GARDAÍ FIGURES SUGGEST 1,846 stolen bikes were recovered last year, which is only a fraction of the 20,000 bikes a cycling group believes were actually stolen in Dublin last year. 

The Journal previously reported on frustration amongst bike theft victims over a perceived lack of garda response.

Cesar Correa had a tracking device on his €1,000 bike when it was taken in March and tracked it to a location in Dublin 9. Now, one month later, he said the gardaí have successfully tracked his bike down and returned it to him.

Speaking to The Journal, he said: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who contributed to the recovery of my bicycle, which had been stolen a few weeks ago in Dublin.”

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána said: “The bike has since been recovered and the suspect in this case has been dealt with under a youth referral.”

He said the garda, the Brazilian community in Dublin and local people all helped reunite him with his bike.

But what happens to the rest of stolen bikes, and why aren’t thefts being reported?

Provisional crime data for 2025, published in February 2026, indicate that the reported theft of pedal cycles is down by 4% nationally. Speaking in the Dáil this year, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said 2,790 bikes were reported stolen in the Dublin region last year.

But Dublin Cycling Campaign estimates that only one in five bike thefts are reported due to a belief nothing will be done to recover the bikes. 

Speaking to The Journal, a spokesperson for Dublin Cycling Campaign said that it’s not clear where exactly the bikes end up, but there have been rumours they end up in containers destined to be shipped abroad to foreign markets, as well as being sold as second-hand bikes online in Ireland.

Labour TD Marie Sherlock is urging bike users to be especially wary when buying second hand bikes, as they could have been stolen from someone else.

Speaking to The Journal, Sherlock said that in the last 15 months she has had three bikes stolen. Her most recent bike was taken outside Vicar Street venue in Dublin city centre. The TD said it was locked using an expensive lock in a well-lit area, but the thief cut through it using tools. 

She said she previously found her husband’s bike listed for sale online and attempted to buy it back – but the seller eventually stopped responding.

“If a deal is too good to be true, it’s too good to be true,” she said.

Sherlock isn’t the only one to have this experience. Before his bike was recovered, Correa also found a person selling what he believed to be his bike on Facebook Marketplace and he tried to buy it back. That was before the seller somehow learned that Correa was the rightful owner.

“Fuck you your bike was took [sic] from airport. You’re not getting it back. It’s already sold,” the seller messaged Correa.

Sherlock is now advising buyers to check the frame number of a bike before purchasing second-hand to make sure it isn’t stolen.

She described the bike theft situation in the capital as “quite frankly shocking” and said she has written to Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly about it.

“It’s lucrative for whoever is stealing at the moment,” she said, adding that in an attempt to prevent her new bike from being stolen, she is trying to depreciate its value by adding stickers.

Sherlock is also encouraging victims of bike theft to always report incidents to Gardaí to inform the true number of bike thefts taking place in Ireland. 

Bike recovery

Difficulties recovering stolen bikes isn’t an issue only plaguing Ireland. The Journal spoke to the co-founder of a UK company set up specifically to track bikes for a monthly fee and actively recover them from thieves in the event they are stolen.

James Dunn said bike recovery is seen as something very difficult, and without the right technology, he said it is.

“It’s something most people think is impossible. It’s culturally ingrained that recovery isn’t going to happen,” he said.

Dunn was inspired to set up the company after his partner’s bike was stolen. Even after providing CCTV footage of the thieves to UK police, he said the force “couldn’t do anything”.

He said that people can have strong locks and bike insurance, but the difficulty recovering bikes arises as they are easy to hide, easy to transport and easy to sell to a third party quickly.

“People lambaste the police for their performance on bike recovery, but it can be very hard,” he said.

“You can sell a bike down in the pub.”

For a monthly fee, Dunn’s company BackPedal fits bikes with a tracker and, if one is stolen, a team of retired police officers, military veterans and security professionals hunt to get them back. 

He said the majority of their users are people who rely on their bikes for daily use, like getting to work, and usually have an electric bike. 

According to Dunn, the majority of bikes recovered by the company are in houses and flats. 

He said that “nine out of ten times” people are cooperative when BackPedal workers show up looking for a bike, and his team take it and leave without further action. When people are not cooperative, Dunn says his team calls police to assist.

The team generally tracks down bikes within two days of them being stolen, leading him to believe the house or flat they find them is usually the thief’s residence.

However, he believes many of the 20% of bikes BackPedal can’t find end up being shipped abroad as the tracking information disappears – something that may happen when the bike enters a truck or cargo ship.