My bike was stolen this year when I visited Utrecht, in the Netherlands. It wasn't even my bike: it was my sister's folding Birdy. They retail for over €2000 these days, but I assumed that thieves would be put off by the fifteen years of scratches and dents on it. Also by the €135 German lock.

I locked it up next to a bike path, with lots of other bikes. I made sure to fold the handlebar down so it couldn't possibly interfere with passing cyclists. I met my Dutch friend and had wonderful pedalo journey around the city. Utrecht is great, you should visit.

When I got back it was gone. There was a young woman nearby, in tears. Her bike was also gone. My memory's not what it used to be: had I, in fact, left it somewhere else? But I then found what remained of my lock: a cleanly sliced 5cm long section.

It wasn't insured but I thought I'd report it to the police anyway. Always good to have up-to-date crime statistics! And it's unusual enough in terms of model and colour that maybe I'd get it back one day. The police were polite and spoke excellent English. However, a tourist reporting a stolen bike apparently required assistance from a second, and then a third, member of staff. It took over twenty-five minutes of wrangling with computers and ring binders to establish that I needed to have an in-person interview to report the theft. No, none of the three staff were able to do that now. I'd have to book one. When was the next available interview slot? Not until next week, after my departure from the city.

Later that night I was morosely googling "bike crime utrecht". Cheering myself up with bit of confirmation bias. Despite not reading Dutch I was able to figure out from the local government's website that there is a depot to which the authorities remove illegally-parked bikes. Not only that, it has a web interface where you can search for your bike. I do wonder why the police didn't mention this possibility during our lengthy encounter.

My bike was, of course, there. I sheepishly collected it, paying the nominal fee, and failing to dispute the "evidence" that they provide in their computer system (a photo of a sign prohibiting bike parking. I went back to the scene of the crime later; the sign was nowhere near, and was even on the other side of the road).

Moral of the story: use one of the many free municipal bike parks when you're in the Netherlands.