LONDON’S bike thieves are the quickest in the country, researchers have found.


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For an experiment, a team from insurance company More Than put new, unchained £130 bikes in various busy parts of cities around the country and waited with stopwatches in hand to see what happened.

In just 17 minutes the bike they’d put outside London Bridge station was nicked, over an hour faster than the time recorded by nearest challenger Glasgow, where bicycle thieves took an hour and a half to wake up to the easy pickings.

Confounding cliche, Liverpool ranked bottom of the 10 city competition. Merseyside miscreants took nearly four hours to snaffle the bike on their doorstep.

That Premier League of Bicycle Thieves Table in full:

1. London (London Bridge Station, Duke Street Hill) – 17 minutes
2. Glasgow – 1 hr 30 mins
3. Birmingham, The Rag Market, Edgbaston Street – 1 hr 55 mins
4. Cardiff, Capitol shopping mall, Queen Street – 2 hrs 10 mins
5. Portsmouth, Albert Road, Southsea – 2 hrs 12 mins
6. Newcastle, Eldon Garden shopping centre, Percy Street – 2 hrs 25 mins
7. Norwich, Exchange Street – 2 hrs 34 mins
8. Manchester, Arndale shopping centre, Market Street – 2 hrs 57 mins
9. Bristol, East Street, Bedminster – 3 hrs 15 mins
10. Liverpool, Mathew Street – 3 hrs 52 mins

* On the brighter side for cycling in London, yesterday saw 30,000 pedal-merchants take part in the annual London-Brighton bike ride, raising around £5M for charity.