Tourists like city bikes too much

COPENHAGEN - Copenhagen's bike-lending program, designed to reduce bicycle theft and promote tourism, is ironically falling victim to theft itself at the hands of the very tourists it has lured.

For five years now, Copenhagen - the capital and largest city in Denmark - has been operating Bycyklen ("city bike" in Danish). There are 1,514 bikes at 120 specially designed bike racks scattered across the downtown core.

Bike lenders simply insert a 20-kroner coin (roughly $4 Cdn) into a slot on the handle bars to unlock the bike. When finished riding, they can return the bike to any stand and get their 20 kroners back.

The idea was originally conceived as a means to reduce bicycle theft, after two friends, Ole Wessung and Morten Sadolin, on their way home from a night on the town in Copenhagen in 1989 found that their bikes had been stolen.

That year, 27,000 bikes were stolen in Copenhagen alone, which cost Danish insurance companies 41 million kroners ($8 million Cdn). As they walked home, they devised a grandiose plan to have hundreds of free bicycles across the city.

Their plan came to fruition in May 1995, when a non-profit, publicly and privately sponsored group placed 1,000 city bikes at strategically located points in the centre of Copenhagen, such as train and bus stops, apartment buildings, shopping districts and tourist attractions.

The program has since also become championed as a great way to promote exercise, reduce the noise and pollution from traffic in the downtown core and promote tourism. There was even talk of using it for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

The original goal of reducing theft seems to have worked. Since the program started, the number of private bicycle thefts has dropped.

In the first year alone (1995-96) there was a 12-per-cent decline. And the numbers have been going down since - 17,724 went missing in 1997 and only 15,241 in 1999.

'BORROW FOR FREE'

"A bike is usually stolen for a specific destination and then abandoned,'' explains Majlis Bloch, secretary of City Bike Copenhagen. "And who will run the risk of stealing a bike when you can borrow one for free?"

But while the city bikes may be reducing theft of private bikes, the city bikes are themselves falling prey to pedal-poachers.

In 1997, 300 were lost or became write-offs. At the end of last year's season, 120 bikes had disappeared.

There are a number of safeguards designed to protect the bikes. For one thing, the bikes can only be used within the downtown city limits, which are designated by signs. If caught outside the boundary, cyclists face a fine of 1,000 kroners (roughly $200 Cdn).

Moreover, city bikes are covered in advertisements, so it was assumed people would not want to steal them.

There are Coca-Cola bikes, cow-printed milk bikes, even the Girl Guides have taken out ads on this popular form of mobile advertising. But lately, this seems to be the very appeal of the city bikes.

It is ironic that in becoming a tourist attraction, these bikes are being snatched up by tourists as souvenirs.

Around Copenhagen, you can see tourists posing on city bikes for a photograph.

"The City Bike is a very popular souvenir," explains Bloch. "We have received postcards from Danes around the world who have seen our bikes in France, Morocco, Sweden, the U.S.A. and Russia."

In July, she says a Dutch truck driver got caught with a city bike in his truck on the German border. Earlier this year, eight bikes were found on board a Russian freight ship.