Bike owners in Fife are being urged to register their bikes on the national database. 

Police Scotland is encouraging bike owners to ensure their bike is registered to help make sure they can be reunited with them if they are ever lost or stolen.

The Bike Register database contains the details of tens of thousands of bicycles from across the UK and for the last year, Police Scotland has had access to the database via a downloadable app on their mobile devices.

Any officer who locates a bike they believe may be lost or stolen can access the database via the app, and scan a visible bar code or enter property details to check to see if it has been registered. If so, they can then find out whether the status is set to lost or stolen, and who the registered owner is.

Hundreds of new bikes will have been purchased or received over Christmas, many worth large sums of money. Owners of bikes, both new and old, are urged to ensure their cycle’s details are logged on the database and have

Inspector Jordan Low from Police Scotland’s Rural and Acquisitive Crime Team, said: “We know that for many in Scotland, bikes are not just an important recreational item, they are a vital mode of transportation or exercise and to have them lost or stolen can be devastating.

“I would ask that all bike owners ensure their bicycles’ details are logged on the Bike Register database, as this will aid us during our inquiries whenever we locate any bikes that we believe to be stolen, or that are brought into police stations as lost property.

“Recent successful recoveries highlight just how important the database is in order to reunite bikes with their rightful owners and the app available to officers on their mobile device is another useful tool in helping us tackle bike theft across the country.”