bikes and scooters carefully.
Over the past two days, there have been nine incidences of them being stolen.
Scooters, BMX's, and regular old fashioned bikes were all featured in this weekend's Evansville Police reports and officers say owners need to take extra steps to keep them.
Louis McCourt has a new bike which was a present from a friend. He says he did a little maintenance work with the pedals and pumped up a new inner tube and loves taking an afternoon ride down at the riverfront.
"It's peaceful and quiet and meeting some people sometimes," said McCourt.
McCourt is securing his bike with a chain after his old bike was stolen.
"Because now I'm without transportation. I can walk, anybody can walk, but when you've got a bike you've got better access to everything," said McCourt.
Now he has a lock and Sergeant Alan Goodwin with the Evansville Police Department says that's a good start. But he says owners need to take it a step further because thieves are getting bolder, going up onto porches and into yards to steal the bikes or mopeds.
"The best thing to do is to secure them in a place, if you have a garage or chained to a secure structure of some sort," said Goodwin.
A local bike store told 14 News they have seen a large number of people buying locks and chains and say for highly populated areas, they recommend using a U-lock made with steel. But, Goodwin says these measures only go so far and that people need to take some extra time to make sure everything is secure.
"Right, that happens quite a bit. Someone will walk into a store, come back out and their moped is gone, and like I said, kids are careless about securing their bicycles before going inside the house," said Goodwin.
He says taking those extra steps can make a big difference.
Sergeant Goodwin says many of the times the motorized bikes, like mopeds and scooters, are stripped of their parts, and that is often how they are recovered.
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